Biden wants RTO

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:I like government workers, in part, because they’re my financial advisory clients. On average, my government workers are far, far better prepared for retirement than most of my other clients. The pension and subsidized health insurance are massively helpful. If a family has two federal workers, the 401ks hardly matter. I’m just saying that many - maybe not all - federal employees have it very good - especially in the long-run - compared to most DC folks. Perhaps, that helps soften the blow of RTO.

Explain to me how good I have it because I don’t see how I’m going to pay for college on two federal salaries without selling my real assets. Yes, I’ve maxed out my TSP. But that’s all I’ve got plus some equity in my house and the rental property we own. No unsecured debt really, but we aren’t saving. Retirement is 15-20 years away and with pay compression my earnings are essentially capped. I can’t depend on inheriting money like some. I can’t even depend on being employed or alive for the next 20 years. My view is to maximize earning while the earning is to be had. The days of working for government for 40 years are gone.

How is paying for college unique to feds? Private industry workers figure it out.

You pay what you can, or your kids take out loans, or they go to community college. Like everyone else.

You are a financial advisor? Or are you a different PP? As many, many, people have said: private sector pay is HIGHER.

I'm a DP.

Maybe if you're one of the ubiquitous lawyers in this thread, private pay is higher. Or if you can get a cushy consulting gig. But Feds by and large are not underpaid.

I'm a fed, married to a fed, and we have one in college now, and a second going to college in a couple of years.

I started a 529 when our oldest was born, when I was a GS-12, my husband a GS-7. Had a mortgage, daycare costs, no inheritance, still managed to contribute $400 a month. 18 years later we starting using it to pay for oldest's college. Is he at a $70K a year school? No. He knew what we could contribute and anything above that was on him. He chose accordingly.

18 YEARS? REALLY? Its not comparable.

Daycare costs and mortgage are double the total income % compared to 18 years ago.

Sure if you *just* bought a house. But up until recently mortgage rates were crazy low. House prices weren’t ridiculously high a couple years ago. What’s your daycare cost? I bet mine wasn’t that much different 18 years ago.

I guess the answer for you, to afford college, will be to leave your low-paying federal job and go get one of the high-paying private ones.

18 years ago I was in college hand writing notes in class and downloading songs on Napster. I bet my experience wasn’t that much different than your child’s college experience.

/S

I am thinking you must be a troll b/c there is no way anyone thinks childcare costs from 2005 and comparable to daycare in 2023.

In fact, they are almost triple what they were for me in 2011!

I was shocked to hear how much infant care has increased since 2014 and 2016, even in the burbs of Fairfax County.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What is the motivation? To increase productivity or just because so many office buildings are empty?

Motivation is political. Reality is that the US economy needs it. Cities are dying for a number of reasons, but the main economic issue is the impact on service industries to include restaurants, bars, the local travel industry such as Metro in DC, etc.

Commercial real estate market crumbling, with thought of turning federal leased space into condos or apartments. Who is gong to move to DC.

Can replace DC with any number of city names. Work from home will gradually die, too many people taking advantage of the situation, loss of productivity etc.

[Anonymous]

It is interesting to do a search on New York City Mayor Eric Adams and RTO:

In June 2022, he mandated that all NYC city employees return to the office 5 days a week (https://www.fox5ny.com/news/mayor-adams-nyc-workers-return-to-office)

In June 2023, he introduced a pilot program to allow city employees to work remotely up to 2 days a week. (https://nypost.com/2023/06/01/nyc-public-employees-can-start-working-remotely-in-pilot-program-eric-adams/, https://www.wsj.com/articles/nyc-mayor-eric-adams-a-critic-of-remote-work-cedes-some-ground-fec4f80e)

A few days ago, he announced an initiative to encourage the conversion of vacant downtown office space to housing. (https://finance.yahoo.com/news/york-city-mayor-just-conceded-211821509.html)

It's an example of a major US city trying to unring the WFH bell, experiencing recruiting challenges as a result, and now trying to evolve to a new normal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What is the motivation? To increase productivity or just because so many office buildings are empty?

