Jeff Zients throws a hissy fit in a memo about RTO

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:https://www.axios.com/2024/01/19/zients-biden-cabinet-return-to-office

he’s tantruming and feet stomping again

- being aggressive

- mad that feds aren’t back at desks

- wants personally tracked butts in seats

No one likes you except for bibi, Jeff!

Jeff Zients is the White House Chief of Staff, it is his job to direct federal agencies in these types of administrative matters. I don’t agree with his directions, but he’s not tantruming, foot stomping, or being aggressive. He’s doing his job. This weird listed response is childish.

Not really. Agencies are fully capable of handling their own administrative matters. It reminds me of an old story of James Baker (I think) when he refused to implement drug testing of Treasury employees during the Reagan administration. His response was “My employees have better things to do than piss in a cup.”

First, I can't find any evidence that the Treasury Secretary said that.
Second, the union for Treasury absolutely did object to the drug testing. And they failed. https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp/685/1346/1882156/

OPM exists for a reason. Agencies are required to comply with all sorts of administrative rules. This is one of them.

It’s a story people who worked for him used to tell. I used to work there.

If you actually read the decision at the link you shared, you would have seen that the EO left the decisions to put in drug testing and for which employees to agency heads. And that only Transportation had implemented a drug testing program by 1988, which is part of why the court rejected the motion (ie, it wasn’t actually applying to anyone). In other words, the WH left it to agencies, and agencies weren’t doing it.

Finally, OPM isn’t the WH CoS. In fact, OPM’s principles for the post-pandemic work environment include “empower agency decision-making.” If OPM wants to implement some directive in the future and it has authority to do so, fine. But it hasn’t done that yet, and that doesn’t happen through a nagging WH CoS email.

Oh good grief! The WH (and any decision-making body) has many levers they can pull when trying to push a policy decision. Often it's preferable to wield influence rather than dictates. The COS sending a message like this is an example of that, and should be interpreted as an indication that the WH might escalate to a stricter OPM policy if agencies don't comply with this non-binding request. When I was a WH staffer, I made recommendations to leverage softer mechanisms like this often. And, FWIW, I'm now in the private sector and my company did the exact same thing (threaten a stricter policy if we couldn't demonstrate more people coming into the office).

FWIW, I think mandatory RTO is silly...especially as so many employers have also given up real estate and moved to hoteling. But it's not like it's unusual to start with a request before moving to a strict policy.

LMAO. Zients already tried “influence” and “requesting” last year and everyone rightly ignored him so now he tries the same thing? LMAO.
I guarantee no one, from and agency head to a GS-7, is taking him seriously wrt RTO.

Are you suggesting that no agency has made changes to the onsite work requirements since the initial email came out?

[Anonymous]

Wow. The anti-semitism on this thread is quite something. And not a good something.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:https://www.axios.com/2024/01/19/zients-biden-cabinet-return-to-office

he’s tantruming and feet stomping again

- being aggressive

- mad that feds aren’t back at desks

- wants personally tracked butts in seats

No one likes you except for bibi, Jeff!

Jeff Zients is the White House Chief of Staff, it is his job to direct federal agencies in these types of administrative matters. I don’t agree with his directions, but he’s not tantruming, foot stomping, or being aggressive. He’s doing his job. This weird listed response is childish.

Not really. Agencies are fully capable of handling their own administrative matters. It reminds me of an old story of James Baker (I think) when he refused to implement drug testing of Treasury employees during the Reagan administration. His response was “My employees have better things to do than piss in a cup.”

Agree. If I was a Senate confirmed Cabinet Secretary and I got an email like that “I expect you to personally monitor…” I’d ignore it at best

So you think that the people that are fireable at will by the president should ignore the direction of the president's chief of staff if they don't like them? Does this apply to everything the WH sayas, or just RTO issues?

Yes I think agency heads should ignore stupid and counter productive micromanagement by the CoS.

Agencies/agency heads are not just the errand boys of the CoS — that is a reason why agency heads are subject to Senate confirmation.

Obviously there is a role for agenda setting by and coordination with the WH but that doesn’t mean Zients should be dictating every aspect of agency work.

This isn’t dictating every aspect of agency work, nor is this stupid and counter productive micromanagement. At my agency our secretary very much wants to increase in person work but the union is putting up a fight. I’m sure she is encouraging Congress and the White House to mandate more time in the office so it looks like her hand has been forced.

