One area in which the annual survey delved into more detail than in the past involves telework—in particular, whether employees have been formally notified, as required by a 2010 law, whether they are eligible.
Only a moderate majority, 57 percent, said they are sure they were notified—36 percent told they are eligible and 21 percent that they are not eligible. Another 33 percent said they haven’t been notified at all and the final 10 percent said they are not sure if they were notified.
It found that 29 percent of employees telework, up from 19 percent in 2011. The most significant increase was among those who telework one or two days a week, rising from 2 to 10 percent. The percentage of frequent teleworkers, doing it three or more days a week, has held about steady, rising from 2 to 4 percent, while the percentage doing it very infrequently or only on an unscheduled/short notice basis also has increased moderately, from 9 to 11 percent. The percentage teleworking one or two days a month meanwhile has dropped slightly from 6 to 4 percent.
Of those who don’t telework, 32 percent say it’s because they have to be physically present on the job, 5 percent say it’s because technical issues—such as data security—prevent it, and 20 percent said they simply weren’t approved even though they have the kind of job in which they could telework.
While managerial resistance to telework is most commonly cited as the major barrier to wider use of telework, the data also showed that the percentage of employees who are deemed eligible to telework but choose not to do it has been steady since 2011 at 12-13 percent.
OPM puts out an annual separate report on telework, typically near year’s end of late, that does not cross-match well with the viewpoint survey results because of differences in what is deemed to be telework and that report’s use of a snapshot in time methodology.
