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:

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.

You don’t have a clue what the strategy is. Zients doesn’t have the authority to demand RTO. The best strategies are the simplest. Biden couldn’t care less about RTO because the work is getting done (via WFH or whatever).

[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.

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

NP. If RTO was important for the President there would have been an executive order long ago.
LOL.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

You don’t have a clue what the strategy is. Zients doesn’t have the authority to demand RTO. The best strategies are the simplest. Biden couldn’t care less about RTO because the work is getting done (via WFH or whatever).

Not PP, but I think you are missing the point. Agreed that Zients does not have the authority to enforce RTO. But a great deal of what happens in government (and life) happens through people without direct authority wielding influence. Messaging from the WH, OMB, and OPM absolutely has increased the aggregate onsite presence of the federal workforce. Certainly where federal employees spend their time is not the president's top priority. But he certainly also prefers moving the needle in this direction. He mentioned it in his first State of the Union.

Again, I'm not advocating for increased RTO. I'm fortunate to work at an independent agency that remains extremely liberal in this regard. I am saying that the administration wants more of it, and a letter from the CoS, like him or not, is part of the bigger picture to make that happen.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:https://twitter.com/alexthomp/status/1687574175622316033?s=46&t=RXug2E3wPuDEf8vlgSC9SQ

Dude just wants people to go to his shitty bagel shop more

Going into work used to be so routine...

[Anonymous]

Did anyone actually read this short and factual article? Agencies are required to submit a plan by 1/26 on how they’ll meet the 50% in office target. This doesn’t sound like whining, or mandating, or demanding. It sounds like regular front office management.

[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.

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.

Do you seriously think Zients sends out memos to all agencies heads without the President's buy in?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Anyone 40+ just has a hard time accepting that they way they have always done things and how they learned to work would have to change with remote work. It’s so so hard for older people to change and learn new things at work. They build up to a point where they fear doing anything new where they might possible not been seen as an expert or make a mistake. And I say this as someone over 50 so I am talking about my own peers.

Way to generalize. I’m in my late 40s and always worked 5 days a week in the office until the pandemic. Now I work in the office 2-3 days and I appreciate the flexibility. I worry that my colleagues who refuse to return more than 1 day a week are threatening my new flexibility when Congress or others threaten to bring us all back 5 days because we’re in so little now.

+1. It is my pet peeve when people generalize about an entire generation, or about what workplaces are like in general. Like you, I am also over 50, and I find that I have adapted to the new normal at work. I really like having a hybrid schedule of working in the office 3x per week, and working at home 2x per week. It's been a really great development to have that option to WFH for 2x per week. But at least in my field (in-house legal counsel) at at my corporation (large Fortune 100 company), it genuinely is valuable to have people working together in the office.

[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.

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.

Do you seriously think Zients sends out memos to all agencies heads without the President's buy in?

Whatever. It’s Zients. Our agency heads already blew him off last year. This time won’t be any different.

[Anonymous]

I do get nervous thinking about a potential republican administration. We used to have to come in 4 days a week under the previous administration, even if there was no real reason to be in person. I am more productive at home, and 4 days in office would be really awful.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How is that a hissy fit? You WFH diehards need to chill out.

Why do you think everyone should return to the office? It's a 60-90 minute commute and $10-20 in tolls for my spouse. When they go into the office they refuse to work any extra hours so the employer is losing out as they usually use that commute time to work.

Your spouse took the job!!!! Why were they so stupid to not consider the 60 min commute and the tolls. Idiots.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How is that a hissy fit? You WFH diehards need to chill out.

Why do you think everyone should return to the office? It's a 60-90 minute commute and $10-20 in tolls for my spouse. When they go into the office they refuse to work any extra hours so the employer is losing out as they usually use that commute time to work.

Your spouse took the job!!!! Why were they so stupid to not consider the 60 min commute and the tolls. Idiots.

Because we now have very effective systems and processes for working remotely that few were familiar with four years ago? Keep up, this isn’t difficult.

[Anonymous]

I work much, much shorter hours when in the office, which is a trade off agencies are going to realize many people will make.

Also because I think it was a disgusting justification, I make a point of never going out for lunch within DC— we go to Rosslyn. You’re welcome Mayor Bowser.

[Anonymous]

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?

For example: I think the President is evaluating Anthony Blinken based on things other than his RTO percentage. Effectively, at this point Blinken is not “fireable at will.” There would be a huge price to pay in Isr/Pal efforts for that, and RTO ain’t worth it—no matter what Jeff Zients says about it.

[Anonymous]

Omg this is ridiculous. All of the whining in the world isn’t putting the genie back in the bottle. If you want to make sure people are working, do that. Forcing folks into the office four days a week doesn’t absolve managers of the responsibility to actually measure their teams productivity.

I just wish everyone would stfu already.

[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?

For example: I think the President is evaluating Anthony Blinken based on things other than his RTO percentage. Effectively, at this point Blinken is not “fireable at will.” There would be a huge price to pay in Isr/Pal efforts for that, and RTO ain’t worth it—no matter what Jeff Zients says about it.

Of course RTO isn't the only metric that leaders are evaluated on, State has also done a good job of getting more staff in the office and Blinken has been publicly supportive of the importance of in person diplomacy.

This debate is going to be funny this time next year if we have a change of administrations next year and the Heritage folks show up and fire anyone who isn't back all of the time. Imagine complaining about being back half time.