Anyone get telework approved at SEC?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Without opening the whole debate of lunch time or not, how much do we think they're simply going to be checking badge swipes for 8.5 hours per day versus matching up badge swipes to whatever your stated entrance and exit time is supposed to be per your schedule?

I've never gotten to work on time ever in my life unless it's something important like court or registrant meeting. So it's not about to happen in middle age. But I'm not a cheater either - if I'm 20 min late, I stay 20 minutes later. This was never ever a problem for anyone in before times. I wonder if it's a problem now.

Unless they've developed an entire AI system - and maybe they have - it's not going to be as easy as you'd think to use badge swipe data. While the standard day is 8.5, there's plenty of people in my group that are planning to do more than 8.5 on certain days so that they can make Thursday and Friday or whatever days they wish shorter and can be out in 6-7 hours. So when they pull data for Thursday and see people left in 6.75, are they then pulling up Work Smart for each person to verify that indeed that was supposed to be a 6.75 hour day for them? How much man power do they have in HR to do this? Again absent AI which maybe is linking badging with Work Smart for all we know. But assuming their systems aren't so sophisticated yet I feel like badging is used to detect really obvious issues - people not coming in at all. People coming in for 2 hours per day. People badging in and then leaving for hours and hours, only to badge back in in the afternoon before quitting time; sounds crazed but I know a guy who was doing that early on in RTO - he'd badge in and then go play tennis for 2-3 hours. They started doing that last August/Sept and if you got on HR's radar you were warned and they then watched you closely. Like you got flagged as not being trustworthy. From what I heard it was people whose time entries chronically showed they weren't coming in as required or were coming in, swiping a card and leaving in an hour.

My bet is they do random audits and check for 40ish hours in the building and a certain variation away from that they compare to Quick time to see if someone was on leave. I agree they will be looking for the egregious cases like people that still TW a few times a week.

[Anonymous]

I had a really hard time getting ad hoc telework approved for a couple meetings this coming week. I’ve changed my schedule to reflect the full time RTO but it isn’t effective in on paper until the next pay period, and I have some meetings that fall outside my new schedule this coming week. All in all it took two calls and four emails (including a written justification) and the involvement of four employees to get this request approved by both my supervisor and second line supervisor. Took a couple hours of work time. Hopefully this was just a quirk due to RTO happening in the middle of a pay period, and supervisors being skittish in approving telework requests the first week staff is back.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t think it’s accurate to call it a “right” (or else they wouldn’t have been able to get rid of it. Probably a privilege. I agree it sucks thag management did this.

Management is too busy sucking up to Doge. I mean we need to wear our badges at all times. We're still doing the 5 bullet points? Even FDA which has had massive RIFs is bringing back 2 day/wk telework and has told everyone that they're done with the bullets. Us nope - keep sucking up to OPM/DOGE/WH like the spineless leaders you are.

Paul has been confirmed. Where the hell is he? I realize a town hall doesn't come together the next day but not even an email to staff?

You were always supposed to wear your badge, even if many people didn’t. And who the f cares about spending two minutes (max) on the five things email.

Maybe after two huge DIFs we can get back to TW twice a week, or even better, maybe we stop complaining about stupid stuff, and we avoid the RIFs altogether. (And FDA’s telework is really limited in terms of who can take part, so you probably don’t want to use that as a model.)

I mean you sound like one of those SEC people who feels soooo blessed to be here at all. I don't feel that way so YMMV. It's not that wearing a badge is a big deal or 5 seconds on a bullet email is a big deal, it's that leadership is being spineless. If they can't say no to 5 bullets, you legit think they'll say no when DOGE says hmm you know what you need a 15% RIF, the retirements weren't enough. News flash - they won't. So this spinelessness isn't protecting us from anything in the future.

I wouldn’t say I feel soooo blessed, but I do recognize we have a pretty good deal.

I disagree on your other point. Part of the reason to not fight not stupid stuff (badge, five things) and even some not stupid stuff (RTO) is to try to avoid pissing off dodge and having them ask for a 15% RIF. Is that definitely going to work? No, but it’s worth a shot.

Also, I don’t agree that them not fighting on the smaller stuff means they won’t fight on the bigger stuff. Atkins has an agenda and he knows he can’t accomplish with a wholly depleted and demoralized staff, so yes I do think it is possible leadership will fight on the bigger stuff, if steps to not need the fight don’t work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If FDA gets telework, the SEC should also have that same right - 2x a week sounds reasonable. Union should bring comparable to management.

