California Governor Gavin Newsom has issued a memo through his cabinet secretary, exclusively obtained by POLITICO, announcing a new government-wide policy. Starting in June, state employees will be required to work from the office for two days each week. This move aims to establish a balance between remote work and in-person collaboration within the state administration.
Cabinet Secretary Ann Patterson’s memo states that state employees must return to the office on June 17. Employees will be eligible for case-by-case exceptions depending on their particular situations and departmental needs, she stated in the memo.
Why this matters: The edict represents a significant policy shift for the administration, which has permitted heads of the state’s about 150 agencies, departments, and offices to establish their own remote work arrangements for the state’s 240,000 employees since the COVID-19 outbreak began.
This strategy resulted in varying standards from one agency to the next, even for the same categories of white-collar professionals, with some agencies allowing full-time remote employment.
“Unfortunately, the varied approaches have created confusion around expectations and are likely to exacerbate inconsistencies across agencies and departments,” Patterson said in a note to the editor.
She mentioned “improved collaboration, cohesion, and communication; better opportunities for mentorship, particularly for workers new to the workforce; and improved supervision and accountability” as advantages of returning to work.
Background: Newsom supported remote work early in the pandemic, and his administration has emphasized its benefits, including the establishment of a statistics dashboard (taken down March 29) that tallied miles saved and corresponding reductions in carbon gas emissions. Cubicles in certain businesses shrank, and employees gave up coveted long-term parking spots.
According to Patterson’s memo, around half of state personnel, including prison guards, janitors, groundskeepers, and others, were required to report to work in person throughout the pandemic.
Others, like the California Public Employees’ Retirement System, started requiring employees to report to work three days a week as early as 2022. Other large departments, such as the Department of Public Health and all of the Natural Resources Agency, have added in-office requirements this year, according to the Sacramento Bee.
One of the administration’s early concerns was being competitive with the business sector in remote employment. However, many people in the private sector are returning to work.
Powerful state worker unions have battled strict return-to-work regulations, stressing concerns about health risks and arguing that many workers are just as productive working from home.
However, the administration has received pressure to repatriate employees to their offices, including requests from Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg to relocate workers downtown to bolster the local economy.
Officials in other states have taken different approaches to return-to-work policies.
Under New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, state agencies can create their own policy for remote work, while most require employees to be in the office for some part of the week. Mayor Eric Adams of New York City forced municipal employees to return to their desks five days a week in June 2022. He softened the regulation months later due to significant workforce vacancy rates.
What happens next? Patterson said the state Human Resources Department will contact the unions about the move.
