Agency guidance on ‘five accomplishments’ email still inconsistent

Federal employees entered their third week facing a requirement to provide updates on five recent accomplishments they’ve achieved at work, though there remains little consistency in how agencies are expecting their workforces to comply.

So far, agencies’ directives have ranged from directly instructing their employees to reply to telling their workforces to take steps to ensure their responses are secret. Still, others have asked their staff to ignore the request altogether pending review of prior submissions, according to a series of guidance obtained by Government Executive and Nextgov/FCW. 

Elon Musk — who is spearheading efforts at the Department of Government Efficiency — and President Donald Trump have said responses to the “five things” email would be required across government, but individual agencies have continued to take a tailored approach. Musk has asserted that the regular emails can help agencies measure productivity and weed out staff deemed unsuitable for their roles.

In the Homeland Security Department’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, an email sent Monday said the agency received notice that DHS is in the process of reviewing a prior round of submissions from late February and that employees “should not submit any new responses until further notice.” 

Similar guidance was provided to the DHS Federal Law Enforcement Training Center.

“Leadership is currently reviewing last week’s responses and response rates. As such, there is no reporting requirement until further notice,” a Sunday email to FLETC said.

The Air Force and other civilian Defense Department elements were given a list of reminders to minimize operational security threats, including being asked to remove the signature block from their emails and to BCC their supervisors. Some were also told that, if responses can’t be sent in an unclassified manner, then the five bullet points should be transmitted to their supervisor directly through the appropriate communications network. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has instructed all civilians to submit their “five things” list each week going forward. 

Staff inside the State Department, meanwhile, appear to not have received any updated guidance, according to a person familiar with the matter, who added that Secretary Marco Rubio is instead answering on behalf of the agency every Monday.

The Interior Department asked employees to continue complying, and noted that if “all your activities are classified or sensitive, please write ‘All of my activities are sensitive,’” according to an email obtained last week. They were told to respond to both the generic Office of Personnel Management email sent to nearly all federal employees and a separate address set up for Interior. 

At the Social Security Administration, employees have not received any new guidance. One employee said they assumed a previous directive that responses were due every week is still operative. 

Late last month, amid initial confusion about whether feds needed to comply with the directives or face terminations, Musk said in an X post that the email request “was basically a check to see if the employee had a pulse and was capable of replying to an email. This mess will get sorted out this week. Lot of people in for a rude awakening and strong dose of reality. They don’t get it yet, but they will.”

Musk had originally suggested anyone who did not respond to the email would be removed from federal service. Individual agencies have since largely backed down from that threat, though some are still leaving the door open to discipline. 

“Non-compliance may lead to further review,” Hegseth said in an email to DOD staff on Friday.