New York City has embraced remote work, expanding a 2023 pilot for union workers to 16,500 employees by November, union and nonunion alike. At that time, the city had 40 agencies approved for remote work, including 40,000 union and nonunion workers.
In contrast, Houston’s mayor recalled 1,600 city workers back to their offices last month, expecting them in their seats on Feb.1, with goals of stronger collaboration, teamwork, innovation and accountability.
Houston counts 22,000 among its municipal workforce while New York boasts more than 280,000, due in part to whom the city considers employees — teachers, for example, are included in its data.
The New York City Committee on Governmental Operations, State and Federal Legislation discussed the remote work efforts in November, highlighting that there wasn’t yet an exact count of remote and hybrid employees, but representatives said they thought the remote pilot had a positive impact on workforce retention. It has since been adopted, according to an email from the mayor’s office, and the city is exploring compressed workweeks for members of District Council 37, its largest public employee union.
The city was working with cloud-based infrastructure and was positioned for remote work when the pandemic hit, Colin Ahern, then its deputy chief information security officer, wrote in a 2021 Government Technology column. It was also working on zero-trust architecture for more than 100 offices and agencies.
Five years after the pivot to remote work, Houston’s CIO indicated that IT policies and practices wouldn’t be impacted by the return.
“The city’s technology strategy provides IT solutions that enable work-from-anywhere, including field locations. Work-from-home was accommodated similar to field locations,” CIO Lisa Kent said. “Our cybersecurity policies and tools already protect city-provided devices and some platforms accessible from BYOD cellphones regardless of on- or off-premise. We do not permit BYOD (bring your own device) computing devices.”
Other larger cities, including Los Angeles and San Jose, continue to have telework options, as outlined in human resources documents. And in Texas, returning to the office continues to be a topic of consideration.
Two years ago, Austin undertook a return to the office before reinstating telework policies. More recently, a Harris County commissioner last month requested a discussion and possible action on the county’s telework policy be agendized. And last week, the topic came before a state legislative committee.
The Texas Senate Committee on Finance asked last fall that the Legislative Budget Board (LBB) conduct an agency survey about hybrid and remote practices, and the LBB gave its summary Feb. 5. Ninety-six agencies excluding higher education answered, and 29 reported a positive impact from remote work, including reduced costs and turnover.
However, the state Senate committee indicated it wants answers to more specific questions, including how well employees are serving customers, how many are remote, how many days they are remote and how they access constituent data. Members also had questions about empty office space, employees moonlighting and professional development. Cybersecurity, a high priority for the state, came up toward the end of the discussion.
“We’re dealing with cyber, and we’re going to deal with this session. We’re going to deal with it for the entirety of our existence,” committee member Sen. Charles Perry said. “... In our state walls, we have some predictability and some certainty that protocols are being addressed. When you extend the office into someone’s bedroom that's been walled off to work in ... I think we really open ourselves up ... I don't know that we ever locked down the door in a residence better than we could lock it up inside the Capitol.”
