Just a day before an executive order effectively ending widespread work-from-home policies for state workers was set to take effect, an internal memo suggests a full return to the office could take between six and 12 months of additional time. 

In January, Gov. Joe Lombardo’s second-ever executive order called on the state’s Department of Administration to devise a plan to pull state workers out of work-from-home and back to “pre-pandemic, normal and customary office conditions” by July 1. 

The move was couched at the time and in the executive order as a return to “normal” as COVID cases subsided, and as a means to shore up the state’s flagging staff vacancy rates. 

Asked about the executive order during an IndyTalks interview in Las Vegas in January, Lombardo said, in part: “It’s called a job for a reason.” 

“In my opinion, government service is a service,” Lombardo said. “It's a service to the constituents. And that's why we've lost our way in that space.”

But a June 30 memo from Jack Robb, head of the Department of Administration, signaled that the purchase of a cluster of new office space at a Las Vegas office park this year — and the need to retrofit that space for incoming state agencies — “will likely lend itself to some employees working remotely until their office space needs are accommodated.”

The six-month implementation timeline of the executive order had been designed to accommodate the need to refurnish state office space that had gone unused or had been repurposed over the course of the pandemic, Lombardo said in January.  

But as part of a larger plan to overhaul the structure of the state’s executive branch, Lombardo had also proposed $350 million for the construction of two new state office buildings in Las Vegas designed to replace the aging Grant Sawyer Building.

That plan was later mothballed in favor of the purchase of 18 existing buildings at a Las Vegas office park near the Harry Reid International Airport at a cost of roughly $214 million, with another $50 million approved by lawmakers for new furnishings and $5 million for employee training. At 835,000 total square feet, three of the new buildings are reserved for legislative employees, while the remainder will be used by the executive branch.  

A spokesperson for Lombardo, Elizabeth Ray, said in a statement that the governor’s office and Department of Administration “intend to minimize disruptions” to departments affected by the transition to state-owned buildings, though she did not specify how many departments or employees could be affected. 

“We are committed to ensuring a smooth transition for all employees throughout our statewide back to office efforts,” Ray said. 

However, Robb’s memo from last week added that Lombardo “has also stressed the need for measurable work activities and accountability provisions for those employees who are allowed to work from home,” and called working remotely “a privilege.” 

“Agency heads are responsible for ensuring those employees who are allowed to work remotely be as productive as if they were in the office,” his memo said. 

The push to get state workers back in the office comes as the country at large grapples with the return to the office. 

Though a Gallup survey in February found just 20 percent of U.S. workers preferred working on-site — compared to 28 percent preferring fully remote and 52 percent preferring a hybrid — a number of large corporations that had backed expansive work-from-home policies during the pandemic have since reneged, and sought to lure their employees back to the office amid concerns over productivity, job performance and morale. 

That includes a number of tech giants, including Amazon, Apple and Google — even as strict return-to-office mandates have also spurred backlash among workers.