“online petition requesting the Mayor revoke the new telework policy that demands employees return to the office 4 days/week”

via Change.org

“Dear PoPville,

Here’s the the online petition requesting the Mayor revoke the new telework policy that demands employees return to the office 4 days/week.

The statement was written by employees who are hoping DC residents and other DC govt employees can share and sign!

Solidarity with our cause will hopefully also result in other agencies and businesses being aware that telework must be here to stay!!”

The petition says in full:

“District of Columbia Government employees are seeking support for our fervent opposition to the recently proposed policy change that would reduce telework days from two days per week to one beginning in March 2024. We request that the Administration reverse its decision.

The proposed policy change would affect not only our lives, but the ability of the District to meet its climate goals. District staff are diverse in our lived experiences, demographics, and job duties, but remain united in our opposition to the new telework policy. The reasons for our opposition include, but are not limited to, the following:

Based upon our performance evaluations, District employees have maintained, possibly even increased, our productivity levels while teleworking over the last four years.

DCHR’s announcement stated that the goal of the change in policy is “to support the local economy” and be “a visible, active part of the community.” The implication is that District staff, by commuting to the office (primarily by car, although many staff do take transit, walk, or bike) and sitting in their cubicles will be more visible to others and will spend our hard-earned paychecks at local businesses during the workday. We have to ask, how does our presence inside of an office building increase the visibility of District government? We already fully participate in community meetings, site visits, and other “visible activities” under the current policy. And, knowing the administration’s focus on ‘downtown recovery,’ how does our spending help downtown recover when most of the District’s buildings are located outside of the downtown core

The proposed change in policy will reduce the District’s ability to attract and retain talent, a practice that has already been expressed as a challenge during recent performance oversight hearings. The existing telework arrangement has encouraged long-term employees with invaluable institutional knowledge to remain in the workforce longer than expected and helped persuade new employees with desirable experience and expertise to view the District Government as an attractive place to work. The proposed policy change would violate the trust those employees placed in the District and may result in the loss of many valuable employees.

Over the past four years, the District has invested heavily in establishing systems and acquiring equipment that make teleworking safe and efficient. Many employees have set up home offices and work routines that allow for quiet, uninterrupted, productive work. District Employees have access to software, such as Microsoft Teams, that allow for easy, quick communication between staff and collaborative meeting environments when working from home. By contrast, the office “cubicles” employees are required to work in often make it difficult to concentrate, hear, communicate in online meetings, and reduce productivity. Further, many meetings with the public are no longer coordinated in-person, but online via Teams, Zoom, or WebEX. The current policy ignores existing efficiencies in the market and instead seemingly enforces an antiquated, and frankly performative, reality that will negatively impact our ability to interact with a majority of clients.

COVID allowed many of us to realize the importance of establishing a reasonable work/life balance. Employees are already in the office more days than we telework. For many of us, accommodating an additional day in the office could undermine the ways in which we have built our lives over the last four years and require overly burdensome, potentially infeasible changes. Many of us have modified our lives in significant ways based upon the two-day-a-week telework policy. We have established routines for daycare, educating our children, caring for family members and pets, or even purchased homes further away from our offices due to reduced commuting requirements.

Reducing an already limited telework policy callously increases the risk to District employees whom are members of vulnerable communities or who struggle with health challenges and preexisting conditions. The new policy ignores the lessons learned during the pandemic that flexible work schedules allow us to care for our loved ones or receive medical treatment while remaining highly productive. The District’s current telework policy, already viewed as a compromise for many health-restricted employees, grants us this flexibility. The new policy may result in the unintended consequence of actually increasing the number of requests for situational telework and cause workers undue distress because of the uncertainty of whether those requests get approved.

Reducing telework days would create financial burdens for District employees who, like everyone else, are already struggling to meet the elevated costs of nearly all goods and services. Additional days in the office would increase expenses for commuting, parking, daily meals, dry cleaning/laundry, pet care, etc. This increased cost is compounded by the Executive’s failure to encourage, incentivize and ease the burden of the commute by providing non-unionized employees with money toward transit (e.g., SmartBenefits). As the DCHR statement notes, “it’s up to us to serve as an example for other large employers in the District,” and yet other large employers provide more extensive transit benefits than we do.

It is widely believed that the policy change is an attempt to “lead by example” and encourage the federal government to require its employees to return to their offices. But, the District’s employees are already leading by having one of the most limited telework policies in the region. There is no guarantee that a change in District policy would affect the federal government’s workplace policies.

Decreasing the number of telework days to one day per week goes against current research for worker health and well-being. Teleworking has been proven to increase frequency of physical activity and hours slept, reduce alcohol and fast-food consumption, lower stress levels, and increase job satisfaction (2022 literature review by Beckel & Fisher). This same study concluded that “the optimal time spent teleworking is approximately 40% of one’s overall working hours (two 8-hour days).”

The proposed increase in the number of days in the office will increase the hours staff spends commuting, an unproductive and wasteful practice. Teleworking allows employees to not only work their regular hours, but start earlier or work later without compromising our personal lives. Telework has also been a congestion-reducing strategy in the region for decades through Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments’ Commuter Connections program which the District helps fund.

Increasing days in the office will negatively affect our quality of life and the environment by increasing vehicle congestion, carbon production, and poor air quality days. The District Department of Transportation’s long-range plan, moveDC, includes a mode shift goal of 75% of commutes to be by non-car modes of transportation by 2032. At the end of last year, Mayor Bowser traveled to Dubai to attend the 2023 UN Climate Conference (COP28), where she announced Carbon-Free DC and detailed specific targets including reducing vehicle miles traveled in the District. Forcing tens of thousands of District employees to report to the office an additional day will increase the number of car trips on District roads and set us back in our progress.

Reducing the number of telework days despite the opposition of its employees suggests the District may attempt to completely eliminate all telework options.

By signing this petition, I am either:

a DC government employee opposed to this policy change
a DC resident who supports our local government workers’ fight to stop this policy change

Due to the urgency of the policy change, we kindly request signatures by March 1st.”