The Office of Personnel Management is putting a pause on plans to relocate some of its employees, but said “new efforts” to do so are underway.

In February, OPM gave remote employees more than 50 miles away from the office an ultimatum: Agree to a “management-directed reassignment” (MDR) and relocate to office space in another geographic region, or face termination.

OPM said it would cover relocation expenses for employees who accept reassignment, and gave employees until March 7 to make their decision.

But in a new memo, obtained by Federal News Network, the agency states “relocation efforts for OPM employees are on pause.”

The memo said all employees should continue to work at their current duty station, and that “there is no longer an expectation that the first cohort of employees will be relocated to their new duty station by December 2025.”

The memo suggests OPM is taking a fresh look at relocation plans under OPM Director Scott Kupor, who took office in July. 

“Our new efforts will directly affect employees with an MDR and may also affect those with exemptions, should a future review remove the exemption and require a return to in-person work,” the memo states.

McLaurine Pinover, OPM’s head of communications, told Federal News Network that “OPM remains committed to championing President Trump’s return to office initiative while also identifying opportunities for cost savings and operational efficiency.”

“As part of this effort, we are exploring options to match employees with available federal facilities in their local area and working closely with the General Services Administration on innovative, cost‑effective relocation solutions,” Pinover said.

OPM previously said it would grant return-to-office exemptions to disabled veterans and employees with a “rare skillset” needed for business operations and cross-government services — as well as for several other “compelling” circumstances.

The agency said it would also grant exemptions to employees “facing significant personal and family hardship,” such as caring for a terminally ill relative in the immediate family, managing critical caregiving responsibilities, and other “extraordinary circumstances that pose severe emotional, physical, or financial burdens.”

OPM’s change in relocation plans could inform how the Trump administration decides to move other federal employees across the country.

The Agriculture Department is planning to relocate more than half of its D.C.-based workforce to regional hubs across the country, as part of agency reorganization plans released in July. The agency is accepting public comments on its reorganization plan through the end of the month.

President Donald Trump said on the campaign trail that his administration would relocate as many as 100,000 federal employees out of D.C. and relocate them “to places filled with patriots who love America.”

Kupor, however, told WTOP in August that there are no broader plans to relocate the federal workforce.

“I don’t think there’s any stated effort to kind of move jobs out of D.C. into other areas,” he said in an interview.

OPM recently asked impacted employees to provide the agency with a list of federal facilities in their area. The memo states OPM is still “reviewing that information.”

OPM wrote that it is working with GSA to identify opportunities to place OPM employees in other federal facilities, “and to pilot a more cost-effective relocation program.”

OPM previously told employees it had identified nine locations as duty stations with “potential capacity” for current agency employees to begin working on-site full-time. The locations include OPM’s headquarters building in Washington, D.C., as well as agency offices located across Georgia, Pennsylvania, Texas and Virginia.

OPM’s latest memo states that its Office of the Chief Human Capital Officer, Office of the Chief Financial Officer, and Facilities, Security, and Emergency Management are collaborating on these efforts, and that updates are expected “in the coming weeks.”

An earlier memo showed that 550 OPM employees — nearly 20% of its workforce — accepted a MDR.