Federal offices in the Washington, D.C. area will be closed Thursday, the Office of Personnel Management has announced. The early call came Wednesday evening as snow is already accumulating. As usual, emergency and telework-ready employees must follow their agencies’ policies. But for those who have the chance to sleep a little later tomorrow morning, enjoy it. And stay safe.
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With a major winter storm moving in, federal agencies in the Washington, D.C. region are closed today, the Office of Personnel Management has announced. As usual, emergency staff and telework-ready employees must follow their agencies’ policies. Here is the text of the official advisory. In the area, snow is expected to begin falling around 7 a.m., with accumulations of 6 to 10 inches, according to this National Weather Service winter storm warning. For anyone who’s keeping track (FedLine always like to keep things in context), this is the second snow day of the season for several hundred thousand D.C.-area feds; the first…
The Office of Personnel Management just announced that federal offices in the Washington area will be closed Wednesday due to snow. The storm — dubbed “snowquester” — has now begun, and is expected to hammer Washington. The Washington Post’s Capitol Weather Gang just tweeted that “conditions will deteriorate fast” as the main part of the snowstorm moves in to Washington. OPM says that the closure does not apply to emergency employees and telework-ready employees who are required to work. But for everybody else, enjoy your snow day.
The Washington area is likely to be hit by a snowstorm tomorrow. It’s unclear how bad it might be — we may see 1 to 3 inches of accumulation, but the National Weather Service thinks it may top 5 inches. The Office of Personnel Management just announced that, as of now, federal offices in the Washington area will still open Thursday. But employees who want to avoid the storm — and the nasty evening rush hour it is likely to bring — can take unscheduled leave or unscheduled telework. Check back in with FedLine for updates on the government’s operating…
A minor snowstorm is headed for the Washington area this evening. Some are expecting the snow (and possibly rain) to snarl traffic tonight, so the Office of Personnel Management decided to allow federal employees to take unscheduled leave or unscheduled telework, if they want, to get them off the roads early.
Office of Personnel Management Director John Berry yesterday officially downgraded the government’s estimates of its per-day losses during last month’s snowstorms. Instead of losing $102 million per day, Berry now says the government only lost $71 million per day. But there is reason to take those calculations with a grain of salt. Berry first threw out the $102 million daily loss estimate during a December press conference on snow closure procedures. That was a rough, back-of-the-envelope calculation of the total daily payroll for all 270,000 federal employees in the Washington area, and assumed total losses in productivity. That estimate was clearly…
The Blizzard of 2010 is over, but piles of snow are still clogging some lanes in Washington and worsening the region’s already-abysmal traffic congestion. And agencies need to use workplace flexibilities to help ease that gridlock, Office of Personnel Management Director John Berry said yesterday. In a memo to chief human capital officers and other human resource officials, Berry said agencies should continue to use telework as much as possible to take people off the roads. Berry also suggested agencies use alternative work schedules, or if possible, adjust employees’ work hours to stagger their arrivals and departures throughout the day. “Be…
Did you telework during the snowstorm last week? Federal Times would like to talk to you and hear how well it went. Were you able to do some or all of your work without any major bumps? Were there tech problems that kept you from getting anything done? Or did your agency’s or manager’s restrictions on telework completely take that option off the table? And managers, what was your experience managing your staff remotely last week? Was teleworking worthwhile, or just window dressing? E-mail me at slosey@federaltimes.com if you’d like to talk. If you’d prefer we not use your name, that’s fine.
All federal employees in Washington will have their first full workday in nearly two weeks tomorrow. The Office of Personnel Management announced this afternoon that government offices will open on time Wednesday, and without an unscheduled leave option. So if you haven’t dug your car out yet, now may be the time.
The Merit Systems Protection Board said today it will grant deadline extensions to people who couldn’t file documents on time because of recent blizzards and government closures in Washington and other areas. MSPB Chairwoman Susan Grundmann said anyone filing a late petition for appeal, petition for review, case-related documents, pleading or other submissions will have to include a statement explaining that the delay was due to poor weather, closure of a federal office, or lack of access to MSPB’s e-Appeal Online Web page. That last part is important, because there were tens of thousands of people in the Washington area who…