Do you think DOGE will eliminate remote policy?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:WFH saves the government money.

You still need to pay for HVAC and maintain buildings if employees aren’t coming in much and deferred maintenance is more costly. It’s not a huge savings when you think about it that way. Companies figured out during the pandemic that the only way to lock in savings from reduced office time is to sell buildings, lease unused space, or get out of leases.

Very few positions require in person meeting. So yes, it would make sense to end leases and sell buildings. Keep a few buildings. When in-person is needed, meet at those designated locations. Keeping a building just because when WFH is possible and efficient doesn’t make sense for many roles and is antiquated thinking especially if cutting costs is your goal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am fully remote but fully expect that to change. Yes, I understand that some of us work the entire 8 hours or more, but realistically, most people work less when they work from home. I think it’s disingenuous not to concede that point. I’m not looking forward to RTO but I can concede that if I was in management, I’d want people in the office. We had a longer run post pandemic than most and I’m grateful that I had this brief period in life of remote but it’s a privilege that I never expected to go on indefinitely.

Many people work less when they’re in the office as well so the point about some working less when at home is moot. A poor performer will be a poor performer wherever they are, the difference is in the office they will drag others down with them with distracting questions/ conversations, feigned helplessness and other pointless in-person interactions.

I’m in management and I don’t feel strongly about people in the office. I feel strongly about output and my team has been great while fully remote. They were fine in-person as well but I see them going the extra mile while wfh. We were also able to hire people that I don’t think we would have been able to attract because of wfh. I’m worried about losing talent.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Article in the NYT today about DOGE talks about how Senator Ernst of Iowa recommended selling off fed bldgs and making more people remote to save money. So who knows.

That is good way to hire workforce across the country. It may be a good selling point to GOP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am fully remote but fully expect that to change. Yes, I understand that some of us work the entire 8 hours or more, but realistically, most people work less when they work from home. I think it’s disingenuous not to concede that point. I’m not looking forward to RTO but I can concede that if I was in management, I’d want people in the office. We had a longer run post pandemic than most and I’m grateful that I had this brief period in life of remote but it’s a privilege that I never expected to go on indefinitely.

Many people work less when they’re in the office as well so the point about some working less when at home is moot. A poor performer will be a poor performer wherever they are, the difference is in the office they will drag others down with them with distracting questions/ conversations, feigned helplessness and other pointless in-person interactions.

I’m in management and I don’t feel strongly about people in the office. I feel strongly about output and my team has been great while fully remote. They were fine in-person as well but I see them going the extra mile while wfh. We were also able to hire people that I don’t think we would have been able to attract because of wfh. I’m worried about losing talent.

Our best people are fully remote. Losing all of them would be so awful for our office.

[Anonymous]

I think they would let managers decide who should WFH. I let a few of my employees do as they are high performers but another 14 needs to come in because her performance is questionable. Leave it upto the managers to make things more efficient.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think they would let managers decide who should WFH. I let a few of my employees do as they are high performers but another 14 needs to come in because her performance is questionable. Leave it upto the managers to make things more efficient.

Hopefully they’ll consider this. But I’m not hopeful

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We were all moved from local remote to telework after the pandemic. It was easy even though we had our home address and not the office. The agency had given up space so the operations team had to figure out they days that different groups could come in. We still have telework with core in office days.

No one knows what will happen, but you should take the time to prepare to be in the office and update your resume. Control what you can and the rest will happen so no point in worrying.

I think this is what the Trump administration doesn't realize. You can't reduce office space to save money and then require people back in 5 days a week. My own company did a similar thing and people have nowhere to sit. I wouldn't worry too much OP. They clearly have no plan other than to make people quit/retire.

Have none of you seen the open offices at Silicon Valley tech companies. They will rip out office walls and cubicles and lay out long desks and cram you at 4x the density.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We were all moved from local remote to telework after the pandemic. It was easy even though we had our home address and not the office. The agency had given up space so the operations team had to figure out they days that different groups could come in. We still have telework with core in office days.

No one knows what will happen, but you should take the time to prepare to be in the office and update your resume. Control what you can and the rest will happen so no point in worrying.

