Federal workplaces aren’t what they used to be, not with a third or a portion of workers working remotely at least part of the week. Since only a few people telework one hundred percent of the time, this creates difficulties in controlling workspaces. . The Federal Drive with Tom Temin spoke with someone who deals with this issue, EPA Deputy Deputy Administrator for Infrastructure and External Resources Dan Coogan.
Interview Transcript:
Tom Temin: All right. Let’s talk about the EPA’s telecommuting policy. Let’s take a look at what’s in place for employees lately.
Dan Coogan Our telecommuting policy, which is communicated in our plan for the workplace, establishes a number of days that workers will have to report to the workplace based on that worker’s position. Therefore, it ranges from frontline staff to managers, executives, and political appointees. There are other spaces there. And then we have a separate procedure from telecommuting, remote work, which is for workers who don’t come to the workplace. And then there’s a total procedure of moderate and distinct accommodation that can play a role in this. So there are a few levels. But our policy makes a kind of difference based on the type of worker in terms of the number of days they start their job.
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Tom Temin: And are we basically talking about the head office or also the giant offices?
Dan Coogan It’s national.
Dan Coogan: Okay. And on a given day, a typical day, let’s say a Thursday or a Tuesday, out of every hundred workers employed, how many are there?What percentage of other people are there on a given day?
Dan Coogan: I think we’re similar to a lot of other agencies and organizations, and that varies depending on a number of factors. For example, for the EPA, we have more than 130 services across the country. We have laboratories, warehouses, we have workplaces. So if you take a look at some of our labs, you might have a lot of painters on any given day. Because painting is so site-dependent, you’ll find certain workspaces. The number is moving to range, and may vary depending on the week. So what we’re seeing is that the peaks on Tuesdays and Wednesdays are minimized a little bit on Thursdays and Mondays and Fridays, you don’t see the same point of presence, however, it varies depending on the facility. We have some services where the average usage is one hundred percent per day. In others, it can fall below a quarter or even go as low as 10% on a Friday. It depends on the day, the type of installation and where in the country we are.
Tom Temin: And what about qualifying? For example, I’ve heard many company managers or assistant branch managers say that while they’re there every day, they simply need to set the example by being there for whatever reason or feel like the leaders are there. case at the EPA?
Dan Coogan So, at the EPA, we prioritized the requirement for workplace presence days based on several points. The first is that our political appointments will have to be 50% or more. And they do it on average about 8 times. With a constant salary for about 8 days with a constant salary. Our Executive Services (ESS) painters are expected to work four days at a constant wage and an average of five days or more. Some will be provided every day, others may be close to this point of four or five days.
And again, in labs or physical facilities that require interaction with equipment, machines, or experiments, there are other people who want to be there every day.
Dan Coogan: That’s right. We have much greater use in those spaces than in our offices, where, in keeping with our telecommuting policy and office plan, there’s a little more flexibility in a lot of the paintings that might not necessarily feature on site.
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Tom Temin We speak with Dan Coogan. Es EPA’s Deputy Administrator for Infrastructure and External Resources. And how do you manage other people’s location when they’re in the office?That is, does everyone still have the cubicle or table they had before the pandemic and do they pass by it as soon as they enter?Or have they opted for a hotel-like layout?
Dan Coogan That’s something we’re evaluating lately. So, like Washington, D. C. , a lot of it depends on the individual, but general and proper use of our area and resources makes us think about how productive it is to use the area we have. And that’s all we’re doing with our union partners working collectively, because we have a giant portfolio in Washington, D. C. alone. Here at the Federal Triangle Center, we have five pretty gigantic services. That’s why we are thinking about the most productive way to use this area. Now we have some amenities that we’ve made progress in this area. And so our Region 3 facility in Philadelphia, that’s one of our areas that has made the most progress and is actually looking to the future and executing proper spatial organization. They had the advantage, at least they were in the area and their knowledge expired COVID. For that to put them in a position to get through it, COVID replaced things. What are the surroundings of EPA Region Three paints like? And this team has really done a wonderful job of seeing how the area will be used from the old way to the new way. The apparent challenge, and this is not unique to the EPA, is being able to do this on a giant scale, because many of us don’t move often. If we are not in a privately rented area, we tend to stay in that area we are in. So there are opportunities in our portfolio to do those resets, as we’ve been able to do at our Philadelphia headquarters.
