Rachel Kurzius
For the first time this year, D.C. is no longer strongly encouraging nonessential workers to do their jobs from home.
Mayor Muriel Bowser’s March 17 order extends D.C.’s state of emergency through May 20, while modifying some of the city’s coronavirus-related restrictions. Among those changes is the removal of a provision first added last June, at the start of the Phase Two of reopening, which called on nonessential, non-retail workers to continue teleworking rather than going into an office.
The change comes as the city continues to eye reopening and reinvigorating the economy of downtown D.C., which was in free fall after losing large swaths of its daytime population.
But it doesn’t mean the mayor’s office is calling on everyone to head into the office and go back to frequenting their favorite fast-casual restaurant right away. Instead, it’s more like the city is trying to turn on a slow cooker that will start heating up an eventual, staggered shift back to the office, with the benefit of boosting business downtown.
“We don’t want everybody to rush back to the office, just like we don’t want everybody to rush to the Tidal Basin to see the cherry blossoms,” says John Falcicchio, the deputy mayor for planning and economic development. “We want to do it under safety protocols that are well established and that we’re requiring employers to have in place.”
After a spike in January and a drop in February, D.C.’s COVID-19 infection rate in March has plateaued at levels similar to what was last seen in November.
Getting rid of the telework provision signals a renewed focus on figuring out how to bring workers back to office buildings, especially as some have figured out that they like telework. A fall survey from the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments found that about 57% of employers were considering maintaining their current levels of telework, or at least expand work-from-home opportunities compared to pre-pandemic times.
That’s part of why D.C. is working with business improvement districts in downtown and Golden Triangle to plan a series of events in May called “Manager Mondays,” says Falcicchio, which will try to entice people to return to the office by offering goodies like free local coffee.
Business-focused nonprofit Federal City Council has been circulating a pledge calling on larger employers to bring their workers back to the office as soon as “Mayor Bowser and DC Health give us the signal that it is safe.”
So far, more than 117 business leaders who employ a total of more than 29,000 workers have signed the pledge, according to Falcicchio.
Getting rid of the language encouraging telework doesn’t explicitly tell businesses that it’s safe to return to office work. But now, the city is no longer explicitly telling them that it’s not safe, either.
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