I think this is what the Trump administration doesn't realize. You can't reduce office space to save money and then require people back in 5 days a week. My own company did a similar thing and people have nowhere to sit. I wouldn't worry too much OP. They clearly have no plan other than to make people quit/retire.

Have none of you seen the open offices at Silicon Valley tech companies. They will rip out office walls and cubicles and lay out long desks and cram you at 4x the density.

I don't think you understand how little space some of us had pre covid. At my old agency, contractors were 3 to a cube (post covid, they are fully remote to save the space for feds). My friend was hoteling at a long table back in 2016. And they've reduced space since then.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is a good and interesting and novel new post to put out there.

Np fed, and I agree. I mentioned to a coworker today that I'm baffled by the incessant worry regarding RTO.

Really? People have been working at least hybrid in many cases for several decades and in some cases fully remote since Covid (or before in some cases) and have organized their lives around that schedule. A sudden change is going to require a lot of adjustments especially if the policy eliminates telework entirely. Do you live in this area? The traffic is bad. I live close in and it can easily take me an hour each way so that’s adding two hours every day to my workday.

Then get a new job. Geeze. People make the same arguments and claims about traffic, commuting, and how improved their productivity is again and again. Nothing new here. As a PP said, the best you can do is be prepared. If RTO is going to be a non-starter for you then get that resume ready and start looking around.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We were all moved from local remote to telework after the pandemic. It was easy even though we had our home address and not the office. The agency had given up space so the operations team had to figure out they days that different groups could come in. We still have telework with core in office days.

No one knows what will happen, but you should take the time to prepare to be in the office and update your resume. Control what you can and the rest will happen so no point in worrying.

I think this is what the Trump administration doesn't realize. You can't reduce office space to save money and then require people back in 5 days a week. My own company did a similar thing and people have nowhere to sit. I wouldn't worry too much OP. They clearly have no plan other than to make people quit/retire.

Have none of you seen the open offices at Silicon Valley tech companies. They will rip out office walls and cubicles and lay out long desks and cram you at 4x the density.

It's already that dense at my agency. Plans for building were made with the assumption that staff would wfh about half the time. Saved tax dollars for building and all the agency leased buildings were cleared out at the end of the contracts. We would literally have people sitting on the floor in halls if everyone RTO 5 days a week.

[Anonymous]

To those of you saying your depth has reduced office space—-what does this mean? Has the building been sold to a developer and your area is now a condo?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:To those of you saying your depth has reduced office space—-what does this mean? Has the building been sold to a developer and your area is now a condo?

We used to lease 4 floors in our building. Now we lease 1. Another nearby building no longer has a lease at all. I assume they are still leased as offices but to someone else.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We were all moved from local remote to telework after the pandemic. It was easy even though we had our home address and not the office. The agency had given up space so the operations team had to figure out they days that different groups could come in. We still have telework with core in office days.

No one knows what will happen, but you should take the time to prepare to be in the office and update your resume. Control what you can and the rest will happen so no point in worrying.

I think this is what the Trump administration doesn't realize. You can't reduce office space to save money and then require people back in 5 days a week. My own company did a similar thing and people have nowhere to sit. I wouldn't worry too much OP. They clearly have no plan other than to make people quit/retire.

If it's something they don't read, maybe someone should tell them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We were all moved from local remote to telework after the pandemic. It was easy even though we had our home address and not the office. The agency had given up space so the operations team had to figure out they days that different groups could come in. We still have telework with core in office days.

No one knows what will happen, but you should take the time to prepare to be in the office and update your resume. Control what you can and the rest will happen so no point in worrying.

I think this is what the Trump administration doesn't realize. You can't reduce office space to save money and then require people back in 5 days a week. My own company did a similar thing and people have nowhere to sit. I wouldn't worry too much OP. They clearly have no plan other than to make people quit/retire.

If it's something they don't read, maybe someone should tell them.

Realize, not read.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:To those of you saying your depth has reduced office space—-what does this mean? Has the building been sold to a developer and your area is now a condo?

My agency moved location to a smaller building, with the intention of not everyone fitting into the new location.