After the Department of Education signaled in a June town hall that it would be increasing in-person work, Secretary Miguel Cardona has now given employees further details on what that will look like.

Come fall, teleworkers will be expected to work on site at least four times per biweekly pay period, an increase of one day per week over the previously policy, the agency said in a July 7 email obtained by Federal Times.

“The benefits of having more in person time with each other will be worth it in the end, and I am confident we can successfully make this next transition, as well,” Cardona’s email said.

Per the email, agency leadership believes increasing in-person work will correlate with improved creativity, problem solving and professional relationships. The agency also said the policy will help onboarding, which employees in general have agreed is one process better done in person, according to an Eagle Hill Consulting survey from May.

The agency maintains that it’s announcing the changes now to give employees time to make arrangements. More guidance and transition planning is still to come, as the agency still must negotiate the notice with the union.

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The American Federal of Government Employees represents 2,400 Department of Education workers and said the new policy reneges on the agreement it bargained over in October.

“To be clear, Secretary Cardona has not negotiated this change with our union nor has he (or his designees) provided our union with any data points that suggest that ‘a large percentage of employees’ identified a lack of in-person engagement as a hindrance to performance,” Sheria Smith, a local union president, told Federal Times in a statement.

The agency did not respond to requests for comment by time of publication.

Smith previously told Federal Times that the department’s reasoning for reviewing telework and remote work policies seems murky. She said that based on what was said during the town hall, it didn’t seem like productivity was the impetus for change.

Remote workers, which Smith said made up the majority of employees, may also see their schedules change in August when the agency reviews position eligibility.

‘Return to Office’

Several federal agencies are moving on to the next phase of “return to office” plans after the Office of Management and Budget announced in April that agencies are expected to increase “meaningful” in-person work at agency headquarters. That memo was not an order, however, and it maintained that flexible policies should still be used as an “important tool” for recruitment and retention.

Meanwhile, some within the workforce are frustrated, saying they haven’t been given a straight reason behind the changes. Smith said employees’ lives have changed since March 2020, and many have moved to more affordable suburbs or have become caregivers of elderly family or children. They cannot change on a dime, she said, and they don’t need to be public facing to do their jobs.

Members of the 2.2 million-strong federal civilian workforce is paying close attention to telework changes within their own agencies and at neighboring ones, with many indicating that the ability to work from home at least some of the time is a strong incentive to stay in the job.

So far, the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the Federal Emergency Management Agency have initiated similar reentry plans in recent weeks.

Is telework changing at your agency? Want our reporters to look into it? Email us at tips@federaltimes.com. Anonymous submissions welcome.

Molly Weisner is a staff reporter for Federal Times where she covers labor, policy and contracting pertaining to the government workforce. She made previous stops at USA Today and McClatchy as a digital producer, and worked at The New York Times as a copy editor. Molly majored in journalism at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

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