Motivation is political. Reality is that the US economy needs it. Cities are dying for a number of reasons, but the main economic issue is the impact on service industries to include restaurants, bars, the local travel industry such as Metro in DC, etc.

Commercial real estate market crumbling, with thought of turning federal leased space into condos or apartments. Who is gong to move to DC.

Can replace DC with any number of city names. Work from home will gradually die, too many people taking advantage of the situation, loss of productivity etc.

To return feds back downtown, all it would take is an executive order from the White House ordering agencies to return to pre-pandemic telework and remote work policies by such and such date with instructions to release their compliance status. That’s it.
Maybe the memorandum from Zients was met more for the wider public and not the government?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What is the motivation? To increase productivity or just because so many office buildings are empty?

Motivation is political. Reality is that the US economy needs it. Cities are dying for a number of reasons, but the main economic issue is the impact on service industries to include restaurants, bars, the local travel industry such as Metro in DC, etc.

Commercial real estate market crumbling, with thought of turning federal leased space into condos or apartments. Who is gong to move to DC.

Can replace DC with any number of city names. Work from home will gradually die, too many people taking advantage of the situation, loss of productivity etc.

To return feds back downtown, all it would take is an executive order from the White House ordering agencies to return to pre-pandemic telework and remote work policies by such and such date with instructions to release their compliance status. That’s it.
Maybe the memorandum from Zients was met more for the wider public and not the government?

Would that order trump collective-bargaining agreements?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I like government workers, in part, because they’re my financial advisory clients. On average, my government workers are far, far better prepared for retirement than most of my other clients. The pension and subsidized health insurance are massively helpful. If a family has two federal workers, the 401ks hardly matter. I’m just saying that many - maybe not all - federal employees have it very good - especially in the long-run - compared to most DC folks. Perhaps, that helps soften the blow of RTO.

Well, two long-tenured 15s on FERs could be looking at a combined $150k pension. That’s helpful. But having, say, a combined $2 million in the TSP would also play a part.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What is the motivation? To increase productivity or just because so many office buildings are empty?

Motivation is political. Reality is that the US economy needs it. Cities are dying for a number of reasons, but the main economic issue is the impact on service industries to include restaurants, bars, the local travel industry such as Metro in DC, etc.

Commercial real estate market crumbling, with thought of turning federal leased space into condos or apartments. Who is gong to move to DC.

Can replace DC with any number of city names. Work from home will gradually die, too many people taking advantage of the situation, loss of productivity etc.

To return feds back downtown, all it would take is an executive order from the White House ordering agencies to return to pre-pandemic telework and remote work policies by such and such date with instructions to release their compliance status. That’s it.
Maybe the memorandum from Zients was met more for the wider public and not the government?

Nope. It would require an executive order that feds cannnot use Microsoft Teams.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What is the motivation? To increase productivity or just because so many office buildings are empty?

Motivation is political. Reality is that the US economy needs it. Cities are dying for a number of reasons, but the main economic issue is the impact on service industries to include restaurants, bars, the local travel industry such as Metro in DC, etc.

Commercial real estate market crumbling, with thought of turning federal leased space into condos or apartments. Who is gong to move to DC.

Can replace DC with any number of city names. Work from home will gradually die, too many people taking advantage of the situation, loss of productivity etc.

To return feds back downtown, all it would take is an executive order from the White House ordering agencies to return to pre-pandemic telework and remote work policies by such and such date with instructions to release their compliance status. That’s it.
Maybe the memorandum from Zients was met more for the wider public and not the government?

Would that order trump collective-bargaining agreements?

That would be up to individual agencies. That’s why I included the blurb about agencies having to release their compliance status to the public.

This is only hard because people are making it hard. Biden should have done this when he declared the pandemic over.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What is the motivation? To increase productivity or just because so many office buildings are empty?

