The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and Office of Personnel Management (OPM) under President Donald Trump issued a memo to provide guidance for federal workers to return to office.
“As of January 24th, agencies should have already notified employees of their intent to comply with the PM directing agencies to return all eligible employees to full-time in-person work,” the memo says. “To facilitate the consistent implementation of this guidance across agencies, OMB and OPM direct all agencies to prepare implementation plans that describe their approach to fully complying with this PM and overcoming any constraints in achieving full compliance.”
Plans to “expeditiously implement” the shift to in-office work should be submitted to the OMB and the OPM by February 7th. The plans must detail how the agencies will “revise telework agreements,” “identify any risks, barriers, or resource constraints that would prevent the expeditious return of all eligible employees to in-person work,” and “describe the steps the agency will take to determine permanent worksites for all eligible employees currently teleworking on a full-time basis,” the memo describes.
Upon his inauguration, Trump signed an executive order directing the “Heads of all departments and agencies in the executive branch” to “take all necessary steps to terminate remote work arrangements and require employees to return to work in-person at their respective duty stations on a full-time basis, provided that the department and agency heads shall make exemptions they deem necessary.”
A recent Senate report revealed that only 6% of federal employees work in person daily. The report notes that federal buildings are largely underutilized, with headquarters of major agencies averaging only 12% occupancy. Maintaining and leasing these buildings costs $8 billion annually, with an additional $7.7 billion spent on operations.
