Several agencies have said they will cut back on telework in the autumn. Image: Vera Petrunina/Shutterstock.com
By: FEDweek StaffThe time ahead may show the results of pressure—mostly from congressional Republicans but lately also from the White House—for agencies to have more of their employees working onsite and for more often.
Several agencies have said they will cut back on telework in the autumn, and with that season now arriving, they could be held to showing specific changes. A special focus will be on headquarters functions, with the GAO recently having released a report showing high rates of vacant space in such buildings, but there also has been focus on other functions with low rates of direct interaction with the public.
While the White House in the spring had told agencies to review their mix of work with an eye to increasing the amount done onsite it followed that with a more explicit memo a month ago telling them to “aggressively execute this shift in September and October. We are returning to in-person work because it is critical to the well-being of our teams and will enable us to deliver better results for the American people,” White House chief of staff Jeff Zients said in an email to agencies.
That phrase in turn caught the attention of leaders of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee, who have pressed the administration for an assessment of the impact on productivity in hearings and several sets of letters to agencies. In a new letter to Zients, they said his recent email “implies that the Biden administration’s widespread use of post-pandemic federal telework has resulted in reduced productivity, diminished customer service, and worse overall returns for the American taxpayer.”
“With the worst effects of the COVID pandemic long behind us, the timing and motivation of the Administration’s sudden push for increased in-person work calls for a more formal explanation,” they wrote. They asked whether the White House “had become aware of diminished performance by federal employees under the Biden Administration’s post-pandemic telework policy”—and if so, the details, and if not, why Zients used that terminology.
In changing telework policies, though, agencies also must take into consideration contract provisions that in some cases were negotiated after higher rates of telework began and on the expectation that rates would remain higher than pre-pandemic, although not at the peaks reached in its early period.
While the administration and federal unions have been generally supportive of each other, the unions have been adamant that those contract provisions must be honored. That could lead to delays while contracts are reopened for negotiation, or possible unfair labor practice complaints if agencies act in ways that unions believe violate their contracts.
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