Reply to Jeff Zients throws a hissy fit in a memo about RTO

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]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!

[/quote]

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.[/quote]

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.” [/quote]

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.  
[/quote]

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.[/quote]
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.[/quote]
LMAO.  Zients already tried “influence” and “requesting” last year and[b] everyone rightly ignored him[/b] 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. [/quote]

Are you suggesting that no agency has made changes to the onsite work requirements since the initial email came out?[/quote]
If the agencies did what you are suggesting this latest whining from Zients is unnecessary and therefore moot.[/quote]

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.[/quote]

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

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.[/quote]

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