The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, the agency within the Department of Health and Human Services that oversees federal health programs, said it will begin shifting employees in the U.S. Capitol region back to the office.
The agency said it while it will remain a hybrid workplace, employees living in the Baltimore-Washington, D.C., commuting area will be switched from remote to telework designations starting in the fall.
That changes employees’ duty stations from their home to the office, according to a recent email sent to agency employees that was obtained by Federal Times.
RELATED
A remote worker, according to the Office of Personnel Management, is not expected to report to an office while teleworkers split their time regularly between the office and another workplace.
CMS has a telework agreement of eight days per pay period that it negotiated with the American Federation of Government Employees largest local unit. Roughly a quarter of the CMS workforce is considered telework eligible, according to OPM’s FedScope database.
The agency is continuing to refine its guidance and is including input from employees, according to a spokesperson, who said CMS is in discussions with the union on implementation.
Anita Autrey, president of AFGE local 1923, said the announcement came as a shock to employees.
“We were just completely taken aback,” she said in an interview.
The union has filed two unfair labor practice complaints as of Monday in response to the agency’s plan, saying the it expects the agency to negotiate changes before rolling them out.
Autrey also said it’s not clear what the reasoning is for the reclassification of remote positions, considering the agency approved this type of work during the pandemic. She also said a memo from the White House Office of Management and Budget in May gave no mandates to the agencies in terms of a return-to-work policy.
Lawmakers in Congress have criticized agency heads over their remote and telework policies as the pandemic ebbed.
At a hearing in March, HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra was questioned by lawmakers over a picture that Sen. Bill Cassidy, a Republican from Louisiana, presented of an empty parking lot at the headquarters office.
Becerra did not say how many employees were currently working onsite.
There are roughly 90,000 HHS employees working nationwide, about 6,400 of which work for CMS, which is based in Maryland.
CMS is the among several agencies that have announced plans to bring employees back to offices. Federal Times reported on Tuesday that the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation will require employees to be on site three days per week next year.
Last month, the Department of Veterans Affairs also said it is looking to require headquarters staff to spend more time in the office come the fall.
And employees of the Federal Emergency Management Agency are being told they will need to work in-office a minimum of four days per pay period, Federal News Network originally reported this month.
Molly Weisner is a staff reporter for Federal Times where she covers labor, policy and contracting pertaining to the government workforce. She made previous stops at USA Today and McClatchy as a digital producer, and worked at The New York Times as a copy editor. Molly majored in journalism at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
