A recent story from the Federal News Network reported that federal agencies are putting plans in order to bring employees back to work, but the Social Security Administration is not one of those agencies.
It was reported that the Labor Department would start to transition to bringing employees back to the office in early September and the Department of Agriculture would do the same at the beginning of October, but both departments plan a slow transition that will still allow some employees to work from home even after other employees are brought back to the office.
Of all the federal agencies Social Security might be the last to bring employees back to the office because there is no plan in place to do so yet. Even though politicians are clamoring for Social Security to bring employees back to work and to open up field offices for service, the agency will be given more time to develop a plan after leadership at the agency was replaced. A couple of weeks ago President Joe Biden fired Social Security Commissioner Andrew Saul and replaced him with Acting Commissioner Kilolo Kijakazi. Because of this change Social Security has been given more time to come up with a back-to-work plan.
“As our country rebounds from a pandemic that has changed how we engage in our communities, the need for our services is tremendous, particularly for people facing barriers to our services,” Kijakazi said in an email to employees, which Federal News Network obtained. “I know you are wondering about what we are planning for the government-wide transition back to the office and are particularly interested in telework.”
Unfortunately with COVID-19 infections on the rise due to the Delta Variant and low vaccination rates in some areas all of these back-to-work plans could be altered depending on which way the virus is trending.
