Executive orders & MOSAIC

[Half Fast]

I DO go out onto the shop floor and talk with employees, meet with various people, conduct visual audits each week,.....

It's difficult to measure but I'd bet there is more impact from this than you might think.

The best leadership is done by relationship and trust, and only rarely has to resort to authority. Going onto the floor, talking with people, putting your own eyeballs onto their work, hearing their concerns, etc., goes a long way to building that trust.

 

[Checkout_my_Six]

It's difficult to measure but I'd bet there is more impact from this than you might think.

The best leadership is done by relationship and trust, and only rarely has to resort to authority. Going onto the floor, talking with people, putting your own eyeballs onto their work, hearing their concerns, etc., goes a long way to building that trust.

Only if you act on their concerns and earn their loyalty.

 

[SoonerAviator]

It's difficult to measure but I'd bet there is more impact from this than you might think.

The best leadership is done by relationship and trust, and only rarely has to resort to authority. Going onto the floor, talking with people, putting your own eyeballs onto their work, hearing their concerns, etc., goes a long way to building that trust.

Absolutely, and it's a lesson I picked up early-on in my career. People are much more likely to ask questions or be open about issues when they believe you're a friend rather than a foe. Now, would our actual production output change? Probably not. It likely doesn't result in any measurable increase in efficiency or financial performance. It does likely help in some tiny amount with morale and my ability to address small issues before they become problems and headaches.

There is certainly enough nuance in much of front-office work that makes claiming working from home as less-efficient. Every job is different in that respect, so it would honestly be best for every person/job to be evaluated on how best it should operate (in-person or remote). I seriously doubt there's any savings in bringing people back into the office after half-a-decade unless they've been mismanaged by their superiors.

In the case of Trumps EO, I have a feeling it's a way of driving voluntary attrition rather than having to do mass layoffs in order to trim government staff. The people who refuse to RTO will jump ship for a job in the private sector and the government will avoid backfilling until something critical is being delayed due to lack of staffing.

 

[Half Fast]

Every job is different in that respect, so it would honestly be best for every person/job to be evaluated on how best it should operate (in-person or remote).

Exactly. And the EO allows for exemptions so those judgement calls can be made.

In the case of Trumps EO, I have a feeling it's a way of driving voluntary attrition rather than having to do mass layoffs in order to trim government staff. The people who refuse to RTO will jump ship for a job in the private sector and the government will avoid backfilling until something critical is being delayed due to lack of staffing.

DING DING DING! We have a winner! And I wouldn't be surprised if, a year from now when the EO has brought about all the staff trimming it's likely to, WFH will be allowed again for some of the remaining staff.

Much of what Trump is doing looks pretty familiar to business people who have watched a new boss take over a floundering business, but to people who have been in USG jobs for many years it probably looks like an alien invasion.

 

[Lindberg]

In the case of Trumps EO, I have a feeling it's a way of driving voluntary attrition rather than having to do mass layoffs in order to trim government staff.

That is one of the stated goals.

Among other things, soon after the presidential election, Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, who at the time were both slated to run Trump’s newly created Department of Government Efficiency, signaled that having a full-time return-to-office mandate was an invitation for many to quit.

“Requiring federal employees to come to the office five days a week would result in a wave of voluntary terminations that we welcome,” they wrote in an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal.

https://www.cnn.com/2025/01/23/business/trump-federal-workers-rto-mandate/index.html

 

[172andyou]

Much of what Trump is doing looks pretty familiar to business people who have watched a new boss take over a floundering business

Yep. And those of us that have seen this before know that it tends to lead to the best staff leaving because they find it easy to find another job, while the lower performers stick around because they don't have as many options. This is far from universal, but it's definitely a tendency.

 

[Salty]

Yep. And those of us that have seen this before know that it tends to lead to the best staff leaving because they find it easy to find another job, while the lower performers stick around because they don't have as many options. This is far from universal, but it's definitely a tendency.

In general I agree. In the case of government employees, I'm not so sure.

 

[RussR]

DING DING DING! We have a winner! And I wouldn't be surprised if, a year from now when the EO has brought about all the staff trimming it's likely to, WFH will be allowed again for some of the remaining staff.

