City Employees Returning to In-Person Work

Although many companies have decided to allow employees to continue working remotely or have adapted a hybrid system of working remotely part time and working in-person or in-office part time, all local Pasadena government employees are heading back to work in person.

“We are the government,” said Public Information Officer Lisa Derderian. “So the people really want us back in our seats as much as we can, in a safe environment, that being key, following all the proper protocol, COVID protocol that’s in place.”

The city has been phasing people back to work with a few exceptions, according to Derderian.

“It’s important for us to get back to where we were pre-COVID,” she said. “Get people back into their workforce or work environment again, with safety in mind. And then, if there are exceptions to where people do need to telecommute a little bit longer and work remotely, then we look at those case-by-case scenarios.”

So far, there is no set date for all employees to return to work.

All but essential employees worked at home for more than a year after the pandemic hit and forced Gov. Gavin Newsom to lock down the state.

That meant cities had to scramble to figure out how to keep essential services going.

In Los Angeles, just 35 of the city’s 50,000 employees worked from home before the pandemic hit. The city’s chief information officer managed to get more than 18,000 employees up and running remotely.

Chief Information Officer Ted Ross told dot.LA that 60 to 70% of those employees could work on a hybrid system.

Some private businesses, including Capital One, Amazon and Facebook said they would continue to allow employees to work from home.

According to a survey of 800 employers by Mercer, a human resources and workplace benefits consulting firm, productivity was the same or higher than it was before the pandemic.

The city has meetings scheduled with the various departments, work groups and unions.

“The city manager and HR has talked to all of them throughout the pandemic and provided ongoing updates,” Derderian said. “They have really tried to accommodate every situation that has potentially come up in the last year with the respect of the employees and any concerns, whether it be at work or working virtually, or both.”