The trending moves of corporate America to working from home may be impeding any hopes for necessary and positive changes within the CDC, Kaiser Health News (KHN) reports.
As of October, 78% of the CDC’s 12,892 full-time employees were allowed to work remotely all or part of the time — a condition that also allows most of its scientists to stay remote, as well.
But lack of a substantial portion of the agency’s workforce and leadership presence “will likely be a substantial obstacle to the top leadership’s effort to overhaul the agency after its failures during the pandemic — a botched testing rollout, confusing safety guidance, the slow release of scientific research, and a loss of public trust,” KHN says.
They also question whether CDC director Dr. Rochelle Walensky can lead the change from home. “One of the things that a really strong new leader would do is they’d be visible, they’d be walking the halls, they’d have the open door,” said Pamela Hinds, a professor of management science and engineering at Stanford University. “That’s much harder to accomplish when nobody’s there.”
SOURCE:
Kaiser Health News December 5, 2022