Federal workers at the Department of Homeland Security are to have a “more flexible work schedule,” the department has confirmed.
Since moving back into the White House for a second term, President Donald Trump has overseen a shake-up of the federal workforce, including by issuing an executive order in January 2025 to ban government staff from working from home.
The back-to-office order came as the administration also implemented hiring freezes and mass layoffs and has encouraged employees to point out examples of fraud, waste and abuse within their departments.
In April 2025, the DHS specifically ended flexible work arrangements and required most employees to return to the office five days a week. The department also stopped compressed hours which had allowed workers to work four days a week instead of five, but with longer hours.
While the DHS did not comment on the specifics of new changes, in a statement provided to Newsweek, a DHS spokesperson said: “Under new leadership, DHS reexamined its alternative work schedule policies to align with the vast majority of other federal agencies. This allows our workers to have [a] more flexible work schedule.”
Why It Matters
The changes will affect the some 260,000 workers at the agency and their daily work day. It also represents a softening of earlier policies toward federal workers amid new leadership at the agency. In March, Markwayne Mullin became the Homeland Security secretary after his predecessor Kristi Noem became the first Cabinet secretary to be fired from Trump’s second administration.
What To Know
The DHS did not expand upon the alternative work schedule policies it would implement, but policies include working flexible hours as an alternative to the traditional 9 to 5, 40-hour work week, according to a memo published by the U.S. Department of Labor
Meanwhile, a Commerce Department memo says: “Under a flexible work schedule, management can establish different core hours for each day. Consistent with assuring service to the public, core time can be expanded or contracted relative to the outer limits of the organization’s work day or to the amount of flexibility that is permitted employees relative to their specified arrival and departure hours. Management may also establish flexible time bands outside of the time bands for arrival/departure for the purpose of earning credit hours.”
The change also follows other policy shifts by different government agencies. As of July 2025, federal workers were given permission to work from home, adjust their hours, or seek other changes to their schedule for faith reasons, Newsweek reported at the time.
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