In my experience, your estimate of "a year from now" is way overly optimistic. Implementing this EO is easily going to require months of study, meetings, and negotiations before anything really happens with the individual employees. That's not (necessarily) a bureaucratic-slowness issue, but simply a realistic one. Heck, many organizations have been WFH for so long now that office facilities are no longer adequate. Issues as basic as "we don't have desks for these people" need to be resolved.

As another example, there was an effort a few years ago for government organizations to terminate leases on office space they no longer needed due to WFH. I have no idea how successful this was, but certainly at least SOME office space got turned back to the building owner and is now being used for other things. That's going to require a decent lead time to resolve, and until that happens, where do those people go? Rhetorical questions, of course.

After all, it's not like this WFH thing only lasted a week or two. You can't just say "we sent them all home, now bring them all back to work", because heck, even the "them" has changed in the last 5 years.

but to people who have been in USG jobs for many years it probably looks like an alien invasion.

Not as unusual as you think. We government employees are used to pretty constant policy changes, reorganizations, new administrations, etc. And we just kind of roll with it - most changes seem to have little real effect on the individual employee's daily life, although this one could certainly be the exception to that.

 

[wanttaja]

Yep. And those of us that have seen this before know that it tends to lead to the best staff leaving because they find it easy to find another job, while the lower performers stick around because they don't have as many options. This is far from universal, but it's definitely a tendency.

Saw that at Boeing about thirty years ago. Had a surplus of engineers in a certain field, and the powers that be decided the best approach would be to offer early retirement to anyone who wanted to.

Wasn't the slackers that took them up on it. It was the best engineers, men and women with the confidence that they'd be successful in another field/company. The slackers were left, and it hurt the company.

BTW, Boeing is as close to "government" as you can get, without a "GS" code in your job title.

Boeing went back to their traditional way of paring the work force: Studying the performance ratings, and laying off the low-performers.

What's weird about the new administration's approach is their assumption that all government employees are LRUs...Line Replaceable Units, any given employee can do any given job. If a person is a high performer, THAT'S the person they should want to retain, not chase away. Just saying "We'll get rid of anyone who wants to work from home" ignores what a given person might be accomplishing.

Oh, I know there's a certain percentage of WFH types who do it just to skate. But the RIF should take the performance levels into account, not just that they don't want to commute every day.

The main product here is going to be low morale among government employees...their abilities aren't valued, just their willingness to NOT do work from home. Poor morale isn't conducive to efficiency. The new administration has told the rank-and-file what they think of them.

Seems to me the government should be able to cross-reference performance records with whether the person works in the office or remotely.....

Ron Wanttaja

 

[Half Fast]

If a person is a high performer, THAT'S the person they should want to retain, not chase away. Just saying "We'll get rid of anyone who wants to work from home" ignores what a given person might be accomplishing.

Remember that exemptions can be made on a case-by-case basis. Who do you think will be more likely to get a WFH exemption, the star or the bottom feeder?

 

[Checkout_my_Six]

depends who the star picker is....

 

[UngaWunga]

My old boss worked 24 hours, 6 days a week. Almost literally. I don't know when the guy slept. Totally anti-WFH before COVID. During COVID, he got an extra 1.5 hours of work done everyday. So he never wanted to come back. That's not most people. Especially nowadays when everyone has anxiety, ADHD, neurodivergence, imposter syndrome, burnout, and gluten sensitivities.

both of you sound like you'd be fun to work with.

 

[AvNavCom]

Remember that exemptions can be made on a case-by-case basis. Who do you think will be more likely to get a WFH exemption, the star or the bottom feeder?

Truthfully? Neither, because exemptions open up a Pandora's Box of potential discrimination claims as to why one person got it while another didn't. Today, senior leadership made it clear that there are zero exemptions outside of contractual requirements. The government already has a hard time holding on to talent because the pay is lower, so telework was at least a non-monetary strategy to encourage applicants and to retain strong performers. I'm not sure this is going to result in the lean, efficient government as some people seem to believe.

