Return to The Office?

During President Trump’s campaign, he promised that he would shrink the federal workforce.  He also promised that he would bring federal employees back to the office.  One method President Trump said he would use to shrink the federal workforce is to bring federal employees back to the office, assuming those that don’t want to return to the office will retire or leave the federal workforce.  The Trump administration has officially called all federal employees back to the office five days a week.

President Trump has stated, many federal employees started working from home due to COVID, and working from home has made federal employees lazy and less productive.  There are several things President Trump and people in his administration have forgotten or are simply dismissing: 1) federal employees have been teleworking for almost 25 years when the telework policy was put in place https://www.opm.gov/telework/history-legislation-reports/, hence many federal employees were teleworking prior to COVID, 2) requiring all federal employees to return to the office five days a week will create traffic and parking nightmares in areas where there are a lot of federal employees and government contractors (i.e. Washington, D.C.) https://www.wusa9.com/article/traffic/navy-yard-traffic-federal-employees-return-to-office/65-d09b0eca-1b0c-4d15-b49e-6b6f4aa7ced0,  3) over the past 15 years government agencies have been giving up office space to decrease their green footprint, so forcing government employees to return to the office at the same time will create a spatial nightmare, and 4) during COVID working paradigms had to dramatically shift, so any metrics obtained during that time period would have to account for the new paradigms.