COMP NEWS – The Treasury Department and the IRS are bringing their teleworking employees back into the office with a new return-to-office mandate.

IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel told employees in an email Thursday that teleworking employees will need to return to the office 50% of the time, on any given month, starting on May 5.

 

“Our top priority, regardless of where employees are located at any point in time, will continue to be meeting our goals of serving taxpayers, ensuring tax compliance and maintaining our vital technology and operations,” Werfel wrote.

 

The return-to-office plans will only impact IRS executives, managers and non-bargaining unit employees with telework agreements in the National Capital Region. The decision affects IRS headquarters, the agency’s New Carrollton Federal Building and other offices in the Washington, D.C. area.

Although the Treasury Department is set in its RTO mandate, it’s already admitted that telework seems to have no “negative impact” on organizational performance or retention.

Treasury’s own telework assessment it provided to Congress a few months ago “found no evidence that telework created a negative impact on retention, recruitment, or organizational performance.”

 

The report also found that since the pandemic, job announcements highlighting work flexibilities, such as telework, attracted the largest volume of applications. The report found remote jobs yielded the most hires, and that retention and engagement scores have remained stable.

 

In the 2022 Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey, nearly one out of four Treasury employees said they are looking to leave the department, “based on undesirable telework arrangements.”

 

“Those that are looking to leave have lower engagement scores,” the report states.

 

Werfel told employees that nearly 50% of nearly every hour worked at the IRS is already done on-site.

To read more about the Treasury and IRS’s return-to-office mandates, click here.

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