All it takes is an EO from President Biden. This isn’t important to the President.
Also, I believe the House passed something related to federal employee RTO and the Senate refused to take it up.

This latest outburst by Zients is a nothing burger.

[Anonymous]

Taxpayers prefer accountability.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:https://www.axios.com/2024/01/19/zients-biden-cabinet-return-to-office

he’s tantruming and feet stomping again

- being aggressive

- mad that feds aren’t back at desks

- wants personally tracked butts in seats

No one likes you except for bibi, Jeff!

Jeff Zients is the White House Chief of Staff, it is his job to direct federal agencies in these types of administrative matters. I don’t agree with his directions, but he’s not tantruming, foot stomping, or being aggressive. He’s doing his job. This weird listed response is childish.

Not really. Agencies are fully capable of handling their own administrative matters. It reminds me of an old story of James Baker (I think) when he refused to implement drug testing of Treasury employees during the Reagan administration. His response was “My employees have better things to do than piss in a cup.”

First, I can't find any evidence that the Treasury Secretary said that.
Second, the union for Treasury absolutely did object to the drug testing. And they failed. https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp/685/1346/1882156/

OPM exists for a reason. Agencies are required to comply with all sorts of administrative rules. This is one of them.

It’s a story people who worked for him used to tell. I used to work there.

If you actually read the decision at the link you shared, you would have seen that the EO left the decisions to put in drug testing and for which employees to agency heads. And that only Transportation had implemented a drug testing program by 1988, which is part of why the court rejected the motion (ie, it wasn’t actually applying to anyone). In other words, the WH left it to agencies, and agencies weren’t doing it.

Finally, OPM isn’t the WH CoS. In fact, OPM’s principles for the post-pandemic work environment include “empower agency decision-making.” If OPM wants to implement some directive in the future and it has authority to do so, fine. But it hasn’t done that yet, and that doesn’t happen through a nagging WH CoS email.

Oh good grief! The WH (and any decision-making body) has many levers they can pull when trying to push a policy decision. Often it's preferable to wield influence rather than dictates. The COS sending a message like this is an example of that, and should be interpreted as an indication that the WH might escalate to a stricter OPM policy if agencies don't comply with this non-binding request. When I was a WH staffer, I made recommendations to leverage softer mechanisms like this often. And, FWIW, I'm now in the private sector and my company did the exact same thing (threaten a stricter policy if we couldn't demonstrate more people coming into the office).

FWIW, I think mandatory RTO is silly...especially as so many employers have also given up real estate and moved to hoteling. But it's not like it's unusual to start with a request before moving to a strict policy.

LMAO. Zients already tried “influence” and “requesting” last year and everyone rightly ignored him so now he tries the same thing? LMAO.
I guarantee no one, from and agency head to a GS-7, is taking him seriously wrt RTO.

Are you suggesting that no agency has made changes to the onsite work requirements since the initial email came out?

If the agencies did what you are suggesting this latest whining from Zients is unnecessary and therefore moot.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:https://www.axios.com/2024/01/19/zients-biden-cabinet-return-to-office

he’s tantruming and feet stomping again

- being aggressive

- mad that feds aren’t back at desks

- wants personally tracked butts in seats

No one likes you except for bibi, Jeff!

Jeff Zients is the White House Chief of Staff, it is his job to direct federal agencies in these types of administrative matters. I don’t agree with his directions, but he’s not tantruming, foot stomping, or being aggressive. He’s doing his job. This weird listed response is childish.

Not really. Agencies are fully capable of handling their own administrative matters. It reminds me of an old story of James Baker (I think) when he refused to implement drug testing of Treasury employees during the Reagan administration. His response was “My employees have better things to do than piss in a cup.”

First, I can't find any evidence that the Treasury Secretary said that.
Second, the union for Treasury absolutely did object to the drug testing. And they failed. https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp/685/1346/1882156/

OPM exists for a reason. Agencies are required to comply with all sorts of administrative rules. This is one of them.

It’s a story people who worked for him used to tell. I used to work there.

If you actually read the decision at the link you shared, you would have seen that the EO left the decisions to put in drug testing and for which employees to agency heads. And that only Transportation had implemented a drug testing program by 1988, which is part of why the court rejected the motion (ie, it wasn’t actually applying to anyone). In other words, the WH left it to agencies, and agencies weren’t doing it.

