The Office of Personnel Management’s (OPM)’s January 28 memo offering most Federal government employees the opportunity to take part in a “deferred resignation” program features as a prominent hook the right to continue pandemic-era remote working arrangements until employees leave the government.
The guidance also indicates that employees choosing to participate in the program – by a current deadline of Feb. 6 – will transition to administrative leave at some point prior to Sept. 30, although it does not specify when a period of administrative leave might begin.
An executive order signed on Jan. 20 by President Trump directs an end to remote work for Federal employees and orders them to return to the office “on a full-time basis.” Subsequent guidance issued by OPM gave agencies a 30-day deadline to be in full compliance with the president’s order.
OPM Acting Director Charles Ezell spelled out guidance for the “Deferred Resignation Program” in a Jan. 28 memo to Federal agency heads and acting heads.
“This program provides employees with an option to submit a deferred resignation letter with resignation effective on September 30, 2025,” the memo says.
“Deferred resignation exempts those employees who choose it from return-to-office requirements,” the memo continues.
The guidance offers a somewhat less time-certain view of what employees might expect if they elect to participate in the program.
“Employees who accept deferred resignation should promptly have their duties re-assigned or eliminated and be placed on paid administrative leave until the end of the deferred resignation period (generally, September 30, 2025, unless the employee has elected another earlier resignation date), unless the agency head determines that it is necessary for the employee to be actively engaged in transitioning job duties, in which case employees should be placed on administrative leave as soon as those duties are transitioned,” the guidance memo says.
In an appendix to the policy guidance, OPM said, “the federal workforce is expected to undergo significant near-term changes.”
“As a result of these changes and uncertainty, or for other reasons, some employees may wish to depart the federal government on terms that provide them with sufficient time and economic security to plan for their future,” the agency continued.
OPM said the program is open to all full-time Federal employees “except for military personnel of the armed forces the U.S. Postal Service, positions related to immigration enforcement and national security, and any other positions specifically excluded by your employing agency.”
Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., ranking member of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, blasted the deferred resignation plan as the Trump administration’s “latest attempt to push out nonpartisan Federal workers.”
“Donald Trump is trying every trick he and his Project 2025 cronies can think of to circumvent established civil service protections so they can purge the civil service of experts and replace them with political loyalists,” the congressman said.
“The victims here, as is always the case with Donald Trump, are the American people who will see government services and benefits allocated not by nonpartisan civil servants, but by partisan hacks,” Rep. Connolly said.
American Federation of Government Employees National President Everett Kelley warned in a statement that “purging the federal government of dedicated career civil servants will have vast, unintended consequences that will cause chaos for the Americans who depend on a functioning federal government. This offer should not be viewed as voluntary.”
“Between the flurry of anti-worker executive orders and policies, it is clear that the Trump administration’s goal is to turn the federal government into a toxic environment where workers cannot stay even if they want to,” Kelley said.
In a similar vein, National Active and Retired Federal Employees Association President William Shackelford said, “the administration’s encouragement of massive resignations across the federal government shows a blinding disregard for the rule of law in this country, which cannot be upheld without individuals to enforce it; for government services to Americans, which cannot be fulfilled without individuals to provide them; and for the basic safety of the American people, which is threatened if no one is available to respond to emergencies, prevent crimes or terrorist attacks, or ensure safe food, water and air.”
“We’re also concerned that if the administration’s offer fails to survive likely legal challenges, it could leave resigning federal employees out to dry,” he continued. “The administration is testing novel constitutional and legal arguments in advancing its preferred policies. It may succeed with some but fail in others. Yet the resulting uncertainty from its aggressive strategy will impose its own damage on millions of federal employees, and the citizens they serve.”
