More than 100 Vermont state employees have been ordered back to the office full time, but the state has no policy to determine who is eligible for remote work and does not track how many workers are remote.
The move, first reported by WCAX, applies to the Department for Children and Families’ economic services division, which administers benefit programs like ReachUp, 3Squares and energy assistance. The division had been on a hybrid schedule for years following the Covid-19 pandemic before employees were notified earlier this month that they would be expected to shift back to office work.
A department spokesperson said via email that being “accessible and available” to Vermonters who rely on their programs is the core of the division’s mission.
“After careful consideration and in response to our inability to meet the needs” of program recipients, “the decision was made to suspend teleworking,” said Joshua Marshall, a spokesperson for the department.
The department informed impacted employees on October 18 that the new requirement would go into effect on November 4.
But the union that represents the division and other state employees pushed back on that assertion. Steve Howard, executive director of the Vermont State Employees’ Association, said the move was a short-sighted decision “trying to cover up for their own failed management.”
“They scapegoat the frontline workers, and the problem, the issues that they use as a rationale for this are all issues that are symptoms of a vastly understaffed agency,” he said.
Howard noted the state has been dealing with a high rate of vacancies for many jobs, a claim backed up by lawmakers and, in some cases, the departments themselves. He said remote work can be an important tool for retaining employees, especially those who would have a long commute if forced to go into the office.
Despite Howard’s objections, there is little the union can do. Howard said the union’s position is that the state needs to bargain with employees over the impacts of the change, but he acknowledged the state “has the right” to determine whether employees can work remotely in the first place.
The change highlights Vermont’s department-by-department approach toward remote work. Asked about state policies on remote work, the Department of Human Resources sent VTDigger a teleworking policy written in 2012, long before the Covid pandemic and other societal shifts in remote work availability.
Human Resources Commissioner Beth Fastiggi said the desire and acceptability of teleworking has “clearly” changed since then — but those decisions are specific to each agency or department.
“It really just depends on what their work is and how they’ve arranged it,” she said.
Fastiggi said some departments could offer remote work based on whether workers do more administrative or more field-based work. Some departments could offer remote work but have in-person collaboration days once per week or once per month.
In his email, Marshall cited the 2012 teleworking policy as justification for the shift toward in-person requirements.
“That policy states that telework is only feasible for those tasks within a job which are suitable to being performed away from the official duty station,” he wrote. “In general, positions involving the direct supervision of employees, direct in-person client contact, and/or significant administrative support may not be amenable to telework.”
Because it’s at the discretion of each department, the state is not tracking how many employees are working remotely at a given time, Fastiggi said. The best data her department has is employee engagement surveys sent out on a regular basis.
But that can come with caveats. About 20% of employees in the latest survey said they didn’t telework at all, but Fastiggi said that’s likely an underestimate, given that state workers in the field are less likely to sit down and answer an online survey.
Of the remote workers who did respond, 91% said it positively impacted their work-life balance, Fastiggi said. About 92% said they felt they could still collaborate effectively with their coworkers when working remotely.
There’s little comparable data of how those numbers have changed over the years, but Fastiggi said she knew only a “small” percentage of employees worked remotely before the pandemic.
“Coming out of the pandemic, we were charged with structuring how you can allow for remote work, hybrid work, but continue to maintain your operations,” she said.
Finding a balance of serving the needs of Vermonters while allowing flexibility for employees is still an “evolving” process, she said.
State officials continue to ask, “what are the metrics that you want to watch and pay attention to, to make sure you’re still providing the services that you need to Vermonters?” she said.
