GSA is moving forward with a plan to increase telework weeks after administrator Lurita Doan called on agency managers to get half its eligible employees to telework at least one day each week by 2010, representing an increase of 40 percent over the current 10 percent of employees who do so.
At an event in September hosted by the Telework Exchange, a telework lobbying and consulting group, administrator Doan argued that the benefits of teleworking justify an aggressive, precedent-setting push, and called for plans to increase the number of GSA teleworkers to 20 percent by the end of 2008 and 40 percent by the end of 2009.
About 120,000 federal employees telework at least once a month, and 70,000 do so at least once a week, according to OPM’s last telework survey, covering 2005.
In early November deputy associate administrator for government wide policy, Stan Kaczmarczyk, told the House federal workforce subcommittee that telework programs can be successful when they have support and basic tools, and that the agency is in favor of legislation that would remove barriers to telework.
A Senate panel recently passed telework legislation that would consider most federal employees eligible for telework unless exempted, and would establish full-time telework managers in agencies. It would also mandate telework training for new employees and mangers. A similar bill has been offered in the House.
According to GSA, the agency’s policy is to consider employees eligible for telework unless supervisors document why they are not, a policy that would set a precedent for other agencies..
