Analysis: Many organisations will be watching Donald Trump's return to the office order for US federal employees with great interest
The Covid-19 pandemic led to a dramatic rise in remote work. Since the end of this pandemic, executives have increasingly urged or ordered their workers to return to the office, but have often met significant resistance from workers who have benefited from remote work policies.
There are many reasons for executives and managers to push their employees to return to the office, including the mistaken belief that remote workers are less productive. In fact, the data suggest that remote workers are more productive and more satisfied with their work. Return to office mandates may have more to do with managers’ attempts to control workers than with legitimate concerns over productivity.
In the US, Donald Trump has turbocharged the return to work movement. In a sweeping executive order signed last week in a slew of such orders, he has directed federal agencies to adopt return to office policies within 30 days. This might not be as easy as he has assumed, since many agencies have reduced their office space, meaning that there will not be enough offices and desks in some agencies to accommodate a returning workforce.
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From RTÉ Radio 1's The Late Debate, Donald Trump begins his term signing a barrage of executive orders
Unlike return to office efforts in the private sector, Trump’s order appears to be part of a concerted effort to force federal employees (who often have Civil Service protections that make them difficult to fire without cause) to quit. The Elon Musk-managed Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) agency has made it clear that one of their key goals is to reduce the size of the federal workforce.
But DOGE is not, in fact, a department of the US government; only Congress can authorise the creation of government departments, and even unofficial advisory committees have strict transparency requirements that DOGE is unlikely to meet. Nonetheless, the Trump White House has given Musk considerable power over the structure of the federal workforce.
There is considerable irony with the idea that there is a pressing need to reduce the size of the US federal workforce. Despite the growth in the scope and mission of the federal government, its civilian workforce is smaller now than it was in 1980. Almost half of the federal workforce is employed in support of the military (including support for veterans) and the next most sizeable agency deals with Homeland Security. Everything else the federal government does is accomplished with a relatively small workforce.
Read more: You can force employees to come back to the office, but not the good ones
Efficiency appears to be a much less important concern than somehow reducing that part of the federal workforce that often frustrated the execution of executive orders (many of which were later overturned by the courts) in the first Trump administration. If Trump’s return to office order are put into effect, it is likely that the US will have a smaller but less capable government, something that would massively benefit Musk and others involved in DOGE (including Vivek Ramaswamy, another billionaire who has now fallen out with Musk), but be less beneficial for the population the federal government serves.
Return to office orders are likely to remain controversial. Private-sector organisations pursue it for a variety of reasons but often do so at their own peril. There is evidence that these mandates can lead your most productive employees to quit, or at least to seek new jobs. Even if they stay with the organisation, workers who are forced to return are likely to be less satisfied with and less engaged in their jobs.
The use of return to office orders as a strategy to reduce your workforce, by encouraging many employees to quit, is quite risky. Sometimes, an organisation benefits if less productive or more disruptive employees quit, but strategies that are aimed at reducing the workforce without targeting who should go and who should stay are likely to harm your organisation. The use of return to office orders to reduce the workforce is tantamount to throwing a hand grenade into the office: it may reduce your headcount, but it is more likely to be destructive than productive.
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The views expressed here are those of the author and do not represent or reflect the views of RTÉ