Finally, OPM isn’t the WH CoS. In fact, OPM’s principles for the post-pandemic work environment include “empower agency decision-making.” If OPM wants to implement some directive in the future and it has authority to do so, fine. But it hasn’t done that yet, and that doesn’t happen through a nagging WH CoS email.

Oh good grief! The WH (and any decision-making body) has many levers they can pull when trying to push a policy decision. Often it's preferable to wield influence rather than dictates. The COS sending a message like this is an example of that, and should be interpreted as an indication that the WH might escalate to a stricter OPM policy if agencies don't comply with this non-binding request. When I was a WH staffer, I made recommendations to leverage softer mechanisms like this often. And, FWIW, I'm now in the private sector and my company did the exact same thing (threaten a stricter policy if we couldn't demonstrate more people coming into the office).

FWIW, I think mandatory RTO is silly...especially as so many employers have also given up real estate and moved to hoteling. But it's not like it's unusual to start with a request before moving to a strict policy.

LMAO. Zients already tried “influence” and “requesting” last year and everyone rightly ignored him so now he tries the same thing? LMAO.
I guarantee no one, from and agency head to a GS-7, is taking him seriously wrt RTO.

Are you suggesting that no agency has made changes to the onsite work requirements since the initial email came out?

I’m sure some have, but many managers have been exercising discretion as to how often their employees need to be in the office. At this point it’s been 4 years, if you’ve been working from home 4 days a week that entire time it’s hard to make a persuasive argument that you now need to be in the office 3 days a week. If your position is truly forward facing or is dependent on in person collaboration, you have long since been back in the office the majority of the time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:https://www.axios.com/2024/01/19/zients-biden-cabinet-return-to-office

he’s tantruming and feet stomping again

- being aggressive

- mad that feds aren’t back at desks

- wants personally tracked butts in seats

No one likes you except for bibi, Jeff!

Jeff Zients is the White House Chief of Staff, it is his job to direct federal agencies in these types of administrative matters. I don’t agree with his directions, but he’s not tantruming, foot stomping, or being aggressive. He’s doing his job. This weird listed response is childish.

Not really. Agencies are fully capable of handling their own administrative matters. It reminds me of an old story of James Baker (I think) when he refused to implement drug testing of Treasury employees during the Reagan administration. His response was “My employees have better things to do than piss in a cup.”

First, I can't find any evidence that the Treasury Secretary said that.
Second, the union for Treasury absolutely did object to the drug testing. And they failed. https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp/685/1346/1882156/

OPM exists for a reason. Agencies are required to comply with all sorts of administrative rules. This is one of them.

It’s a story people who worked for him used to tell. I used to work there.

If you actually read the decision at the link you shared, you would have seen that the EO left the decisions to put in drug testing and for which employees to agency heads. And that only Transportation had implemented a drug testing program by 1988, which is part of why the court rejected the motion (ie, it wasn’t actually applying to anyone). In other words, the WH left it to agencies, and agencies weren’t doing it.

Finally, OPM isn’t the WH CoS. In fact, OPM’s principles for the post-pandemic work environment include “empower agency decision-making.” If OPM wants to implement some directive in the future and it has authority to do so, fine. But it hasn’t done that yet, and that doesn’t happen through a nagging WH CoS email.

Oh good grief! The WH (and any decision-making body) has many levers they can pull when trying to push a policy decision. Often it's preferable to wield influence rather than dictates. The COS sending a message like this is an example of that, and should be interpreted as an indication that the WH might escalate to a stricter OPM policy if agencies don't comply with this non-binding request. When I was a WH staffer, I made recommendations to leverage softer mechanisms like this often. And, FWIW, I'm now in the private sector and my company did the exact same thing (threaten a stricter policy if we couldn't demonstrate more people coming into the office).

FWIW, I think mandatory RTO is silly...especially as so many employers have also given up real estate and moved to hoteling. But it's not like it's unusual to start with a request before moving to a strict policy.

LMAO. Zients already tried “influence” and “requesting” last year and everyone rightly ignored him so now he tries the same thing? LMAO.
I guarantee no one, from and agency head to a GS-7, is taking him seriously wrt RTO.

Are you suggesting that no agency has made changes to the onsite work requirements since the initial email came out?

If the agencies did what you are suggesting this latest whining from Zients is unnecessary and therefore moot.

