Some DHS employees told to send selfies to prove they are in-office as department suddenly ends remote work
Some Homeland Security Department employees received an unusual request on Monday as they started their work weeks: send a selfie to your management team to prove you are in the office.
The notice came in after DHS on Sunday evening notified virtually all employees they must report to their office on Monday. Compressed and alternative work schedules, which allow federal employees to work longer hours each day in exchange for getting one day off each pay period, were canceled with immediate effect. Anyone who was not scheduled to work Monday must report or take a vacation day.
Employees who received the selfie request were told to include the background of their duty station and send it to their supervisors. The request came from a division chief at the senior executive level with DHS, according to a copy of the email obtained by Government Executive.
Some employees receiving the email complied and sent their selfie. Others asked for confirmation the request was legitimate, and were told it was and it came from the “big honchos” in their agency.
Other DHS employees received notices they must connect to their designated in-office seating and network ports and that remote network access for non-compliant employees would be disabled by Tuesday. Only staff married to active-duty military personnel, remote workers who are more than 50 miles from a DHS facility or employees with approved reasonable accommodations are, for now, not mandated to comply.
Some U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services employees who were not scheduled to work Monday were assigned two-hour windows to check in to their duty stations throughout the day Monday based on the first letter of their last names. Those who were scheduled to work were warned they “may be sent home after you log in” due to insufficient space. USCIS told staff they may be “turned away due to capacity issues,” according to an email obtained by Government Executive.
USCIS employees began receiving emails notifying them they had to report on Monday around 9 p.m. on Sunday. Others did not receive them until 4 a.m. Monday.
The process appeared to be unfolding on an ad hoc basis.
“If you have not been assigned DHS space, please report to the closest DHS facility, and ask if they have space for you to work until a final agreement between components can be reached,” read another email sent to employees of the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center.
Another DHS employee told Government Executive his team was threatened with disciplinary action, including termination, for failing to comply with the new directive.
Agencies across government have been working to ensure most staff report to their offices five days each week following a memorandum from President Trump creating such an edict. Most agencies have been phasing in the return, giving more time, for example, to employees hired on a full-time remote basis.
Several agencies have moved into the last phase of those plans, however. The Environmental Protection Agency has begun ordering its remote workers to report to an office. Those employees have received management directed reassignments, according to one such order obtained by Government Executive, which instructed the recipient to report to the agency’s campus in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina. The employee was directed to accept the assignment by May 9 or they would lose their job.
The report date will be finalized later, which EPA said would occur after it finishes implementing its reduction in force plans.
A remote employee of the Health and Human Services Department, who has been deemed by the Veterans Affairs Department as 80% disabled, received a letter last week directing him to report to an office in Denver. That office is more than eight hours from the employee’s current location. The notice stated that if the employee does not accept the directed reassignment, he “may be separated” from his position and from the federal service “using appropriate procedures.”
