The director of Washington County Job and Family Services is optimistic about the impact of Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine’s executive order requiring state employees to go back to the office.

DeWine issued the order Tuesday, directing all permanent employees of state agencies, boards and commissions to resume five-day, in-office work weeks no later than March 17.

Remote work increased during the COVID-19 pandemic, although many workers returned to their offices or a hybrid arrangement after the declared emergency was lifted in June 2021.

Flite Friemann, director of Washington County Job and Family Services, said most people is his office wouldn’t be affected because they are employed by the county rather than the state and have been using remote work only in a limited fashion, depending on the needs of the agency. But there are four workers who serve multi-county regions who come into the Marietta office about once a week, Friemann said.

“I don’t know if the order’s going to affect them,” he said.

Prior to the pandemic, representatives of the state Department of Job and Family Services would visit the local office for training and audits, Friemann said. That moved to the Teams app during the pandemic, which worked sometimes, he said.

“It was really kind of challenging on the exit interview,” he said.

Friemann once had to field a question about how and why the department replaced carpet in sections rather than all at once. Once he explained to the state official the reasoning due to the layout of the office, it was fine, but he said it would have been easier to show her what he was talking about.

“Zoom and Teams have their place, and they can be very, very helpful,” Friemann said, but they can’t supplant in-person interaction in some cases, he said. It can also be easier to get distracted as messages come in on the same device one is using to communicate.

Friemann looks forward to the resumption of quarterly training meetings in person if that is a result of the order.

“I think we’re going to start state travel again, and I think we’re going to have better relations with our state counterparts,” he said.

The change isn’t expected to have a major impact on Ohio Department of Transportation workers like those in District 10, which includes Washington County.

ODOT Press Secretary Matt Bruning said most of their workers don’t work from home or the office as they are out on the roads every day making sure travel is safe for motorists.

“This won’t change anything for them,” he said.

Staff reporter Douglass Huxley contributed to this story.