Beyond the Article - Return to Office Order Is Creating Chaos for Military Families

(Expanded Article)

The following was printed on February 5, 2025 and was accurate at the time of publication. It is possible that new instructions have come out since. But these updates would only reinforce the point: confusion surrounding the return-to-office order is causing chaos for military families.

Military spouse unemployment has been around 20% for half a century. In recent years opportunities like telework have provided a solution to the high mobility of military life, allowing spouses to retain their jobs through military moves. However, the recent Return to Work order issued by the Trump administration has military spouses, who can’t show up to work, wondering if they still have jobs.

On January 20th, the Trump administration issued an executive order canceling remote federal employment, mandating employees to return to the office. The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) issued a direction to federal agencies requiring them to come up with a plan to implement the order, allowing some agency flexibility. In its first memo, OPM did not include military spouses as an exempt group.

While researching this article, I spoke with a dozen spouses about the impact this executive order has already had on their families.

Guidance has trickled out to employees in a piecemeal fashion. Spouses shared individual agency memos from Health and Human Services and the Veterans Affairs (VA), memos that did name military spouses as exempt from this order. According to a DoD memo dated January 24th reviewed by Military.com, the DoD did not explicitly indicate that military spouses were exempt from this change. Instead, it deferred to the service branches to make that call.

Photo by Jeremy Yap on Unsplash

However, OPM in collaboration with the Office of Management and Budget (OBM) released a follow-up memo on January 27th, stating: “Agencies should also exclude military spouses working remotely.” The DoD later revised its memo on January 31st to reflect this change. This change is due in large part to military spouses working behind the scenes to remind leaders of existing protections. But military spouse teleworkers are unsure if this applies to them.

While both remote work and telework offer similar flexibilities to military spouses, they are different. Remote work is a job that is established as a position that does not need to report to a central office. Telework is an agreement between an employee and an agency that allows them to take what was originally an in-person job and work from home. But these definitions have been called into question in recent weeks.

Katie, who asked that she only be identified by her first name because she worried about how speaking out will impact her employment, started working in federal service three years ago. Two years into her time in her job her supervisor left his position. As military spouses do, Katie advocated for herself and pitched the idea of her moving up into his position. This required her to also negotiate a telework position. She did what she was supposed to do, she found a way to move up in her career while moving with the military. It is unclear if the “remote” military spouse exemption applies to her because her job isn’t remote. She’s a permanent teleworker.

“There's a lot of misunderstanding right now, and a lot of misconceptions,” Maria Donnelly, a military family advocate, said. “Military spouses oftentimes have no choice but to work for the federal government because bases are in places where the military or the government is the only game in town.”

Donnelly left her federal career to work for a civilian employer who guaranteed her remote employment. She said remote work was the only way she could be employed and get to live in the same location as her spouse. She has since dedicated herself to helping military spouses navigate the ups and downs of federal employment.

This advocacy is needed all the more given this shake-up. Politicians on both sides of the aisle, along with DoD and civilian leaders have previously branded the Federal government as the “employer of choice” for military spouses, publicly acknowledging the relationship between employing military spouses and military readiness. But let’s get something straight, this relationship is no handout. Military spouses are a highly educated addition to the federal workforce, an addition that strengthens the financial readiness of the force.

Since the release of the return-to-office order, Donnelly has heard from countless spouses who are not only worried about their jobs, they are also worried about the impact that the policy would have on their family’s decision to remain in service.

“I’ve had multiple spouses call me crying, convinced they’re about to lose their jobs,” Donnelly said. “The misconception is that military families can survive on one income, but we can’t. It’s becoming too expensive to serve.”

We are living in a two-income economy. Everyone, including the government, is looking for ways to save money and be more efficient. This is why the omission of military spouses as an exception in both teleworking and remote roles is especially confusing. It is far cheaper to promote flexible work options for military spouses than it is to pay service members more.

“There were remote positions well before the pandemic,” said Mika Cross, a government workplace expert who has testified before Congress on the importance of telework in maintaining a competitive federal workforce. “Those people were accurately coded and paid appropriately in remote roles, which were designed to be permanently offsite - never requiring a government office to work in by leveraging technology to maintain productivity and connectivity.”

Cross said that the order was confusing because it only highlighted “remote” work and not telework and most people use the terms interchangeably, but they are different.

Instead of eliminating career options for military spouses, we should be focusing on ways to codify protections, so military spouses are not forced to remind the government of their existence every time there is a change in administration.

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Another spouse, employed in the cybersecurity field, is unsure how this policy will apply to her. She took her job because it promised telework flexibility and allowed her to serve and support her family as her husband prepares to separate from service. But due to the return-to-office directive, she now faces a grueling five-day commute. “I just wouldn't have accepted the job,” she said. She shared that if she was forced to return to the office, she would be spending 12.5 hours a day commuting, and in the office, which constitute the majority of her toddler’s waking hours.

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