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GovExec Daily: The Patent and Trademark Office's Approach to Hybrid Work
PTO's Telework Program Office Director Danette Campbell spoke to GovExec about the successes of her agency's telework approach.
Late last week, the Office of Personnel Management issued guidance for agencies to begin to implement their reentry and post-reentry places for feds. Remote work and hybrid work will be a part of the post-reentry future for agencies, but one agency has been a telework model since before the pandemic. The Patent and Trademark Office embraced telework long before the pandemic, starting in 1997 with 18 attorneys working remotely. In 2019 before the pandemic, the agency had 11,000 employees regularly working remotely at least one day a week. As such, the agency had the experience to move seamlessly to maximum telework in March 2020.
As part of a panel during Government Executive and Nextgov’s Future of Work event recently, GovExec spoke to Danette Campbell, Director of the Telework Program Office at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Campbell discussed managing a hybrid workforce, the pandemic’s effect on telework and how her agency manages the complications of remote work.
