GovernmentExecutive.com

Senators and officials testifying before a government oversight subcommittee Tuesday questioned how to best define and assess telework.

Despite apparent general agreement about the potential benefits of the concept, some participants in a hearing before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Subcommittee on Oversight of Government Management expressed doubts about implementation.

Sen. Daniel Akaka, D-Hawaii, chairman of the subcommittee, voiced concern that no clear definition of "teleworker" applies across all federal agencies.

The subcommittee called the hearing to discuss a bill (S. 1000) that would define a teleworker as an employee who works away from the office at least two business days a week. The new definition met resistance from both the Government Accountability Office and the Patent and Trademark Office.

GAO maintained that it might cause confusion when applied alongside the broader definitions that already exist in federal telework guides and in other legislation. Jon Dudas, director of PTO, testified in favor of the bill generally, but said in written testimony that the two-day definition will not give agencies enough flexibility in coming up with telework programs that fit their "individual business needs."

Agencies also lack accurate estimates of how many employees work away from the office, said Bernice Steinhardt, director of strategic issues at the Government Accountability Office. Right now many agencies look at numbers of telework agreements signed to determine how many employees are using the arrangement. But just because workers sign an agreement doesn't mean they work away from the office regularly, Steinhardt said, and many agencies do not track how often signatories actually work from home.

Steinhardt also recommended that agencies find ways to measure whether potential benefits of telework, which include reducing traffic congestion and vehicle emissions and increasing productivity, are actually being achieved.

Establishing measurable program goals was one of four practices GAO cited as important in a 2003 report on telework. The others were development of the business case for telework, creation of systems to gather data on results, and implementation of reforms to fix problems uncovered. To perform this last step, agencies must undertake the other three practices. But none of the four agencies GAO studied consistently performed any of these steps.

Dudas said his office, which has a large telework program, has compared the productivity of telecommuters to that of their in-house counterparts, and has found teleworkers are sometimes more productive.

"Our telework programs begin with the gathering of statistics and metrics," said Dudas, whose office has been praised for embracing the work arrangement. Because PTO has found a way to measure productivity -- sometimes down to the quarter-hour -- managers can tell if workers start underperforming when they're at home, he said.

Before PTO could implement its telework policy, it had to work with the three labor unions that represent its employees, Dudas said. The agency also had to create separate telework programs for different types of employees. Under the PTO system, patent examiners and judges often can work away from the office full time, whereas other employees can telework part time or on an as-needed basis. Creating separate programs has been critical to the patent office's success, Dudas said.

COMMENTS

• I agree, old school managers are the problem. It isn't they don't understand the concept, they don't want to understand it or put forth the additional management efffort to make it work. re: Defense Finance and Accounting Service. A limited and selective impression of deploying telework is this agencies compliance method. When asked if they have been proactive in seeking answers to deploying the initiative, they give evasive answers. Their position seems clear. Certain managers appear to find every reason telework will not work. Ironically, they have the same "can't do" attitude they do not allow employees to have day to day. Not measurable is another common management excuse. Everyone has a position description and performance standards, that whether those standards are met at a desk or at a desk elsewhere, one must meet them. Telework is simply management by objectives and to require mounds of tracking paperwork before and after each time one teleworks would seem simply be a tactic to discourage telework. Understandably, some employees will not meet their standards without the more direct supervision of on-site managerial oversight, however employees should appropriately be first given the opportunity to succeed or fail at performing their job under the telework initiative. Prejudging most employees other than a few doesn't seem to be a proactive way to move the telework initiative forward. In fact, prejudging seems to create a more encompassing and unfair perception. Telework on a regular basis and as set out as agency creditable according the Federal Register, is not favored where adhoc and other non-permanent telework is being deployed in creating the appearance of agency compliance. Telework seems to be viewed at this point as a perk to be allowed in isolated cases and applied as a very temporary application to some and more permanent and extensive to others. Yet, most who apply are denied by insinuating they desire a perk. A perk is not what telework is supposed to be about. It is supposed to be about, national efforts to reduce the use of oil and minimize emissions, quality of employee life through transportation cost savings, commuter stress reduction that improves performance, saving the government expensive work space, the ability of the government to compete in the human capital market, etc. MICO Posted June 19, 2007 10:10 AM
• I’m surprised (dismayed actually) that Sen. Akaka and other “Senators and officials testifying before a government oversight subcommittee” don’t know that there already is a clear definition of teleworker and telework that DOES apply (or is supposed to at least) across all federal agencies. That definition is contained in the Federal Management Regulation (FMR) Bulletin 2006-B3. It was put forth by the Office of Governmentwide Policy (MP), General Service Administration. (GSA, along with OPM, is the lead agency for the federal teleworking initiative and teleworking policy development for the Federal Government.) The policy became effective March 17, 2006, and defines telework as follows: “a. Telework and telecommuting are used interchangeably and are defined as the act of performing all or a portion of work functions at an alternative worksite, such as working from home or a telework center, under circumstances that reduce or eliminate the employee’s commute. To be considered telework, it must occur at least one day per week on a regular and recurring basis and does not include (1) situational telework (unscheduled, project-oriented, nonrecurring, and/or irregular telework and/or any teleworking that occurs less frequently than once a week on a recurring basis) or (2) full-time mobile work arrangements.” Jack Thornburg Posted June 15, 2007 3:39 PM
• Teleworking will never be prevalent in the U.S. Gov. until the old school management staff retires. Bottom line...they think that if you are NOT at your desk...your are NOT working. VET Posted June 15, 2007 9:55 AM