Why remote work is here to stay for California state employees after Newsom’s reopening

Working for California state government will never be the same after the coronavirus pandemic, and that’s how employees want it, according to remote work data published by the state.

Across 15 state departments, 73% of employees who are eligible for remote work are teleworking full-time, according to data the Department of General Services posted on a new telework website. About 23% are teleworking part-time, and only 4% are not teleworking, according to the data.

The data represent only about 11,600 telework-eligible employees, but suggest workers are embracing the unprecedented shift to remote work that officials from Gov. Gavin Newsom on down have said will be permanent.

Since the coronavirus pandemic arrived last spring, about 100,000 of the state’s 230,000 employees have shifted to remote work, Government Operations Agency Secretary Yolanda Richardson said in a recent video address to state managers.

State officials have acknowledged the benefits of remote work — from traffic reduction to increased productivity to savings on leased space — for 30 years. But state departments haven’t overcome cultural barriers to make it happen even with legislation and a former governor’s directive.

The Department of General Services has quantified some of the benefits of remote work on its data dashboard, finding employees at the 15 departments submitting data have saved an average of $27 per week on gas on average round-trip commutes of 34 miles.

The state has been working under emergency telework guidelines for the last year, and is preparing to adopt permanent guidelines soon, following union negotiations over details such as at-home expense reimbursements, state officials have said.

“The administration wants to continue to reap telework’s benefits for the employees and for the state,” Richardson said in the recording. “By making sure we encourage as much telework as possible while still meeting our mission to serve Californians.”

Working out the kinks and details will likely be a long process, state representatives said, and there is no rush to reopen by June 15, when Newsom’s administration will lift most state coronavirus restrictions.

“We’re probably all waiting, to be honest, to see what June 15 looks like,” said Genevieve Jopanda, chief of staff to State Treasurer Fiona Ma.

The standing guidance from Human Resources Department Director Eraina Ortega, issued in April shortly after Newsom announced a reopening date, gives department leaders broad discretion to decide how much telework to allow.

Newsom said early in the pandemic that departments should aim to provide telework to at least 75% of employees eligible for telework. Several department representatives said they are still operating at about those levels.

Departments working from home

Departments are working out which employees will be able to telework permanently and whether or how often those employees will have to come into the office.

The work of some State Treasurer’s Office employees, for instance, such as those in cash management, doesn’t lend itself to remote work, so those employees have been coming in more often than their peers, Jopanda said.

CalPERS is looking at which jobs have “measurable output,” CEO Marcie Frost said in a recent meeting with The Sacramento Bee Editorial Board. Employees with less measurable work likely will have to come in a specified number of days per week, while others could be eligible for full-time remote work, she said.

The retirement system hasn’t finalized a timeline for bringing employees back, but when it does, the executive team will return first, then volunteers, and then others, spokesman Wayne Davis said.

“We’re being careful, we’re being thoughtful and we’re also following all the guidelines that the state is issuing and the local health authorities are issuing,” Davis said.

About 90% of employees are teleworking at CalSTRS, and the system plans to start transitioning employees into a hybrid model in phases starting in September, spokesman Ricardo Duran said in an email.

About 74% of State Controller’s Office employees are working remotely at any given time, spokeswoman Jennifer Hanson said in an email.

At that office, some of the tasks requiring employees to come to the office include printing payroll warrants, handling unclaimed property and some tasks related to records, Hanson said in the email.

“The State Controller’s Office is working to allow telework where it can increase performance, reduce costs, and/or serve as a recruitment and retention tool,” Hanson said in the email. “The determination is not being made by job classification, but by what tasks can be performed well remotely.”

California DMV offices open

At the Department of Motor Vehicles, which employs many field office workers who can’t work remotely, roughly a quarter of employees are working remotely at least part time, according to figures provided by DMV spokeswoman Anita Gore in an email.

The department moved many of its services online early in the pandemic and has adapted new technologies, including AWS Appstream, to support remote work, Gore said in the email.

Some departments have struggled to get up to speed with needed IT changes.

The California State Auditor in a recent report said two-thirds of the workers in Caltrans’ human resources division did not having state-issued laptops as of March 2021, complicating some of their assignments.

But state procurement data shows other departments have ramped up purchases of phones and laptops.

The Controller’s Office is purchasing “portable IT technology” instead of PCs and automating some processes that have been manual, Hanson said in an email.

The Treasurer’s Office is moving to cloud-based systems where possible and tightening security around spear-phishing attacks, Jopanda said.

This story was originally published June 11, 2021 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Why remote work is here to stay for California state employees after Newsom’s reopening."