Motivation is political. Reality is that the US economy needs it. Cities are dying for a number of reasons, but the main economic issue is the impact on service industries to include restaurants, bars, the local travel industry such as Metro in DC, etc.

Commercial real estate market crumbling, with thought of turning federal leased space into condos or apartments. Who is gong to move to DC.

Can replace DC with any number of city names. Work from home will gradually die, too many people taking advantage of the situation, loss of productivity etc.

To return feds back downtown, all it would take is an executive order from the White House ordering agencies to return to pre-pandemic telework and remote work policies by such and such date with instructions to release their compliance status. That’s it.
Maybe the memorandum from Zients was met more for the wider public and not the government?

Why would Biden take that risk (in case Covid flares up in the fall/winter) 14 months away from election? That's one risk he does not want to (and frankly, does not need to) take. I don't know about other agencies, but my agency is taking Zients memo very seriously. Our Secretary already had an all hands meeting and my program lead already told us we are coming back starting Oct 1 per WH memo. We are in the process of signing new telework agreement for FY24.

[Anonymous]

If I were Biden's advisor, I'd strongly advise him not to sign EO

[Anonymous]

We are RTO 6 days PP and I will be taking my flex hrs very liberally in order to still be around after school. What our leadership doesn’t understand is that WFH allowed us to stretch our productivity even further but providing flexibility. I could be at home to take my kids to practice, start dinner, etc. and still be online to finish up emails, assignments or whatever. Now if I have to maintain rigid hours in the office I won’t be opening a laptop after I get home unless my flexibility stays in place. Take away the flexibility and productivity will suffer.

[Anonymous]

I think a good compromise would be giving managers managerial controls. Currently if you have an employee who is difficult to contact, work product is poor it is hard to put them on a PIP. It's not egregious enough. Managerial controls would show that only were active on their computer for 3 hours each day and weren't working on their report that they said they were.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We are RTO 6 days PP and I will be taking my flex hrs very liberally in order to still be around after school. What our leadership doesn’t understand is that WFH allowed us to stretch our productivity even further but providing flexibility. I could be at home to take my kids to practice, start dinner, etc. and still be online to finish up emails, assignments or whatever. Now if I have to maintain rigid hours in the office I won’t be opening a laptop after I get home unless my flexibility stays in place. Take away the flexibility and productivity will suffer.

Some of this flexibility is the problem too. Most meetings are from 2-5pm and people have their calendars blocked off. We work a lot with California so morning meetings won't work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What is the motivation? To increase productivity or just because so many office buildings are empty?

Motivation is political. Reality is that the US economy needs it. Cities are dying for a number of reasons, but the main economic issue is the impact on service industries to include restaurants, bars, the local travel industry such as Metro in DC, etc.

Commercial real estate market crumbling, with thought of turning federal leased space into condos or apartments. Who is gong to move to DC.

Can replace DC with any number of city names. Work from home will gradually die, too many people taking advantage of the situation, loss of productivity etc.

To return feds back downtown, all it would take is an executive order from the White House ordering agencies to return to pre-pandemic telework and remote work policies by such and such date with instructions to release their compliance status. That’s it.
Maybe the memorandum from Zients was met more for the wider public and not the government?

Nope. It would require an executive order that feds cannnot use Microsoft Teams.

My office has been using teams since long before the pandemic. I’m in federal financial management. My staff works closely with OMB, other federal agencies, and the Bureau of Fiscal Service. None of which are in our building. Fiscal Service is in Parkersburg, WV - so again, being in the office more than once a week has little to no value.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think a good compromise would be giving managers managerial controls. Currently if you have an employee who is difficult to contact, work product is poor it is hard to put them on a PIP. It's not egregious enough. Managerial controls would show that only were active on their computer for 3 hours each day and weren't working on their report that they said they were.

+1. Managers need to be allowed to manage their staff to ensure that their office is completing their mission effectively. If an office work’s effectively with one day a week in office, so be it.