 

[wanttaja]

Remember that exemptions can be made on a case-by-case basis. Who do you think will be more likely to get a WFH exemption, the star or the bottom feeder?

So either:

A. The employee has to beg for his or her job, or

B. The employee gets to commit extortion if their boss want to keep them ("I'll quit if you don't get me an exemption").

Neither is conducive to good labor relations.

What are the procedures and policies for requesting an exemption, and the process for approving it? I'm guessing there aren't any. Classic, right out of Catch-22. "You can apply for an exemption, but we can't give you one because we don't have the procedures yet. Until then, your work from home is cancelled."

This is tailor-made to drive out anyone with a spark of pride or initiative. You're left with those who think they can't survive anywhere else.

Ron Wanttaja

 

[Ed Haywood]

Many positions in the federal government have no commercial analog. The primary qualification is expertise with internal government processes, which are often agency-specific.
Some of these folks have very marketable skills within the government contractor industry. I have hired some. However, many others will find limited outside demand for mid-level bureaucrats.
In 15 years in the industry, I have never seen a contractor employee decline an offer of a government job. I have also never seen a government position go unfilled.

 

[Warmi]

So either:

A. The employee has to beg for his or her job, or

B. The employee gets to commit extortion if their boss want to keep them ("I'll quit if you don't get me an exemption").

Neither is conducive to good labor relations.

What are the procedures and policies for requesting an exemption, and the process for approving it? I'm guessing there aren't any. Classic, right out of Catch-22. "You can apply for an exemption, but we can't give you one because we don't have the procedures yet. Until then, your work from home is cancelled."

This is tailor-made to drive out anyone with a spark of pride or initiative. You're left with those who think they can't survive anywhere else.

Ron Wanttaja

Thats pretty much the policy Elon is utilizing at SpaceX and other his companies - how they manage to get these rockets flying is somewhat mysterious to me given that by now all the people with pride and initiative are surely gone ( at lest according to your theory of proper labor relations )

 

[wanttaja]

Thats pretty much the policy Elon is utilizing at SpaceX and other his companies - how they manage to get these rockets flying is somewhat mysterious to me given that by now all the people with pride and initiative are surely gone ( at lest according to your theory of proper labor relations )

There's a difference between space and government. Most of the people working space programs are pretty dedicated, and will sacrifice. Pencil pushers at the Department of Agriculture, not so much.

For the rest, well...did the employees in the other companies have WFH pulled out from under them without warning, or were they allowed to do it during the pandemic with the warning that they'd have to return to the office at some point. There is a difference.

Ron Wanttaja

 

[pfarber]

I think perhaps you are confusing 'work from home' with 'use of personal devices'..

You would think people who work on PCs, programming no less, would not muck up a dev system. You would be wrong. It also tells me that you may not have a technical job (no, 'office 365' is not it).

If you know, you know. *nix systems are the worst offenders. Even though there are rules, who is there to enforce them at home? In the office we would 100% rip on you for something as stupid as getting your environment out of wack.

 

[pfarber]

We solve that with containers. Same container build is used for dev/stage/prod. Same container build is used when commits are automatically tested. This class of problem doesn't exist in our organization.

Now, that said, none of those problems are WFH problems. We had those problems when working at the office/lab also.

The one thing private and guberment depts have in common is supporting legacy apps. Its both sad and hilarious that way more mega corps are still dragging 20,30+ year old code around. At NAVSISA we still ran COBOL. It was hilarious when we had to do a disaster drill and rebuild one of the TRIM servers..... we chouldn't find the activation key or the floppy disk it was written on. This was in the mid 2000's. Good times. DITSCAP would routinely disable machines that has a specific library used for password strength checks.

Also emulation is nice until you get into the lower level stuff. Containers and VMs are not a global solution. Many older drivers would search for hardware that would not run under a VM. Granted this was a few years ago.

 

[RussR]

Remember that exemptions can be made on a case-by-case basis. Who do you think will be more likely to get a WFH exemption, the star or the bottom feeder?

It doesn't work like that. Much of the federal government is represented by various unions. WFH would need to be reasonably equally applied to all (or none) of the workers in each bargaining unit.