What I'm saying is that what happened is exactly what the emails said- some agencies made a change, but not all did. He is encouraging the rest to follow suit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:https://www.axios.com/2024/01/19/zients-biden-cabinet-return-to-office

he’s tantruming and feet stomping again

- being aggressive

- mad that feds aren’t back at desks

- wants personally tracked butts in seats

No one likes you except for bibi, Jeff!

Jeff Zients is the White House Chief of Staff, it is his job to direct federal agencies in these types of administrative matters. I don’t agree with his directions, but he’s not tantruming, foot stomping, or being aggressive. He’s doing his job. This weird listed response is childish.

Not really. Agencies are fully capable of handling their own administrative matters. It reminds me of an old story of James Baker (I think) when he refused to implement drug testing of Treasury employees during the Reagan administration. His response was “My employees have better things to do than piss in a cup.”

First, I can't find any evidence that the Treasury Secretary said that.
Second, the union for Treasury absolutely did object to the drug testing. And they failed. https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp/685/1346/1882156/

OPM exists for a reason. Agencies are required to comply with all sorts of administrative rules. This is one of them.

It’s a story people who worked for him used to tell. I used to work there.

If you actually read the decision at the link you shared, you would have seen that the EO left the decisions to put in drug testing and for which employees to agency heads. And that only Transportation had implemented a drug testing program by 1988, which is part of why the court rejected the motion (ie, it wasn’t actually applying to anyone). In other words, the WH left it to agencies, and agencies weren’t doing it.

Finally, OPM isn’t the WH CoS. In fact, OPM’s principles for the post-pandemic work environment include “empower agency decision-making.” If OPM wants to implement some directive in the future and it has authority to do so, fine. But it hasn’t done that yet, and that doesn’t happen through a nagging WH CoS email.

Oh good grief! The WH (and any decision-making body) has many levers they can pull when trying to push a policy decision. Often it's preferable to wield influence rather than dictates. The COS sending a message like this is an example of that, and should be interpreted as an indication that the WH might escalate to a stricter OPM policy if agencies don't comply with this non-binding request. When I was a WH staffer, I made recommendations to leverage softer mechanisms like this often. And, FWIW, I'm now in the private sector and my company did the exact same thing (threaten a stricter policy if we couldn't demonstrate more people coming into the office).

FWIW, I think mandatory RTO is silly...especially as so many employers have also given up real estate and moved to hoteling. But it's not like it's unusual to start with a request before moving to a strict policy.

LMAO. Zients already tried “influence” and “requesting” last year and everyone rightly ignored him so now he tries the same thing? LMAO.
I guarantee no one, from and agency head to a GS-7, is taking him seriously wrt RTO.

Are you suggesting that no agency has made changes to the onsite work requirements since the initial email came out?

If the agencies did what you are suggesting this latest whining from Zients is unnecessary and therefore moot.

What I'm saying is that what happened is exactly what the emails said- some agencies made a change, but not all did. He is encouraging the rest to follow suit.

The WH wants employees back in the buildings 5 days per pay period, some agencies have met this target and many have not. OMB is monitoring the data on badge swipes bi-weekly. They are having conversations about all of this privately, they are also putting out some of this information publicly. Seems like some of you don’t understand the strategy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:https://www.axios.com/2024/01/19/zients-biden-cabinet-return-to-office

he’s tantruming and feet stomping again

- being aggressive

- mad that feds aren’t back at desks

- wants personally tracked butts in seats

No one likes you except for bibi, Jeff!

Jeff Zients is the White House Chief of Staff, it is his job to direct federal agencies in these types of administrative matters. I don’t agree with his directions, but he’s not tantruming, foot stomping, or being aggressive. He’s doing his job. This weird listed response is childish.

Not really. Agencies are fully capable of handling their own administrative matters. It reminds me of an old story of James Baker (I think) when he refused to implement drug testing of Treasury employees during the Reagan administration. His response was “My employees have better things to do than piss in a cup.”

Agree. If I was a Senate confirmed Cabinet Secretary and I got an email like that “I expect you to personally monitor…” I’d ignore it at best

So you think that the people that are fireable at will by the president should ignore the direction of the president's chief of staff if they don't like them? Does this apply to everything the WH sayas, or just RTO issues?

Yes I think agency heads should ignore stupid and counter productive micromanagement by the CoS.

Agencies/agency heads are not just the errand boys of the CoS — that is a reason why agency heads are subject to Senate confirmation.

