Texas agencies reviewing hybrid work policies for state employees

AUSTIN (Nexstar) — A spokesperson for the Governor’s Office confirmed Texas agencies will follow the lead from the federal government to end hybrid work schedules where possible and bring workers back into the office full-time.

Multiple people have reached out to Nexstar asking if Gov. Greg Abbott is mandating state agencies to end hybrid work schedules for state employees. Andrew Mahaleris, a spokesperson for the Governor’s Office, sent this statement to Nexstar:

“State agencies have been in office, and any remote work policies must ensure taxpayer dollars are being utilized efficiently. Texans expect their public servants to be present and engaged in the work on their behalf. With remote federal workers returning to the office where possible, it’s important that state agencies ensure they do the same.”

The White House sent out an official memo on January 20 stating, “Heads of all departments and agencies in the executive branch of Government shall, as soon as practicable, take all necessary steps to terminate remote work arrangements and require employees to return to work in-person at their respective duty stations on a full-time basis, provided that the department and agency heads shall make exemptions they deem necessary.”

The Legislative Budget Board released a report for each agency in October detailing the remote policy each agency has and whether or not it has created any impact.

What are agencies saying?

During the first ever DOGE committee hearing in the House of Representatives this week, Brian Guthrie, the executive director of the Teacher Retirement System of Texas, answered questions relating to remote work at his agency.

Rep. Daniel Alders, a Republican from Tyler, asked Guthrie about the employees who work from home. “Do you imagine if those employees were not working from home, but were in the office, that you could operate more efficiently,” Alders asked.

“We have not seen a dip in operating efficiency with having those employees have a day or two being able to work from home, but we recognize that that the trend is to return to the office,” Guthrie said.

He went on to say he would make employees come back on one exception based off of what they learned from remote work following Covid.

“We learned that it was much more efficient to actually deliver telephone counseling services from home. Sure. We also found that we could employ statewide for telephone counselors. Finding them in Austin is nearly impossible, given the marketplace, but if you being able to offer that to individuals outside of the Austin area has been tremendously beneficial for us, and that’s why we have the customer service levels that we do,” Guthrie said.

He went on to say if he was told to bring employees back to the office five days a week he would do so with open arms, but he would like to have his telephone counselors stay at home. Between 200 and 300 people are telephone counselors at TRS, according to Guthrie.

Alders then asked if Guthrie had a plan to bring people back five days a week. Guthrie responded saying it was an easing-in process, but said it would not be hard to implement as some employees do not take advantage of working from home on certain days.

“I think that we are reaching a point where being able to pull the plug on that, if you will, would not be as problematic as it perhaps two even two years ago,” Guthrie explained.

Nexstar is reaching out to every state agency to confirm which hybrid policies will be ending, or if the agency has already sent out messaging to its employees. You can check back here throughout the day as we update our story. Here is a list of the agencies we have reached out to:

Legislative Budget Board

A spokesperson with the agency said, “No guidance has recently been provided to our staff regarding telework policies. All of our employees are currently required to work full-time in office.”