With virtually all federal employees mandated to be vaccinated against COVID-19, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board envisions a staff return-to-workplace date of Jan. 24, a spokesperson for the board said Tuesday morning.
“[P]lans may change, but this is our current plan,” Tara Tadlock, the associate director for board operations at the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB), said in an email response to Weapons Complex Morning Briefing.
With most employees vaccinated, the DNFSB joins the Department of Energy and other federal agencies in crafting return-to-work on-site plans. DOE’s chief of staff last week sent out a memo saying that the agency will start its phased return to physical worksites in January with the process expected to be completed in February.
The DNFSB is a fraction of DOE’s size, having only about 100 staff members compared with thousands at DOE.
“Agency leadership is in the process of finalizing an updated Telework Directive, which will lay out telework policy and provide important flexibilities for the workforce,” Tadlock said.
Most DNFSB employees have worked remotely since March 2020 as COVID-19 started to spread across the United States. An updated COVID-19 response and recovery plan should be posted to the DNFSB website in the near future, Tadlock said.
The defense board is an independent agency within the executive branch charged with advising the secretary of energy on safety matters at nuclear defense facilities. While it lacks regulatory power, the DNFSB can make written recommendations to the energy secretary, who must then publicly respond.
