FORT BELVOIR, Va. –
An upcoming adjustment to the Defense Logistics Agency’s telework posture was the main discussion topic during the DLA Energy All Hands in the McNamara Headquarters Complex auditorium on Fort Belvoir, Virginia, Oct. 10.
Around 330 employees joined in person and 450 joined online to listen to DLA Energy Commander Navy Capt. Brian Anderson and Deputy Commander Dave Kless address the workforce.
After recognizing recent employee accomplishments and reviewing fiscal year 2023 highlights, the leaders spent nearly an hour talking through employee concerns and questions about recently announced changes to telework. The policy requires telework-eligible employees to be at their assigned worksite at least 60% of their approved work schedule and marks Mondays and Fridays as the only approved regular and recurring telework days. The policy is effective starting Nov. 5 for supervisors and Jan. 2 for non-supervisory employees.
“We need to innovate, to change, to modernize, to come together, to have cohesive ideas that move us and posture us for strategic events in the next five years,” Anderson said. “It's about bringing people back together. That's the purpose.”
According to DLA Vice Director Brad Bunn, the adjustments set the conditions to help meet future challenges at a pivotal point in the nation’s history.
“In a virtual world where we are predominantly separate and dispersed, the conditions aren’t right to create that collaborative environment or for teams to work together across cross-functional and organizational lines to bring about those solutions,” Bunn said.
Both Anderson and Kless acknowledged employees may have concerns adjusting to the new policy.
“It is not lost on leadership in DLA Energy that this is a highly emotional thing for employees,” Kless said. “We understand that.”
Anderson listed concerns like the potential for insufficient desk space, parking challenges, and traffic.
“There are three months between now and implementation to work through these,” he said. “We can do one of two things. We can, in an emotional state, spend the next three months using that time to raise those concerns, raise our complaints, or we can spend the next three months trying to figure out how we shape the outcome to affect the least number of people the least.”
Anderson said there are still some flexibilities available.
“We have the ability to grant situational telework until we are ready, until we have a place to put everybody in this family into a cubicle, into an office, into a chair, into a desk, with the right IT to do their job,” he said.
Moving forward, Anderson and Kless directed a cross-sectional team of DLA Energy employees who will work with DLA Human Resources and Installation Management to address concerns and work towards implementation.