Feds Can’t Work from Home. Good Policy?

President Trump has ordered all federal workers back to the office. On the one hand, I know of specific instances of the remote work option being absurdly abused. On the other hand, there can be some efficiencies if the option is well thought out. For selfish reasons, I kinda liked the COVID era when roads on commuter routes were sparsely used, and I had Metro cars almost all to myself. I never stopped going to my downtown DC office, with the sole exception of a DC government-mandated shutdown period early in the pandemic. The thought of everybody suddenly coming back downtown is not a happy one for me.

At present, commuter traffic and Metro use drops noticeably on Fridays, presumably a popular day to "work from home." I wonder if something like that will continue.

COVID shutdowns forced the exploration of remote work which seemed to evolve pretty quickly for tasks amenable to Zoom communications and electronic document exchange. Companies evolved (and millennials discovered a new entitlement). And many federal government office buildings simply emptied out. Local lunch counters and convenience stores went out of business.

At the VA, some employees moved to other states while keeping jobs at the DC HQ. For them, remote access was interrupted only by a subsequent requirement to be physically present once every 30 days, which strikes me as both arbitrary and minimalist at the same time. Across the government, supervisors do not have much discretion or leeway for setting personnel policy under rapidly changed circumstances, so the likelihood of gaps in personnel management seems rather high. I suspect there are more than a few federal employees "working remotely" who may even have other jobs and have not done any actual government work for extended periods. A shakeup and shakeout may be a good thing. However, I do sympathize with those who have not abused the policy and remained productive—for whom this mandate will be inconvenient.

My guess is that the Trump back-to-the-office order will soon be tempered by better policies governing remote work in the context of broader civil service reforms. At least, I hope that is what will happen.