GSA releases guidelines on telework

The General Services Administration on Friday published the first-ever guidelines establishing governmentwide rules and clarifying federal law on working away from the office.

The guidelines, which took effect immediately after they were published in the Federal Register, are intended to help agencies create and operate alternate work arrangements and resolve issues that frequently arise when organizations attempt to move employees out of the typical office setup.

An Office of Personnel Management and GSA study from 2002 found that confusion over rules and terms has kept telework from expanding at federal agencies.

"The regulations make it crystal clear to agencies that there are laws in place that mandate telework participation to the fullest extent possible, and that there are regulations and guidance from OPM and GSA on how to do that," said Stanley Kaczmarczyk, deputy associate administrator of GSA's Office of Real Property. "There are now no excuses for not setting up a robust telework program."

Kaczmarczyk said he does not believe the regulations will prompt a quick upsurge in telework, but said that they are necessary to continue the steady increase reported by OPM in December.

"If OPM and GSA slack off on this, we're going to lose our slow incremental growth," Kaczmarczyk said. "I don't think we can get that silver bullet."

The notice stated that 20 agencies, including the departments of Defense, Agriculture, Justice, State and Treasury, are required by a 1998 law to make $50,000 available for employees to use telework centers.

The regulations also stated that agencies are allowed to provide new or excess workplace equipment and furniture at alternative worksites, such as an employee's home, as long as an audit trail keeps track of the location of the equipment.

Agencies can pay for the installation of communication services, such as Internet and fax lines, in private residences, and for monthly charges for their use, as long as employees have been approved to work at home.

However, agencies are not permitted to pay for incremental home utility costs, the guidelines stated. They can pay for utility costs at alternative sites such as telework centers.

The regulations are long overdue, and it is important to have some sense of consistency among agencies, said Chuck Wilsker, president and CEO of the Telework Coalition.

William Mularie, a longtime telework advocate and chief executive officer of the federally sponsored Telework Consortium, said the document is a significant step forward from the guidelines provided by OPM.

The old idea was that the only employees able to work remotely were those with writing-intensive jobs or work that could be done independently and didn't require interaction with other people, Mularie said

The new regulations encourage an attitude that, rather than selecting employees eligible for telework, agencies should have to designate employees who are ineligible, Mularie said.

An interagency working group that included representatives from the Homeland Security, Agriculture and Defense departments began work on the rules in the fall, Kaczmarczyk said. All regulations are revisited at least once every three years, but with technological changes involved in teleworking, this publication may get updated sooner than that, he said.