The union should deploy its secret weapon: its rockstar union negotiator.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Without opening the whole debate of lunch time or not, how much do we think they're simply going to be checking badge swipes for 8.5 hours per day versus matching up badge swipes to whatever your stated entrance and exit time is supposed to be per your schedule?

I've never gotten to work on time ever in my life unless it's something important like court or registrant meeting. So it's not about to happen in middle age. But I'm not a cheater either - if I'm 20 min late, I stay 20 minutes later. This was never ever a problem for anyone in before times. I wonder if it's a problem now.

You can still do this. Most supervisors won’t make you use and earn credit hours in the same day for something like this. But it is technically required and some (probably newer) supervisors might require that.

Yeah I wouldn't worry about this. Honestly if they don't allow this what are they going to do - "discipline" everyone on the entire staff? Like what control does anyone have when Metro decides to randomly run the red line on a 10 min gap or there's some kind of hold for police activity? Or when traffic that reliably takes 35 min suddenly takes 50 one day?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I had a really hard time getting ad hoc telework approved for a couple meetings this coming week. I’ve changed my schedule to reflect the full time RTO but it isn’t effective in on paper until the next pay period, and I have some meetings that fall outside my new schedule this coming week. All in all it took two calls and four emails (including a written justification) and the involvement of four employees to get this request approved by both my supervisor and second line supervisor. Took a couple hours of work time. Hopefully this was just a quirk due to RTO happening in the middle of a pay period, and supervisors being skittish in approving telework requests the first week staff is back.

This is absurd. I can’t imagine my supervisor pulling this crap.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t think it’s accurate to call it a “right” (or else they wouldn’t have been able to get rid of it. Probably a privilege. I agree it sucks thag management did this.

Management is too busy sucking up to Doge. I mean we need to wear our badges at all times. We're still doing the 5 bullet points? Even FDA which has had massive RIFs is bringing back 2 day/wk telework and has told everyone that they're done with the bullets. Us nope - keep sucking up to OPM/DOGE/WH like the spineless leaders you are.

Paul has been confirmed. Where the hell is he? I realize a town hall doesn't come together the next day but not even an email to staff?

You were always supposed to wear your badge, even if many people didn’t. And who the f cares about spending two minutes (max) on the five things email.

Maybe after two huge DIFs we can get back to TW twice a week, or even better, maybe we stop complaining about stupid stuff, and we avoid the RIFs altogether. (And FDA’s telework is really limited in terms of who can take part, so you probably don’t want to use that as a model.)

I mean you sound like one of those SEC people who feels soooo blessed to be here at all. I don't feel that way so YMMV. It's not that wearing a badge is a big deal or 5 seconds on a bullet email is a big deal, it's that leadership is being spineless. If they can't say no to 5 bullets, you legit think they'll say no when DOGE says hmm you know what you need a 15% RIF, the retirements weren't enough. News flash - they won't. So this spinelessness isn't protecting us from anything in the future.

I wouldn’t say I feel soooo blessed, but I do recognize we have a pretty good deal.

I disagree on your other point. Part of the reason to not fight not stupid stuff (badge, five things) and even some not stupid stuff (RTO) is to try to avoid pissing off dodge and having them ask for a 15% RIF. Is that definitely going to work? No, but it’s worth a shot.

Also, I don’t agree that them not fighting on the smaller stuff means they won’t fight on the bigger stuff. Atkins has an agenda and he knows he can’t accomplish with a wholly depleted and demoralized staff, so yes I do think it is possible leadership will fight on the bigger stuff, if steps to not need the fight don’t work.

Why do you trust them so much!? I think they're just as bought and sold as everyone else in this adminstration.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I had a really hard time getting ad hoc telework approved for a couple meetings this coming week. I’ve changed my schedule to reflect the full time RTO but it isn’t effective in on paper until the next pay period, and I have some meetings that fall outside my new schedule this coming week. All in all it took two calls and four emails (including a written justification) and the involvement of four employees to get this request approved by both my supervisor and second line supervisor. Took a couple hours of work time. Hopefully this was just a quirk due to RTO happening in the middle of a pay period, and supervisors being skittish in approving telework requests the first week staff is back.

This is absurd. I can’t imagine my supervisor pulling this crap.