Obviously there is a role for agenda setting by and coordination with the WH but that doesn’t mean Zients should be dictating every aspect of agency work.

Genuine question, if the communication had come from the president himself, or if the CoS had prefaced the email with "after consulting with the president" or "at the direction of the president" would you feel differently?

Yes— if the president had a cabinet meeting (or picked up the phone) and said this is a priority to me for the following reasons that does seem different.

But doesn’t that seem unlikely? And it’s unlikely for the same reason that Zients’ memo is dumb.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:https://www.axios.com/2024/01/19/zients-biden-cabinet-return-to-office

he’s tantruming and feet stomping again

- being aggressive

- mad that feds aren’t back at desks

- wants personally tracked butts in seats

No one likes you except for bibi, Jeff!

Jeff Zients is the White House Chief of Staff, it is his job to direct federal agencies in these types of administrative matters. I don’t agree with his directions, but he’s not tantruming, foot stomping, or being aggressive. He’s doing his job. This weird listed response is childish.

Not really. Agencies are fully capable of handling their own administrative matters. It reminds me of an old story of James Baker (I think) when he refused to implement drug testing of Treasury employees during the Reagan administration. His response was “My employees have better things to do than piss in a cup.”

Agree. If I was a Senate confirmed Cabinet Secretary and I got an email like that “I expect you to personally monitor…” I’d ignore it at best

So you think that the people that are fireable at will by the president should ignore the direction of the president's chief of staff if they don't like them? Does this apply to everything the WH sayas, or just RTO issues?

Yes I think agency heads should ignore stupid and counter productive micromanagement by the CoS.

Agencies/agency heads are not just the errand boys of the CoS — that is a reason why agency heads are subject to Senate confirmation.

Obviously there is a role for agenda setting by and coordination with the WH but that doesn’t mean Zients should be dictating every aspect of agency work.

Genuine question, if the communication had come from the president himself, or if the CoS had prefaced the email with "after consulting with the president" or "at the direction of the president" would you feel differently?

Yes— if the president had a cabinet meeting (or picked up the phone) and said this is a priority to me for the following reasons that does seem different.

But doesn’t that seem unlikely? And it’s unlikely for the same reason that Zients’ memo is dumb.

It honestly does not at all seem that unlikely. This is politics and the CoS job is to take the hit.
The president is up for reelection and doesn't want to directly piss off the federal workforce. He absolutely does want to appease opponents where he can, and boost the economy where he can. The President has every reason to be thrilled if there was a dramatic increase in onsite federal work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:https://www.axios.com/2024/01/19/zients-biden-cabinet-return-to-office

he’s tantruming and feet stomping again

- being aggressive

- mad that feds aren’t back at desks

- wants personally tracked butts in seats

No one likes you except for bibi, Jeff!

Jeff Zients is the White House Chief of Staff, it is his job to direct federal agencies in these types of administrative matters. I don’t agree with his directions, but he’s not tantruming, foot stomping, or being aggressive. He’s doing his job. This weird listed response is childish.

Not really. Agencies are fully capable of handling their own administrative matters. It reminds me of an old story of James Baker (I think) when he refused to implement drug testing of Treasury employees during the Reagan administration. His response was “My employees have better things to do than piss in a cup.”

Agree. If I was a Senate confirmed Cabinet Secretary and I got an email like that “I expect you to personally monitor…” I’d ignore it at best

So you think that the people that are fireable at will by the president should ignore the direction of the president's chief of staff if they don't like them? Does this apply to everything the WH sayas, or just RTO issues?

Yes I think agency heads should ignore stupid and counter productive micromanagement by the CoS.

Agencies/agency heads are not just the errand boys of the CoS — that is a reason why agency heads are subject to Senate confirmation.

Obviously there is a role for agenda setting by and coordination with the WH but that doesn’t mean Zients should be dictating every aspect of agency work.

Genuine question, if the communication had come from the president himself, or if the CoS had prefaced the email with "after consulting with the president" or "at the direction of the president" would you feel differently?

Yes— if the president had a cabinet meeting (or picked up the phone) and said this is a priority to me for the following reasons that does seem different.

But doesn’t that seem unlikely? And it’s unlikely for the same reason that Zients’ memo is dumb.

