Limiting remote work

BOISE — Each year as lawmakers weigh what the change in employee compensation should be, known as CEC, it’s common for state employees to submit comments on how much they believe is needed to address work loads, burn out and cost of living.

This year, there was a different theme mixed in with the hundreds of submitted comments — state employees are worried about losing their telework option.

“As someone who applied for my current job because the job posting said telework full time, being forced back into the office is essentially a pay cut,” wrote a contract monitor for the Division of Medicaid.

Sen. Jim Guthrie, R-McCammon, introduced SB 1209 to establish a teleworking policy that would limit how much the option may be utilized by state employees. It’s co-sponsored by House Speaker Mike Moyle, R-Star, and Rep. Britt Raybould, R-Rexburg.

He told the Tribune on Thursday that this bill won’t be moving forward, but a new proposal would be coming next week that includes recommendations from the Division of Human Resources.

“We just felt that it’s maybe getting a little beyond the scope of what we think is appropriate as we try and be a reasonable party in making sure citizens of the state have access to their state government,” Guthrie said of teleworking.

Guthrie said that, after the pandemic, working from home “exploded.”

He said companies across the country are now working to put some sideboards on working from home.

“Our effort is consistent with that, which is to maybe establish some kind of sideboard so we have expectations going forward for what we think is a good mix, as far as working in the office and telework,” Guthrie said.

He said the aim of the legislation will be to provide flexibility for agency heads to determine “reasonable decisions as to how they handle their workforce.”

The bill introduced last week, SB 1219, would have set the requirement that in-office employees with positions that don’t require direct contact with the public to work at least 75% of their workdays in a two-week period in the office.

He didn’t indicate what the adjustments will be in the new proposal.

Employees who submitted comments expressed significant concerns that their option to work from home would go away, resulting in more transportation costs and time dedicated toward their commute.

Many reported improved work-life balance or reduced costs for day care and gas. Some managers said it had been used as a selling point for positions that had been vacant for long periods of time.

A civil engineer with the state said they had “tolerated and justified” lower pay than in the private sector or from the federal government because of the option to work at home.

“I can confidently say, if (the) legislature reduces the current three telework days per week to one or none, there will be a mass exit,” the engineer wrote, “because the State of Idaho will no longer be a competitive employer within the work force.”

Guido covers Idaho politics for the Lewiston Tribune, Moscow-Pullman Daily News and Idaho Press of Nampa. She may be contacted at lguido@idahopress.com and can be found on X @EyeOnBoiseGuido.