Nearly 60% of the federal workforce works remotely today; here’s the gist of what agencies need to demonstrate the value of telecommuting
by Intelliworx
The debate over telework has reached new heights. Some folks are for it – others are against it – and few seem to be giving up any space for compromise. In the interim, federal agencies are stuck juggling competing interests from employees, leaders and politicians.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is a recent example. Following pressure from Congress and the Administration, it began pressing employees to return to the office last year. However, they have recently backed off following union pressure.
In response to that pressure, the FAA is proposing a hybrid model. It requires employees assigned to FAA headquarters to work in the office at least four days every two weeks. Many other agencies are moving to put similar requirements in place.
Two years of digitization – compressed into months
The Coronavirus pandemic is largely attributed with accelerating telework. We avoided the office to “flatten the curve” but work still had to get done. As a result, organizations of all kinds –the private sector, non-profits and government were all left scrambling to maintain operations in a remote work environment.
This forced a lot of change in a very short period of time. As Rex Salisbury, a partner at the venture capital firm a16z, observed, “Businesses of all kinds are experiencing two years’ worth of digitization compressed into months.”
Now, with the pandemic over, we’re collectively decompressing. And the pendulum that swung towards remote work is now swinging back to the center.
Experimenting with telework since the 1930s
Telework, or remote work, as it’s more commonly referred to, isn’t new. The first known U.S. government entity to authorize remote work was in 1934, according to a white paper written for the General Service Agency (GSA).
However, a presentation by the Federal Leadership Seminar Series noted it wasn’t until the 1970s that the word “telecommuting” was coined. That same decade the Office of Personal Management (OPM) ran a telework pilot with five agencies yielding “favorable results.” The U.S. Army and National Institute of Health (NIH) followed a bit later in 1980 – with similar conclusions – but stopped out of the risk for abuse.
In 2010, House Resolution 1722 – the Telework Enhancement Act codified telework into law. It required agencies to “establish a policy under which eligible employees of the agency may be authorized to telework.” This was a logical progression as high-speed internet was more available – and enabled work from anywhere. As the saying goes, “Work is what you do, not where you are.”
Today, about half of federal workers are currently working remotely, according to our reading of the 2023 Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey (FEVS). That includes 54% that telework 1-2 days a week (or more) and 37% that spend at least 3-4 days a week working remotely. OPM says the federal government employed 2.87 million people at the end of 2022 – so this policy directly affects millions and indirectly affects millions more.
“Work is what you do, not where you are.”
Advantages and disadvantages of remote work
Advocates point out that telecommuting improves quality of life, enhances productivity and provides the organization with a wider pool of potential talent. It also supports the government’s efforts to foster a paperless environment and continue down the path of digital transformation.
There’s also the benefit of reduced congestion on the roads (and by extension gas consumption and pollution). Places like Washington, DC, consistently rank among the worst cities for traffic in the U.S. As home to the majority of federal workers, teleworking can dramatically reduce the cost and stress of commuting for the entire region.
Of course, there are drawbacks too. Leaders have to plan meetings because the ability to call an impromptu discussion in the office is gone. There are also questions of equity because some jobs – like law enforcement or working classified material – are not conducive to remote work. Finally, and perhaps more importantly, is the risk that telework can be prone to abuse.
Arguments on both sides are valid and the data as to the effects seems to align with personal preference. For example, in a report to Congress that cites 2022 FEVS data, OPM found:
“The fiscal year 2022 FEVS reports that employees who telework 3 or more days per pay period are more likely to score higher (77.1 percent) on the Employee Engagement Index than those who do not (58.5 percent). Employees who choose not to telework also report high levels of engagement (73.2 percent) albeit not as high as those who telework frequently.”
Accountability is the key
Every federal agency is empowered to create its own policy – which makes sense because every agency has unique needs. The key to mitigating the risks is accountability – and that requires documentation. More specifically, OPM requires federal employees telework to have a written agreement with their manager defining the terms of their telework arrangement.
Typical terms include aspects such as:
- technology tools for communication and collaboration;
- appropriate and distraction-free workspace;
- provisioning of computers and equipment; and
- performance measurement.
The last part is particularly important because without clear performance goals, critics of telework default to metrics like “butts in seats.” Attendance shouldn’t be confused with productivity, but without the accountability that comes with a written agreement, a perceived lack of attendance makes productivity difficult to prove.
Proactive agencies will standardize these agreements digitally – and use software to create, complete, manage and account for all of their teleworkers. Should a supervisor ever be asked – or an agency administrator is put on the spot in a Congressional hearing – such software tools can provide the data to articulate unequivocally how many employees they have working from home and the benefits to the agency.
Resources:
- Guide to teleworking by OPM
- Find your federal work-life agency coordinators
- Telework security guidance and resources by the CISA
- Resources for managing teleworkers by the GSA
- Example telework agreement that’s used by the GSA
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Track your telework agreements!
We’d be remiss if we didn’t point out that Intelliworx can help federal agencies with digitization of telework agreements, the workflow for review and approval of those, and securely mange the data and reporting to ensure accountability. Contact us today for a no-obligation demo.
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