WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, dogged by media speculation about how long he will last as top U.S. diplomat, tried to ease skepticism among staff about his leadership and planned State Department reorganization on Tuesday.

During a town hall meeting at the State Department,

Tillerson laid out steps such as merging agency email lists and allowing greater tele-work for staff, many of whom are unhappy about plans announced earlier to reduce staff and carry out roughly 30 percent budget cuts proposed by the White House.

Tillerson did not break new ground in his speech on the main U.S. policy challenges he faces, including the North Korean and Iranian nuclear programs, the Syrian civil war and Russia’s occupation of Crimea.

The former Exxon Mobil Corp chief executive laid out several steps he plans to improve State Department operations.

These include moving to a cloud-based systems for email and collaboration; integrating the State Department and U.S. Agency for International Development email address lists; and ending a hiring freeze on “eligible family members” of workers.

Many State Department officials have been frustrated by the hiring freeze on such family members because this means their spouses are often unable to get work at U.S. embassies.

“We’re going to end the hiring freeze in 2018 and return the authority to bureaus and posts to make decisions on what they need for eligible family members,” Tillerson said, drawing applause.

Briefing reporters before Tillerson’s remarks, a senior State Department official said the wider hiring freeze would remain for now.

Tillerson also announced plans to allow workers abroad who are evacuated for medical reasons to tele-work; streamlining the process of obtaining security clearances, including allowing interns to work with “interim” clearances and simplifying the department’s computer system interfaces.

Tillerson has been undercut by President Donald Trump on policy issues such as North Korea, where the secretary of state said he was pursuing diplomatic contacts only to be told by the president in public that he was wasting his time.

Tillerson has also alienated some of his staff by relying on a narrow group of aides, nudging out a number of senior career diplomats, and making erroneous statements about top echelon of U.S. diplomats during a recent appearance.

“It’s one of many things that show that the administration as a whole doesn’t fundamentally understand what diplomacy can do and how it works,” Richard Boucher, a former department spokesman and assistant secretary for South and Central Asia, said on Monday.