In a rare instance of an agency calling attention to negative IG findings about itself, OPM said that “under the previous administration, OPM’s telework and remote work policies were mismanaged and oversight was virtually nonexistent. Image: Viktoriia_M/Shutterstock.com
An inspector general audit has faulted both management and employees in the offsite work program for OPM’s own employees before the Trump administration’s return-to-office directive largely ended such programs there and in other agencies.
A report said that OPM had “leveraged telework and remote work to improve mission delivery”—although it did not quantify an impact—with participation in remote work nearly quadrupling by fiscal 2024 from pre-pandemic levels. Some of that increase came along with an offsetting decrease in telework, which unlike remote work requires employees to work onsite on a regular schedule.
The IG said that during a pay period last September, employee timesheets were compliant with in-office requirements for all but three of a sample of 37 employees at OPM headquarters. However, it said that data from building entrance badging records did not reflect the required number of in-office days for 18 of them.
In a rare instance of an agency calling attention to negative IG findings about itself, OPM said that “under the previous administration, OPM’s telework and remote work policies were mismanaged and oversight was virtually nonexistent. That era of telework abuse is over.”
However, the IG said it did not look into the reasons behind the mismatch between timesheets and access card data, citing potential factors other than “intentional fraud or abuse” such as several types of “internal control deficiencies.”
Also, the audit raised issues related to management in assessing “whether OPM’s oversight controls of its telework program effectively ensured compliance with agency requirements.”
It said that that as of last September, 11 of 37 telework agreements sampled had lapsed, all but four of which later were updated. Further, of 90 “discrepancies” involving telework that had been reported to employing offices last May, 19 remained unresolved four months later.
“We determined that there were no documented procedures with specified frequencies for the monitoring and oversight performed by HR. Additionally, there were no official requirements for timely resolution of identified discrepancies by program offices,” the report said.
Similarly, as of last September management did not have approved remote work agreements on file for six of 39 sampled remote workers, four of which were later resolved.
Having such agreements approved and on file “officially records a mutual agreement of understanding of the rules and expectations of remote work. This includes the recording of the approved official duty station for the remote worker, which is the basis for their locality pay,” it said.
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