For specific skills gaps or hard-to-recruit positions, HUD can offer a higher salary to aid recruitment and retention. The hearing Thursday probed the Department of Interior over its lingering telework flexibilities despite recent return-to-office orders. Employees who telework or work fully remotely are expected to continue going so and generally do not receive weather and safety leave. Bowser’s administration is calling district employees back to offices after urging federal agencies to do the same. And of those who could, 87% of federal employees participated in telework in FY22. Many large departments have issued similar orders in recent months to call broad swaths of their workforces back to offices. More than half of Metro station serve federal facilities, and about a third of peak commuters were federal employees pre-pandemic. "I’m calling on Biden’s bureaucrats to deck the agency halls with federal workers or sell off unused space," she said. Republicans in Congress especially have sought to peel back remote work after the federal workforce was sent home during the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s one of several recent decisions by agencies governmentwide to increase in-person work. Load More