Garrison leaders have been gearing up for the workforce to return en masse, after an executive order terminated telework on Jan. 20.
Some tenants began the transition from telework last week, and even more were expected to return to in-person work Monday.
The change posed two major challenges for Garrison leaders.
The first challenge was getting personnel through the gates in a timely manner, and the second was finding a place to put them once they were on post.
When it comes to the gates, a major effort has been made to hire more guards, get them trained and posted in the field.
Jonathan Arcand, Redstone’s chief of the guards, told the Rocket two weeks ago that his division was looking at hiring 12 more guards, which would fill all of the allotted spots for the guard force, which all the Garrison can do unilaterally to open more lanes at the gates.
“We aren’t able to hire more than we are authorized,” Garrison Commander Col. Erin Eike said in a call with tenant organizations.
She added that the Garrison was exploring the possibility with some tenants of reimbursable positions that would add to the guard force and open more lanes.
Tenant organizations had also been asked to assess the feasibility of staggering the times their workers reported to their duty stations in an effort to lessen the amount of traffic coming through the gates during the peak hours.
“It’s a simple math problem,” Eike said. “We have roughly 46,000 people coming onto the installation, basically at the same time.”
The second challenge is ensuring there is enough space to house the federal workforce.
According to Public Works Director Joey Skinner, his directorate is tracking about 46,000 people assigned to the post. Of those, about 17,000 are contractors.
“There’s no way all of them will be able to fit on this installation, to include anybody else that may be working remotely for another federal agency in the local area that’s looking for a place to sit,” Skinner said.
He said that remote workers who are not necessarily tied to Redstone Arsenal should reach out to the local chambers of commerce to see what other federal entities in the local area could get them a seat.
Skinner suggested that since the executive order only pertained to federal workers, one place to find more space might be by moving an organization’s contract workers off post or at least utilizing “hot seats” – a communal workstation that isn’t occupied by a single person – where contract workers can change in and out on different days of the week, especially if those contractors have spent the majority of the time working from home or off post anyway.
Skinner urged tenants to focus on the personnel who are mandated to be working on post and to pare down their space requirements as much as possible.
“This information is critical,” he said. “If you decide to put in a space request package, these are the kind of questions we’re going to ask. We are also going to come look at your facility for any underutilized space that you may have, either in the building that you want to put people in or any other outlying buildings that you may have across the Arsenal.”
Skinner said going through a self-evaluation would be a huge help to his team in charge of fielding all of the space-request packages.
“Our team is pretty small, but we’re going to get on this as best we can,” he said. “So, again, the idea is to meet the (executive order) but not to bring on every individual that’s assigned to your organization.”
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