Public service is hard. When you actually have to come to work.
More than 300 employees from five state agencies have resigned since Gov. Glenn Youngkin announced Virginia’s new telework policy in early May, according to records obtained by 8News.
This includes 183 Virginia Department of Transportation employees, 28 of whom cited “telework options” as the reason for leaving. Two VDOT workers who listed telework as the reason did move to another state agency, records obtained by 8News after filing a Freedom of Information Act request show.
On May 5, Youngkin updated the state’s telework policy for all state employees to begin working in-person full-time by July 5
The permanent government workforce is complaining that the whole thing was “rushed”.
“Unfortunately we’re not surprised by this information,” Dylan Bishop, a lobbyist for the Virginia Governmental Employees Association (VGEA), told 8News Friday. “We had anticipated that the shift in policy would result in an exodus of workers, which is really concerning because of the state’s recruitment and retention issues.”
He said VGEA, a volunteer, nonpartisan organization that advocates for Virginia state employees, surveyed its members and the results showed that some felt the policy was rushed, confusing and inefficient.
Rushed? It’s the summer of 2022. This reminds me of the teachers’ unions insisting that school reopenings were rushed.
How many years should it take to expect government employees to do their jobs?
In May, eight Democratic Virginia lawmakers called on the governor to delay the state’s new telework policy, urging him to allow state agency heads to work with their employees on the return to their pre-pandemic work schedules after the Labor Day holiday and create an interagency work group to examine the current policy and share recommended changes.
An “interagency work group” to get government employees to come back to work.
This is why nothing gets done.
Leave a Reply