WHO NEEDS AN OFFICE ANYWAY?
that when people return to the office there will be a mass exodus, she said. Employees near retirement have grown accustomed to sustained telework over the last year or so, “and would rather just retire than to endure the pains of commuting, mass transit, and not to mention, wearing dress shoes again,” she said. Te Army hopes that telework flexibilities will help retain its highly skilled workforce and allow for a successful transition of skills and knowledge.
Te Army is also analyzing which posi- tions may be reclassified as exclusively virtual and how best to do that, Compton said. Discussions during the Virtual Work Option Meeting covered various topics, including how to deal with conduct and performance issues in a remote telework environment. “Other topics were relative to natural attrition. [Te Army] is look- ing at what effect virtual work programs will have on normal workforce transitions.
Sometimes people vacate positions because seasons in life change, i.e., your mili- tary husband has to [move]—but now he [moves] and you get to keep your job; what happens then regarding the natural turnover? We want to minimize the loss of talents and skills; however, we also do not want to block opportunities for new thought and innovation.”
One thing the Army is not currently considering is allowing a domestic employee to remotely telework from over- seas, she said. So if you thought about moving to the Greek Isles—or your spouse was assigned there—and you want to keep your stateside job through telework, think again. Tat’s not currently on the table.
One thing will likely remain the same, even if there are new telework policies in the future: “Te decisions remain with organizational leaders. Army elects to allow commanders, principal officials
and directors to retain the autonomy to manage the workforce under their purview,” Compton said. “If their mission is such that they are working directly with the warfighter, 100 percent of their people might have to be in the office.” In other words, telework won’t be driven by a minimum or maximum percentage of participating employees, but rather by what that commander or director knows the workforce needs to get the job done, she explained. Te new-normal Army office spaces will be likely be a hybrid of on-site work and telework.
NEED TO KNOW MORE ABOUT CURRENT TELEWORK POLICIES? CHECK OUT THESE HELPFUL RESOURCES:
• Office of Personnel Management Telework Guide:
https://go.usa.gov/xH6jw
• Travel guidance:
https://go.usa.gov/xH6j7 • Locality pay charts:
https://go.usa.gov/xH6jA
• Determining an Employee’s official worksite:
https://www.law.
cornell.edu/cfr/text/5/531.605
• U.S. General Services Administration Handbook for Relocating Federal Employees:
https://go.usa.gov/xH6jH
• U.S. Equal Opportunity Commission on Telework and Work at Home:
www.eeoc.gov/facts/telework.html
WHAT ABOUT USAASC? At the time of this writing, there was no change in the return-to-the-office status at headquarters USAASC— everything remained status quo. “We need to proceed cautiously,” Comp- ton said, and do our due diligence as a workforce. Tat means fully vaccinated individuals—doses one and two for two-dose vaccines—can do most of the things they did prior to the pandemic without a mask or physical distancing, unless otherwise mandated, like in a work environment. Unvaccinated or half-vacci- nated individuals should continue to wear masks and socially distance.
Craig Spisak, director of USAASC, is also considering official guidelines from the CDC about vaccinations and their efficacy over an extended period. For example, can you be fully vaccinated and still carry COVID-19 asymptomatically? “Tere are just so many unknown variables, and I appreciate the fact that he [Spisak] is proceeding with caution [and] with the care of the organization at the fore- front,” Compton said. She also cautions that, though USAASC is essentially tele- working until told otherwise, things could change rapidly based on leadership deci- sions and scientific guidelines.
106
Army AL&T Magazine
Summer 2021
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