How do you know that the President hasn’t had a cabinet meeting or picked up the phone to say exactly this, and that the current emails and articles aren’t part of the implementation of that plan?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:https://www.axios.com/2024/01/19/zients-biden-cabinet-return-to-office

he’s tantruming and feet stomping again

- being aggressive

- mad that feds aren’t back at desks

- wants personally tracked butts in seats

No one likes you except for bibi, Jeff!

Jeff Zients is the White House Chief of Staff, it is his job to direct federal agencies in these types of administrative matters. I don’t agree with his directions, but he’s not tantruming, foot stomping, or being aggressive. He’s doing his job. This weird listed response is childish.

Not really. Agencies are fully capable of handling their own administrative matters. It reminds me of an old story of James Baker (I think) when he refused to implement drug testing of Treasury employees during the Reagan administration. His response was “My employees have better things to do than piss in a cup.”

Agree. If I was a Senate confirmed Cabinet Secretary and I got an email like that “I expect you to personally monitor…” I’d ignore it at best

So you think that the people that are fireable at will by the president should ignore the direction of the president's chief of staff if they don't like them? Does this apply to everything the WH sayas, or just RTO issues?

Yes I think agency heads should ignore stupid and counter productive micromanagement by the CoS.

Agencies/agency heads are not just the errand boys of the CoS — that is a reason why agency heads are subject to Senate confirmation.

Obviously there is a role for agenda setting by and coordination with the WH but that doesn’t mean Zients should be dictating every aspect of agency work.

This isn’t dictating every aspect of agency work, nor is this stupid and counter productive micromanagement. At my agency our secretary very much wants to increase in person work but the union is putting up a fight. I’m sure she is encouraging Congress and the White House to mandate more time in the office so it looks like her hand has been forced.

That makes no sense. If your secretary wants more RTO a memo from Zients doesn’t change anything— it’s up to the Secretary to figure out how to accomplish that. If there are bargaining issues about RTO the memo doesn’t make them go away.

Employees aren’t going to say “oh well since it’s not just the Secretary but the WH CoS who wants us in the office we will gladly return”.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:https://www.axios.com/2024/01/19/zients-biden-cabinet-return-to-office

he’s tantruming and feet stomping again

- being aggressive

- mad that feds aren’t back at desks

- wants personally tracked butts in seats

No one likes you except for bibi, Jeff!

Jeff Zients is the White House Chief of Staff, it is his job to direct federal agencies in these types of administrative matters. I don’t agree with his directions, but he’s not tantruming, foot stomping, or being aggressive. He’s doing his job. This weird listed response is childish.

Not really. Agencies are fully capable of handling their own administrative matters. It reminds me of an old story of James Baker (I think) when he refused to implement drug testing of Treasury employees during the Reagan administration. His response was “My employees have better things to do than piss in a cup.”

First, I can't find any evidence that the Treasury Secretary said that.
Second, the union for Treasury absolutely did object to the drug testing. And they failed. https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp/685/1346/1882156/

OPM exists for a reason. Agencies are required to comply with all sorts of administrative rules. This is one of them.

It’s a story people who worked for him used to tell. I used to work there.

If you actually read the decision at the link you shared, you would have seen that the EO left the decisions to put in drug testing and for which employees to agency heads. And that only Transportation had implemented a drug testing program by 1988, which is part of why the court rejected the motion (ie, it wasn’t actually applying to anyone). In other words, the WH left it to agencies, and agencies weren’t doing it.

Finally, OPM isn’t the WH CoS. In fact, OPM’s principles for the post-pandemic work environment include “empower agency decision-making.” If OPM wants to implement some directive in the future and it has authority to do so, fine. But it hasn’t done that yet, and that doesn’t happen through a nagging WH CoS email.

Oh good grief! The WH (and any decision-making body) has many levers they can pull when trying to push a policy decision. Often it's preferable to wield influence rather than dictates. The COS sending a message like this is an example of that, and should be interpreted as an indication that the WH might escalate to a stricter OPM policy if agencies don't comply with this non-binding request. When I was a WH staffer, I made recommendations to leverage softer mechanisms like this often. And, FWIW, I'm now in the private sector and my company did the exact same thing (threaten a stricter policy if we couldn't demonstrate more people coming into the office).

FWIW, I think mandatory RTO is silly...especially as so many employers have also given up real estate and moved to hoteling. But it's not like it's unusual to start with a request before moving to a strict policy.

Lol. You’re the one who said it was an OPM rule when it isn’t. That’s not my fault.

