OPM requires agencies to comply with Trump’s telework order within 30 days

The Office of Personnel Management on Wednesday set a 30-day deadline for agencies to implement President Trump’s memo demanding an end to telework and remote work in the federal workplace.

On his first day in office, Trump issued a 65-word memo ordering agencies to require employees to return to in-person work “full time.” But because the document only referred to the termination of “remote work arrangements,” it caused some confusion among agencies and government observers.

Telework and remote work are two distinct workplace flexibilities in federal agencies; federal workers who telecommute travel to the office at least twice per biweekly pay period – or more, depending on their job responsibilities – while remote workers’ official duty station is usually their home and they do not are not expected to visit a traditional federal facility on a regular basis. regularly.

“We don’t have a lot of clarity on what exactly they mean here, particularly in terms of returning to power,” Max Stier, president of the Public Service Partnership, said Tuesday. “It’s a very short EO that just doesn’t offer a lot of answers.”

In a memo Wednesday evening, Acting OPM Director Charles Ezell asked agencies to revise their agency-wide telework policy at 5 p.m. Friday to reflect the fact that employees are expected to “work full-time in their respective duty stations”. It allows for exemptions in the case of an employee’s disability, other qualifying health condition, or “other compelling reason certified by the head of the agency and the employee’s supervisor.”

Ultimately, employees will have 30 days, until the end of February, to “fully comply” with the order, with notable exceptions for the exempt employees mentioned above and for employees covered by collective agreements including provisions regarding teleworking. Trump lawmakers and House Republicans expressed outrage last fall after then-Social Security Administrator Martin O’Malley signed a new contract with the American Federation of Government Employees, setting the existing telework policy until 2029, although management can still temporarily suspend or modify its availability.

Ezell also offered strategies for canceling remote work agreements: If an employee’s official duty station is more than 50 miles from an existing agency office, the agency should simply move its location assignment “to the most appropriate agency office based on the employee’s tasks and function.”

The State Department has already begun implementing its plan to enforce Trump’s order. In a memo to employees obtained by Government executiveSecretary Marco Rubio said the department “will strive for 100% attendance in the office.” The department will cancel all existing telework arrangements, except situational telework, on March 1, and remote workers are expected to return to in-person work by July 1.

The new policy provides exceptions for employees with reasonable accommodations for disabilities and will continue to respect telework arrangements for overseas national employees. But the memo’s language — that the agreements will remain in effect “until the end of the sponsoring employee’s overseas assignment” — implies an uncertain future for the DETO program, which offers remote work positions to spouses of active-duty military personnel stationed overseas and has been a bipartisan priority in combating military spouse unemployment.

During the presidential transition, Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy touted the end of teleworking as a way to encourage federal workers to quit, akin to downsizing.

Speaking to reporters Thursday, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer blasted the move.

“Just saying, ‘Get rid of telecommuting,’ is going to hurt millions and millions of Americans who depend on these people to do their jobs,” he said. “Telecommuting is very, very effective in many ways, and when you say, ‘Get rid of telecommuting,’ that just means you want to strike a stab in the heart of federal workers and the federal government.

Eric Katz contributed to this report.