- The Trump Administration’s OPM emailed federal workers again requesting a list of accomplishments.
- The latest email tells employees to expect to complete a productivity summary weekly going forward.
- Federal workers who shared the email with BI said the doubling down is “nuts” and “infuriating.”
Federal workers across agencies are once again getting emails asking them to detail what they did this past week.
The second email, received by federal employees Friday night, promises weekly check-ins going forward. Elon Musk, a senior advisor to President Donald Trump who is closely tied to the White House DOGE office, hinted that this was coming after doubling down on the email check-ins this week.
“Please reply to this email with approx. 5 bullets describing what you accomplished last week and cc your manager,” the email, reviewed by Business Insider, reads. “Going forward, please complete the above task each week by Mondays at 11:59pmET.”
Federal workers from agencies including the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Veterans Affairs received the email from the Office of Personnel Management around 9 p.m. ET Friday night.
Representatives for the White House and the Office of Personnel Management did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Business Insider.
“Nuts. They did it again,” one Department of Education employee told Business Insider upon receiving the email.
Federal workers who have spoken to Business Insider have expressed frustration over the emails from OPM, which circumvent each office’s chain of command and are sent during late or weekend hours.
The heads of various agencies have offered differing guidance regarding how their employees should respond, with at least eight offices, including the Department of Defense and the State Department, previously telling workers they don’t have to respond to DOGE’s emails.
On Monday, Musk said that employees who had not yet responded to the email would be given “another chance,” but “failure to respond a second time will result in termination.”
Less than half of the federal workforce responded to the first email, the White House said Tuesday.
The productivity-tracking emails, first sent on the afternoon of February 22 from an HR account in the Office of Personnel Management, followed President Donald Trump‘s request that Musk “get more aggressive” with DOGE’s budget cuts and layoffs. The emails are among the latest of the office’s sweeping initiatives that have resulted in mass firings, funding pauses, and work stoppages in departments and agencies across the federal government.
Musk had teased that the emails would be coming in a post on X, writing: “Failure to respond will be taken as a resignation,” but the emails received by employees have not detailed any potential consequences for failing to reply by the deadline. The email sent Friday night also made no mention of those consequences.
The email has two key differences from the one sent last weekend: It makes clear the request for accomplishments will be ongoing, and stipulates that employees working with sensitive information do not need to respond with specific tasks.
“If all of your activities are classified or sensitive, please write ‘All of my activities are sensitive,'” the Friday email reads.
One nurse who works with the Department of Veterans Affairs told Business Insider said the emails are “infuriating,” adding that they’d responded to the last one after installing a read receipt tracker on their emails. Their initial response still hasn’t even been opened, they said.
“They’re such cowards,” the nurse said. “Nobody has the guts to sign their name to this, and we’re expected to respond to some faceless entity like we’re shouting into a void. It’s not coming from my supervisor or anyone in my actual chain of command, just another generic ‘HR’ email with no accountability.”
Other federal employees who previously spoke to Business Insider said they were considering quitting rather than dealing with the emails and conflicting guidance about how to respond to them.
The Department of Education employee said they are looking for a new job, but have been struggling to find work since so many federal employees are recently out of work in the area where they live. As a single parent with dual citizenship, the Department of Education employee said they are considering moving abroad with their children.
Earlier Friday, Department of Education employees received a buyout offer “in advance of a very significant Reduction in Force,” according to an email reviewed by Business Insider. Employees who have worked at the department for at least 3 years were offered $25,000 in addition to any retirement funds they are eligible for. Interested employees have until 11:59pm ET on March 3 to accept the offer.
And on Thursday, a memo seen by Business Insider was sent to employees in the Social Security Administration offering voluntary early retirements as part of a “restructuring that will include significant workforce reductions.”
President Donald Trump’s administration officially announced its plan for federal staff reductions in a Wednesday memo, telling agencies to prepare to cut staff and reorganize their departments by March 13.
The Department of Education employee said they would “probably not” take the buyout offer, adding that “it’s crazy to give people just the weekend to think it over.”
“I don’t trust anything these people do,” the Department of Education employee told BI.
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