WH staffers across successive admins have poorly understood how the government works and thought that the WH has unilateral power to do whatever it wants with agencies. It hasn’t worked out well for the admins or anyone else.

Agencies, including agency heads, have legal authorities. Collective bargaining and other agreements have legal power. Employees’ work relationships are with their agency. Implementation happens at an agency level. OPM recognizes all of this.

Biden has been pushing for RTO for two years. If they had a better tool (at least one that doesn’t have many more downsides than upsides) they would have used it by now.

So they are stuck with nagging agency heads through an email. And, as was my original point in all of this, agency heads and their staff can proceed however they see fit. Which has been non-implementation. Just read this:

https://www.politico.com/newsletters/west-wing-playbook/2023/11/10/bidens-wfh-headache-00126632

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:https://www.axios.com/2024/01/19/zients-biden-cabinet-return-to-office

he’s tantruming and feet stomping again

- being aggressive

- mad that feds aren’t back at desks

- wants personally tracked butts in seats

No one likes you except for bibi, Jeff!

Jeff Zients is the White House Chief of Staff, it is his job to direct federal agencies in these types of administrative matters. I don’t agree with his directions, but he’s not tantruming, foot stomping, or being aggressive. He’s doing his job. This weird listed response is childish.

Not really. Agencies are fully capable of handling their own administrative matters. It reminds me of an old story of James Baker (I think) when he refused to implement drug testing of Treasury employees during the Reagan administration. His response was “My employees have better things to do than piss in a cup.”

Agree. If I was a Senate confirmed Cabinet Secretary and I got an email like that “I expect you to personally monitor…” I’d ignore it at best

So you think that the people that are fireable at will by the president should ignore the direction of the president's chief of staff if they don't like them? Does this apply to everything the WH sayas, or just RTO issues?

Yes I think agency heads should ignore stupid and counter productive micromanagement by the CoS.

Agencies/agency heads are not just the errand boys of the CoS — that is a reason why agency heads are subject to Senate confirmation.

Obviously there is a role for agenda setting by and coordination with the WH but that doesn’t mean Zients should be dictating every aspect of agency work.

Genuine question, if the communication had come from the president himself, or if the CoS had prefaced the email with "after consulting with the president" or "at the direction of the president" would you feel differently?

Yes— if the president had a cabinet meeting (or picked up the phone) and said this is a priority to me for the following reasons that does seem different.

But doesn’t that seem unlikely? And it’s unlikely for the same reason that Zients’ memo is dumb.

How do you know that the President hasn’t had a cabinet meeting or picked up the phone to say exactly this, and that the current emails and articles aren’t part of the implementation of that plan?

The fact that there has not been a hint of suggestion that has happened seems like strong evidence it hasn’t. (I’m not suggesting Zients is somehow going rogue, just that this is not coming from Biden)

The suggestion that this is all an elaborate scheme because Biden wants credit for forcing feds back to work but not blame for forcing feds back to work seems pretty unlikely to me.

But in any case my point was simply that agency head could put less weight on what Zients says than what the President says— I’m not trying to prove what has actually happened.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:https://www.axios.com/2024/01/19/zients-biden-cabinet-return-to-office

he’s tantruming and feet stomping again

- being aggressive

- mad that feds aren’t back at desks

- wants personally tracked butts in seats

No one likes you except for bibi, Jeff!

Jeff Zients is the White House Chief of Staff, it is his job to direct federal agencies in these types of administrative matters. I don’t agree with his directions, but he’s not tantruming, foot stomping, or being aggressive. He’s doing his job. This weird listed response is childish.

Not really. Agencies are fully capable of handling their own administrative matters. It reminds me of an old story of James Baker (I think) when he refused to implement drug testing of Treasury employees during the Reagan administration. His response was “My employees have better things to do than piss in a cup.”

Agree. If I was a Senate confirmed Cabinet Secretary and I got an email like that “I expect you to personally monitor…” I’d ignore it at best

So you think that the people that are fireable at will by the president should ignore the direction of the president's chief of staff if they don't like them? Does this apply to everything the WH sayas, or just RTO issues?

Yes I think agency heads should ignore stupid and counter productive micromanagement by the CoS.

Agencies/agency heads are not just the errand boys of the CoS — that is a reason why agency heads are subject to Senate confirmation.

Obviously there is a role for agenda setting by and coordination with the WH but that doesn’t mean Zients should be dictating every aspect of agency work.

+1