The Biden administration is directing federal agencies to start bringing back more employees to the office.
In a memo published April 13, the Office of Management and Budget requested that leaders of federal agencies and departments "increase meaningful in-person work," while still allowing for flexible arrangements as a means to recruit and retain employees.
"Because the federal government is a vast organization, there is no one-size-fits-all approach; however, as a whole, it is important to establish overarching goals and benchmarks for consistency," Jason Miller, Deputy Director for Management at the OMB, said in a coinciding blog post.
Specifically, the new guidance directs agencies to update their work arrangement plans, assess and implement any policy changes, and improve overall agency health and performance. Ultimately, the new guidance allows individual agencies to decide how many employees come back in-person and how often.
"Where agencies fall short, including if their workplace policies negatively impact results, they must be held accountable and work to make responsible changes…" Mr. Miller wrote. "At the core of these directives is the Administration’s broader commitment to improve customer experience and services—whether in-person, via phone, or online—so that the American people can easily and efficiently access critical government services."
The move comes amid recent scrutiny from Republicans and Democrats around federal remote work policies.
Sen. Bill Cassidy, MD, pressed HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra on the agency's remote work policies and raised questions around employees' productivity during a Senate Finance Committee hearing March 22.
"How do we know the people of HHS are working?" the Louisiana Republican asked while presenting a photo of what he said was an empty parking lot at CMS' headquarters at 10:40 a.m. on a Monday in March.
In January, Washington, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser publicly said, “we need decisive action by the White House to either get most federal workers back to the office most of the time or to realign their vast property holdings for use by the local government, by nonprofits, by businesses and by any user willing to revitalize it."
Rep. James Comer, a Kentucky Republican and chair of the House Committee on Oversight and Accountabilit, issued a statement on the new guidance April 14:
"OMB managed to issue a 19-page memo that shed virtually no light on when federal employees are returning to their offices – or under what conditions continued elevated levels of telework may be warranted. Based on today's briefing with OMB, 'don't ask, don't tell' is the best way to characterize the Biden Administration’s telework policy."
Randy Erwin, president of the National Federation of Federal Employees, told The Washington Post, "with this memo, I fear federal agencies will scale back telework in a knee-jerk reaction, even if it is not justified or supported by actual performance measures." The union represents employees of more than 30 federal agencies.