The Good News: Smile and Beware, Your Home Office is on Camera
By Ann Modlin Boehm, July 17, 2024
Office space is a home away from home. Or let’s face it, in 2024, your office space very well may be your home. However, a home office can be very visible to your colleagues, and some rules apply to what you display in your home office.
When everyone worked in office buildings, people took great pride in decorating their personal office spaces. Some people created brag walls full of diplomas and awards. Lots of office spaces displayed family and pet photos. Landscapes, artwork, or child-crafted pottery often appeared. Some people without windows put up fake windows on their walls. The goal – make the workspace a pleasant place to spend a good portion of one’s life.
Post-pandemic, a substantial portion of Federal employees work from home one or more days per week. The advent of Zoom and Teams and WebEx enables colleagues to see each other’s workspaces on camera.
A home office can feel more personal, so people may be more careless about what they display. An office in a Federal building is not likely to house an unmade bed. But that can appear in a Zoom meeting. What about someone using their Peloton bike (and wearing workout clothes) during a Teams meeting? Not likely to happen in a Federal building. According to some of my sources, it happened on Zoom.
What guidance is out there regarding appropriate home office displays? Not a lot, quite honestly. But, there are two potential home office minefields that managers, advisers, and employees need to understand.
First, displays of offensive objects can create a hostile work environment under equal employment opportunity laws. The EEOC clarified in its recent “Enforcement Guidance on Harassment in the Workplace” that “conduct within a virtual work environment can contribute to a hostile work environment.” https://www.eeoc.gov/laws/guidance/enforcement-guidance-harassment-workplace (April 29, 2024). This would include, for example, “racist imagery that is visible in an employee’s workspace while the employee participates in a video meeting.”
Second, the Hatch Act applies to home offices. The Hatch Act prohibits Federal employees from engaging in political activity while on duty. In April 2020, the Office of Special Counsel (the entity that enforces the Hatch Act) issued guidance about the application of the Hatch Act to teleworking employees. Hatch Act Advisory for Teleworking Employees, Office of Special Counsel (April 28, 2020) (Advisory).
The Advisory explains that “[e]mployees participating in virtual work-related conferences are subject to the same on-duty Hatch Act restrictions as when they attend meetings or communicate in-person with others at work.” The Advisory specifically notes that employees “should ensure that any partisan materials, like campaign signs or candidate pictures, are not visible to others during the call.” Also avoid wearing campaign t-shirts or hats while on virtual conferences.
I think practical guidance is worthwhile on this subject, too. If you would not display something in a Federal building, you should not display it in your home office.
An office – whether in a Federal building or a home – should be a place where anyone would feel comfortable. There are lots of ways to do that without being offensive, inappropriate, or in violation of the Hatch Act. And that’s Good News! Boehm@FELTG.com
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