Federal Agencies Have Until Friday to Order End of Remote Work

Federal agency heads by Friday must order their employees to report to the office full time, according to a notice from the federal government’s HR office.

Agency leaders should set a date of roughly 30 days for employees to comply with the change, according to a Wednesday memo from Acting Office of Personnel Management Director Charles Ezell. Disabled employees or those with another “compelling reason” certified by their supervisor and the agency leader won’t have to report to the office, Ezell wrote.

Employees that live more than 50 miles from their agency’s office will be assigned to another location, according to the memo. The change to in-person work is “subject to any exclusions granted by the agency and any collective bargaining obligations,” Ezell wrote in the memo.

Having more employees in federal offices has long been a focus for President Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress. He signed an executive order on Monday calling for all federal staff to report to work sites full time. Ezell’s memo puts that order into action.

More than one million federal employees—almost half of the civilian workforce—were eligible to work remotely at least part of the time as of May 2024, according to a Biden administration report. Around 10% of that workforce was entirely remote.

Some agencies have locked telework into union contracts. The leader of the Social Security Administration signed an agreement with the American Federation of Government Employees that enables select employees to work from home part-time until 2029.