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By: FEDweek StaffThe ranking Republican on the House government operations subcommittee, Rep. Jody Hice of Georgia, has asked the IGs of the dozen largest departments and the intelligence community to assess the impact on productivity of the high rate of federal employee telework due to the pandemic.
His request comes as agencies are preparing new policies on telework, alternative working schedules and other arrangements as ordered by the Biden administration. That guidance anticipates that such arrangements will continue at higher than traditional levels in the future, although leaving specifics to agencies.
Hice said that “It is clear that the unprecedented number of federal employees working remotely has significantly contributed to massive delays, inefficiencies, and declines in performance – all to the detriment of American taxpayers. Incredibly, the White House is now considering expanding work-from-home options for federal employees even before we have a clear picture of how it will impact Americans.”
“I’m calling on inspectors general to investigate the overall impact telework had on our federal agencies during this pandemic and report back to Congress so we can accurately assess how to move forward before rushing into foolhardy reforms,” he said.
The impact of federal employee telework on productivity—and the related issue of its impact on service to the public—has increasingly become a political issue to Hice and many other Republicans, along with some Democrats.
There has not been a formal assessment of productivity although for example in a survey of some 49,000 DoD employees released in April, 47 percent said that their productivity had increased and another 41 percent said it was the same. A survey of some 14,000 employees represented by the National Treasury Employees Union produced a similar result.
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