02/06/2025

Federal Workers Ordered Back to the Office

For many, there simply isn’t enough space in their offices

President Donald Trump’s directive for federal employees to return to in-person work could run into a significant hurdle: At agencies across the country, there simply isn’t enough space at their offices to accommodate everyone, multiple federal workers said.

Some agencies downsized their office space during the covid pandemic, as many employees moved to remote or hybrid work. Others had already granted telework arrangements to large numbers of workers, leaving them without an assigned office desk. And some employees hired as fully remote workers during the pandemic have never been assigned to an office and don’t even know where they’ll be expected to report to work.

On the day of his inauguration, Trump instructed all agency and department heads to terminate remote work and require employees to return full-time to their duty stations. A subsequent memo from the White House’s Office of Personnel Management on Jan. 22 directed agencies to comply within about 30 days.

Please select this link to read the complete article from The Washington Post.