Trump: Federal Workers Will Be Fired Unless They End Remote Work And Return To Office Soon
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It doesn’t get clearer than this: return to the office or be fired. Trump gave federal workers a stark warning Wednesday. He announced that federal employees must agree by February 6 to end their remote-work arrangement and return to the office on a full-time basis. Trump asserts that federal workers are unproductive and don’t work most of the time when they are “so-called” working from home.
President Trump is not alone in his thinking on the matter of remote work. Other large organizations (e.g., JPMorgan, Walmart, AT&T) have recently moved to significantly reduce or eliminate remote-work options for employees for varying reasons.
President Donald Trump’s interpretation of remote work is that it is not an effective way to operate business. He doesn’t trust that remote workers are committed or disciplined enough to be working from home. President Trump is clearly a traditionalist and views in-person work to be the most productive, effective and efficient manner to operate the workplace.
Trump’s Message to Federal Workers about Remote Work.
While speaking at the White House Wednesday, Trump said,
“We don’t want them to work from home, because as everyone knows, most of the time they’re not working. They’re not very productive. And it’s unfair to the millions of people in the United States who are in fact working hard from job sites and not from their home.” He went on to say, “if they don’t agree by February 6 to show up back to work in their office, they will be terminated.”
President Trump did not mince words as he alluded to his executive order to end remote work for federal employees and demand a return to in-person work on a full-time basis. There is a lot of chaos and change happening within the government right now. But, one thing is certain for federal workers—remote work (teleworking) definitely ends now.
OPM Guidance on Ending Remote Work and Bringing Federal Workers Into Offices.
OPM has put out guidance informing agencies to have remote workers back in the office within the next 30 days. So, unless federal workers get an agency waiver or special authorization to continue remote work or they accept the buyout the Trump administration has offered, they will be fired.
The 30-day timeline looks to be in reference to the latest memo dated January 27. An initial return-to-office memo was distributed on January 22. Considering these two different dates, it appears that the deadline for federal employees to actually return to the office is a day late February 2025.
However, it’s notable that Trump said Wednesday that federal workers need to make clear their intentions by February 6 because by February 7 at 5 p.m., agencies must submit plans outlining their approach to return all employees to in-person work. By this February 7 date, federal workers will have either confirmed they will be returning to in-person work or have responded to the buyout offer with confirmation of their resignation. If neither of these things have been completed before February 7, Trump says he will fire these employees.
The latest OPM memo regarding return-to-office implementation plans states,
“President Trump was elected with the mandate to increase the efficiency and accountability of the federal workforce. A glaring roadblock is that most federal offices presently are virtually abandoned. The vast majority of federal office workers have not returned to in-person work, even though the COVID-19 pandemic ended years ago. Many federal office workers never show up to the federal worksite at all. Federal office buildings sit mostly empty, particularly Washington, D.C.-area agency headquarters offices, devastating the local economy and serving as a national embarrassment. Virtually unrestricted telework has led to poorer government services and made it more difficult to supervise and train government workers.”
As indicated on the first and the second return-to-work OPM memos, agency heads have been directed to do the following:
Revise their remote work (telework) policies by Friday, January 24, to reflect an end to remote work.Notify all employees of President Trump’s executive order ending remote work.Inform OPM of whom within the agency will lead the project to end remote work.Set a target date of 30 days out to achieve full compliance with OPM’s guidance and Trump’s executive order.Take action to relocate employees to the most appropriate duty station when those employees reside more than 50 miles from their existing agency office.Remote Work, Buyouts, Firings and DEI Changes are Causing Fear and Anger for Federal Workers.
“Fear and chaos grip federal workers as Trump rapidly remakes the government” and upends the federal workforce, Allan Smith of NBC News reports. Smith writes that more than a dozen civil servants shared their experiences over the past 10 days with the news organization.
After being hit with a “deluge” of executive orders by the president, these federal workers are worried that they are being pushed out of their jobs. Daily operations are chaotic, and management appears “unable to answer questions about their employment and duties.”
One federal employee told NBC,
“There’s a lot of fear about returning to the office,” this person said. “There’s a lot of fear about being fired, specifically with the OPM email that came out about offering buyouts. There’s a lot of skepticism about that, given the fact that this email seemed to model Elon Musk’s email to the Twitter folks who never got paid. So it’s caused a lot of chaos and turmoil. I think the point is to really scare people and make them think that their jobs are threatened. It’s definitely working.”
For anyone wondering if Trump will indeed fire large swaths of federal workers, take note. Wednesday wasn’t the first time Trump announced that he would fire employees who refuse to embrace a return to in-person work. In December 2024, prior to his second inauguration, Trump warned that federal workers, “must return to the office — or else “they’re going to be dismissed.” This latest warning was the second one, and the tone of the messages are that Trump sees federal workers as easily replaceable.
Recommended reading:
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Fire DEI Employees ‘To The Maximum Extent Allowed By Law’: Trump Administration