Same. This is either specific to your group or you have supervisors that are brand new and trying to go by the book. I mean for meetings that happen to fall outside my schedule, I can't imagine any supervisor in my group caring. Now if I were like this first week back is the week I MUST go to the DMV and I got a noon appointment and I want to telework that day, yeah I'd get passive aggressive push back on that. But for work - to be able to take a late call or whatever - never.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If FDA gets telework, the SEC should also have that same right - 2x a week sounds reasonable. Union should bring comparable to management.

What makes you think management would agree to that?

I’m not even positive the union would agree, since that would be a lot less than in the CBA.

[Anonymous]

After reading some of these responses, I think there needs to be a more uniform approach that is consistent across divisions and offices. Some offices should not get to telework more just because they have a cool boss while others never get telework because of a strict boss. It should be the same policy for all SEC staff.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Without opening the whole debate of lunch time or not, how much do we think they're simply going to be checking badge swipes for 8.5 hours per day versus matching up badge swipes to whatever your stated entrance and exit time is supposed to be per your schedule?

I've never gotten to work on time ever in my life unless it's something important like court or registrant meeting. So it's not about to happen in middle age. But I'm not a cheater either - if I'm 20 min late, I stay 20 minutes later. This was never ever a problem for anyone in before times. I wonder if it's a problem now.

Unless they've developed an entire AI system - and maybe they have - it's not going to be as easy as you'd think to use badge swipe data. While the standard day is 8.5, there's plenty of people in my group that are planning to do more than 8.5 on certain days so that they can make Thursday and Friday or whatever days they wish shorter and can be out in 6-7 hours. So when they pull data for Thursday and see people left in 6.75, are they then pulling up Work Smart for each person to verify that indeed that was supposed to be a 6.75 hour day for them? How much man power do they have in HR to do this? Again absent AI which maybe is linking badging with Work Smart for all we know. But assuming their systems aren't so sophisticated yet I feel like badging is used to detect really obvious issues - people not coming in at all. People coming in for 2 hours per day. People badging in and then leaving for hours and hours, only to badge back in in the afternoon before quitting time; sounds crazed but I know a guy who was doing that early on in RTO - he'd badge in and then go play tennis for 2-3 hours. They started doing that last August/Sept and if you got on HR's radar you were warned and they then watched you closely. Like you got flagged as not being trustworthy. From what I heard it was people whose time entries chronically showed they weren't coming in as required or were coming in, swiping a card and leaving in an hour.

My bet is they do random audits and check for 40ish hours in the building and a certain variation away from that they compare to Quick time to see if someone was on leave. I agree they will be looking for the egregious cases like people that still TW a few times a week.

Oh true they likely wouldn't do it day by day because with SEC Flex there is too much variation of a 9.5 hr day today followed by a 7.5 hr day tomorrow. So maybe they would just look for 40ish hrs/wk in the building or 80 per PP - plus or minus some grace period. And yes I think the first focus will def be people who decide they're still going to TW regularly and the supervisors that allow that to happen. I can't imagine it'll be tons of people but I think there will be some who for whatever reason will do what they want. In my group supervisors are being VERY "encouraging" of you taking whole days or half days off any time you want - don't worry if it stops up work - i.e. please don't ask to TW too much and put us in the awkward spot of saying no bc we need to cover our own asses here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:After reading some of these responses, I think there needs to be a more uniform approach that is consistent across divisions and offices. Some offices should not get to telework more just because they have a cool boss while others never get telework because of a strict boss. It should be the same policy for all SEC staff.

I think at some point it will be. IDK if it'll be the same for all of SEC but I can see it being the same across divisions bc you better believe people in TM or Exams or Enf will complain if their friends in the same division but a different office can telework and they never can.

[Anonymous]

When does Sir Paul get sworn in? Anyone know?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:After reading some of these responses, I think there needs to be a more uniform approach that is consistent across divisions and offices. Some offices should not get to telework more just because they have a cool boss while others never get telework because of a strict boss. It should be the same policy for all SEC staff.

No one approving multiple days of telework per week.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:After reading some of these responses, I think there needs to be a more uniform approach that is consistent across divisions and offices. Some offices should not get to telework more just because they have a cool boss while others never get telework because of a strict boss. It should be the same policy for all SEC staff.

And this is part of the reason why folks unionized in the first place at the SEC.

Support the union in all its flaws. Hope it wins eventually in litigation.