The US Department of Defence has officially ended a controversial rule that required civilian employees to submit weekly email reports listing five tasks completed during the week. This initiative, introduced as part of a government programme to ensure efficiency, was intended to boost accountability and identify areas of waste across departments.
For their final submission, civilian employees were asked to ptesent a single, actionable idea to reduce inefficiencies within the Pentagon. The policy was initially launched under a government-wide push to streamline operations and improve transparency in federal agencies.
Known informally as the “What Did You Do Last Week?” check-in programme, applied only to civilian employees and excluded active-duty military personnel. The rule had drawn mixed reactions after employees were warned that non-compliance may be treated as voluntary resignation.
Earlier in the year, the Pentagon had temporarily suspended the reporting requirement, but restored it weeks later. The effort was linked to a broader plan by the Trump administration to scale back the size of the civilian workforce at the Department of Defence. Officials have announced a targeted reduction of 5 to 8 per cent in civilian staff, which could potentially affect more than 50,000 employees.
To ease the transition process, the Pentagon introduced a deferred resignation programme, allowing eligible employees to delay their exit until later in the year. The department is still assessing how many roles will be impacted but indicated that critical positions may be retained despite the cutbacks.
The termination of the weekly report rule indicates that the Pentagon navigates workforce downsizing while seeking to maintain operational stability.
