Washington — Some federal workers received another email late Friday asking them to provide five bullet points of what they accomplished in the past week, sources confirmed to CBS News.
The email shown to CBS News instructed federal workers to “please reply to this email with approx. 5 bullets describing what you accomplished last week and cc your manager.”
It also indicated that such an edict would continue.
“Going forward, please complete the above task each week by Mondays at 11:59pmET,” the email read.
The Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Energy and the Treasury Department were among the agencies that received it.
However, unlike the first such email circulated to the federal workforce last week, it allowed employees who deal with sensitive information to opt out of a full response.
“Please do not send links, attachments, or any classified/sensitive information,” the email read. “If all of your activities are classified or sensitive, please write ‘All of my activities are sensitive.'”
Earlier Friday, sources familiar with the directive confirmed to CBS News the new email was expected to come from individual federal agencies, not the Office of Personnel Management, as was the case with the emails sent last week. That government-wide directive caused confusion as to whether a response was required — and the possible ramifications of not answering.
With this new round of emails, OPM advised agencies to send the messages themselves, and each department has the discretion to decide whether to do so, sources told CBS News earlier Friday. The emails are part of a strategy to have agencies account for their employees’ work each week and report it back to the government’s human resources agency, though no decision has been made about whether the messages will go out weekly, the sources said.
In addition to the individual agencies deciding whether to send the emails, each will decide how long their workforces have to respond and the consequences of not replying, CBS News learned.
Since returning to the White House, President Trump has made reducing the size of the federal government a key part of his second-term agenda. He tasked Elon Musk to lead the cost-cutting effort through the White House’s Department of Government Efficiency, though the billionaire is not the administrator of the task force. The White House confirmed earlier this week that Amy Gleason, who worked at the U.S. Digital Service, the precursor to DOGE, is its acting administrator.
But Musk and his team have roiled the federal government with their initiative; as thousands of probationary federal workers were fired, DOGE employees have sought access to departments’ data systems housing sensitive information and work at some independent agencies has ground to a halt.
Their actions have sparked numerous lawsuits, and on Thursday, a federal judge in California found that the mass firings of probationary employees were likely unlawful.
The initial round of emails sent to the federal workforce last Saturday came from OPM with the subject line “What did you do last week?” It directed recipients to reply with five examples of what they accomplished in the prior week and include their bosses in the response. Government employees had until 11:59 p.m. Monday to answer and were told not to “send any classified information, links, or attachments.”
Musk had initially warned on social media that a failure to respond “will be taken as a resignation,” but several agencies, including the FBI and Departments of State, Homeland Security and Defense, told their employees to ignore the request. OPM then told human resources officials from departments Monday that it was up to each agency to decide how they would handle the emails to their workers.
But a memo also sent Monday to agency leaders that sought to provide guidance on the government-wide “what did you do last week” email said responses should be directed to department leadership, with a copy going to OPM.
It said “agencies should review responses and evaluate nonresponses.” The memo did not mention the directions given by department heads that instructed their workforce not to reply.
Roughly 1 million federal workers responded to the first “what did you do last week” email. Mr. Trump said during a Cabinet meeting Wednesday that those who didn’t reply “are on the bubble” and said his administration wasn’t “thrilled” about the non-responses.
“Maybe they’re going to be gone, maybe they’re not around, maybe they have other jobs,” the president said.
- In:
- Elon Musk
- Department of Government Efficiency
- Donald Trump
Add Comment