Millions of American federal employees have been ordered to return to offices across the country in recent weeks, marking the end of Covid era rules that allowed more flexibility to work from home. However, many have found chaos reigning in the spaces where they were supposed to work.
Several federal agencies called back most of their employees to the office last week, but their return has encountered issues such as lack of office space and work equipment.
In an office at the Department of Health and Human Services, there was no Wi-Fi or electricity in the early hours when people came to work last week. Employees at the Department of Education in a Dallas office found piles of ethernet cables on the floor, wires coming out of walls, and motion sensor lights that were not functioning properly, plunging workspaces into darkness.
In other government offices, the situation was even worse, reports CNN.
An employee tripped over a tangle of cables on the first day back at the office and ended up with a large cut on their leg. They filed a complaint.
An employee at the Department of Defense handling classified information was stuck in a conference room with people from other teams, so they had to ask them to leave the room to make calls. Eventually, they were moved to an office but without Wi-Fi, so they had to use their phone as a hotspot for internet access.
"The only thing returning to the office has offered me is an hour of traffic and a loss of efficiency," said the employee, requesting anonymity out of fear of reprisals.
An employee at the Department of Education in Washington said that in the first week back at the office, basic supplies were missing: computers, pens, headsets, as well as private spaces and conference rooms necessary for confidential work requirements.
Employees Who Have Nowhere to Return
At the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) headquarters in Silver Spring, Maryland, there has been a telecommuting policy for over 20 years, according to agency officials. Many employees were working remotely three to four days a week and are now adjusting to the rigidity of returning to the office.
"Morale is quite low," said an agency employee. "If you have a dentist appointment at 3:00 p.m. near where you live and it ends at 4:15 p.m., you can't work from home in the last hour. You have to return to the office or take sick leave," he explained.
The problems and confusion federal employees faced upon returning to the office have only increased the chaos that has persisted for six weeks in a Trump administration determined to shrink the size of the federal government, CNN notes.
Some federal workers being told to return to the office don't even have a place to go. The Department of the Interior, which manages the country's internal resources, has lost two leased buildings in the western part of the country. And the lease for another building where hundreds of people work will not be renewed in June.
A source said that the General Services Administration (GSA), which manages federal buildings, does not seem to be coordinating lease terminations with officials at the Department of the Interior, so employees don't know what to do. A spokesperson for the Interior said the department is "working with GSA to ensure that facilities or alternative options will be available" for employees.
Government Workers Fear for Their Jobs
The reduction of office space, coupled with the order to cut the number of positions, has employees fearing mass layoffs.
Almost half of the over 2.3 million federal civilian employees were eligible for remote work, and 10% were in remote areas, according to a 2024 report from the Office of Management and Budget.
Many stopped working full-time in their offices during the Covid-19 pandemic, but others had long-term arrangements to work from home, and now those who won't be laid off may have to choose between fundamentally changing their work mode and resigning.
Over 80% of federal workers live outside the Washington DC metropolitan area, meaning the mandate to return to the office will have an impact nationwide.
The 2024 OMB report found that employees eligible for remote work spend an average of 60% of their working time in the office, although this figure varies widely from one agency to another.
Approximately 10% of government workers work remotely and do not expect to show up at an office at all, according to the report, which mentioned that the Biden administration has asked agencies to increase federal employees' time spent in the office.
The goal of the Biden administration was for employees working from home to spend at least 50% of their time in the office. Now, Trump has shifted this goal, demanding full-time office work.
However, not all federal workers are returning at the same pace. Trump's executive order, issued hours after taking office in January, requires agencies to terminate remote work programs "as soon as possible."
Trump and Elon Musk have threatened to fire employees who do not return to the office, even those represented by unions that have signed long-term agreements for remote work.
Many federal agencies set February 24 as the date for some of their employees to comply with Trump's directive to return to the office.
"If they don't show up for work, we fire them. In other words, you have to go to the office," Trump said last month at a conservative political conference, while also claiming that his golf game would greatly improve if he worked remotely.
Federal workers and union officials told CNN that this is part of the Trump administration's attempt to harass federal employees, hoping some will resign.
T.D.