Tom Temin Yes. Leases are more flexible for the long term than if you occupy a building with the corporate name or signature engraved on the façade.
Dan Coogan: Well, that would be a personal lease. So, we’re releasing as much of our amenities as possible, but they’re basically leased to the GSA. The General Services Administration, which is the federal government’s priority, must get the federal government access to GSA-owned spaces where we would contract with them. We would possibly only have about twenty EPA-owned services when we’re in personal services that we rent, which is where we’re going to have a tendency to have more movement, like within our Region Three services. So that’s the vital factor.
Tom Temin got it. So, in Philadelphia, the explanation for why hot dog stands are broke.
Dan Coogan: We hope not. But on the given block.
Tom Temin: And I wanted to ask a question about anything that turns out to have almost disappeared from professional life. But what about mailrooms and physical mail?And what about mail aimed at expressing other people when they are not there?
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Dan Coogan Yeah. So, I mean, we have a requirement that we have to accept physical mail. We have a docket center. There’s actual requirements that has to remain available to the public, so that doesn’t go away at all. Now, the reality is a lot of interoffice communication, and this isn’t just EPA with the federal government, but it’s gone to digital. It’s going to email and things like that. So it would not be a wise use of taxpayer resources to maintain the same tempo of people dropping off physical mail. So that certainly shifted and moved down, shifted back quite a bit. But we still bring in mail, we still have to make sure all physical correspondence is handled at our facilities. We certainly downshifting quite a bit to save resources on the frequency with which it might be dropped off in a given location.
Tom Temin And would it be fair or accurate to say that, for the most part, people’s access is through the use of a portable electronic device and therefore they can paint pretty much anywhere because of the technological foundation that allows them to access what they want?. And they don’t want to be so tied to a physical location. Is this the trend?
Dan Coogan: So I would say that in other agencies, really smart investments in data generation have allowed us to adapt to the hybrid paint environment. It’s more like many other organizations that have noticed the benefits of a remote painting environment, but it comes with load and demanding situations, and there are elements of in-person running, teamwork, and building camaraderie. But you can’t update it on a laptop. So, we intended to ensure the most productive career environment while using equipment like the ones you’re referring to, which allows painters to paint from home, save costs and stress and that sort of thing. But I think we’re finding a smart balance, and we’ll be sure to talk to our staff about what that balance looks like. as well as through our office plan.
Tom Temin: Are you contemplating what the long-term footprint might be at any given time?Let’s say in a year or so.
Dan Coogan Oh yeah. So we’re constantly hunting in our area, and that’s all the EPA has been doing for a long time, even under the Obama administration. We have achieved abundant space releases. If you look just at Washington DC, the releases we’ve had have been substantial, because although COVID is kind of a turning point, there were changes in the landscape long before COVID that led agencies and organizations to think about desires. of your area. was. So we’ve made a lot of progress. We will continue reading about our area as we understand what the most productive area layout is for our employees’ painting experience. What you’re seeing is, I think we’re seeing a bit of a shift: is there a need for a dice farm, which may not be the case, but there may also be more of a need for a collaborative convention area? And that’s where, as we do our testing and understand what the layout of our space is like, we are very conscious and seek to listen to our employees. The main problem, obviously, is the cost. We have the degrees of appropriation that Congress sets for us. And that is why we can only execute to the extent that the degrees of ownership allow it.
Derace Lauderdale is virtual editor of the Federal News Network.