The Washington Post (June 10, 2021)

The Biden administration on Thursday told federal agencies that more employees can return to their offices as the threat of the coronavirus pandemic ebbs, but it also laid out a permanent work-from-home expansion that will drastically alter the federal government’s workplace culture.

Federal agencies no longer have to limit the number of staffers allowed in their offices to 25 percent occupancy, the administration said in the first major announcement on pandemic staffing it has issued since January.

But the 20-page memo to federal agencies also maintains what started as an experiment in March 2020 to contend with the public health crisis — for the immediate future and potentially the long term.

As they make plans for a post-pandemic workplace, agencies across the government will be allowed to offer employees flexible schedules and remote work, depending on their needs, according to the guidance from the acting heads of the Office of Management and Budget, the Office of Personnel Management and the General Services Administration.