Trump has ordered federal staff again to the workplace. Problem is there is not sufficient area | EUROtoday

President Donald Trump’s order for all federal staff to return to the workplace may hit a highway bump because of the insurance policies of his personal authorities.

On his first day in workplace, Trump ordered all businesses to finish distant work and for workers to return to their in-person responsibility stations. A January 22 memo from the White House’s Office of Personnel Management gave businesses 30 days to adjust to this order.

And with the clock ticking, federal businesses — nor the administration itself — have any thought how they may implement this because of the lack of area obtainable, The Washington Post experiences.

In many places of work, federal staff might be “sitting on top of each other,” in line with Jack Fingert, a senior adviser to the General Services Administration administrator beneath former president Barack Obama.

“There are some specific offices where they literally don’t have enough square feet per person,” Fingert informed the Post.

A Federal Emergency Management Agency worker informed the Post her boss stated there’s solely room for 60 p.c of staff of their present workplace. They have been ordered to telework twice every week even earlier than the COVID-19 pandemic on account of these constraints, the worker stated.

Others are involved about touring a number of states away on such brief discover.

“I don’t know what return to office will mean for me as there is no federal worksite for my agency within hundreds of miles,” a federal worker residing on the West Coast informed the Post.

This downside is exacerbated by the truth that Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency have focused federal buildings for cuts and even terminated leases for 3 workplace areas.

Another concern is that the federal government doesn’t know precisely how a lot workplace area is even obtainable on account of a scarcity of knowledge on workplace occupancy and capability, the Post experiences.

“Right now we’re kind of like an airplane with no windows and no instruments,” Michael Peters, commissioner of the Public Buildings Service, stated at a gathering final week. “We don’t really know what occupancy is.”

Meanwhile, just some 20,000 federal staff have accepted the Trump administration’s supply to resign by Thursday in trade for a virtually eight-month buyout.

However, an Office of Personnel Management spokesperson beforehand informed The Independent the quantity remains to be rising forward of the deadline Thursday.

The Independent has contacted the White House for remark.