The annual Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey continues to show that significant numbers of federal employees choose not to participate in several key work-life balance programs even though those programs are available to them.
Boosting government-wide participation in alternative working schedules and telework—especially the latter—has been a long-running initiative of OPM and has drawn substantial interest from Congress, as well. Recently, however, several agencies have acted to pull back from those programs, for example by limiting the allowed frequency of telework.
The survey showed that 43 percent of employees telework at least some of the time, although within that number 15 percent said they do it only “very infrequently, on an unscheduled or short-term basis.” Another 6 percent said they telework only about 1 or two days a month while 15 percent said they telework one or two days a week and the rest even more often than that, including 2 percent who telework daily.
The most common reason for never teleworking, cited by 29 percent overall, is that they are ineligible because they have to be physically present on the job, while another 4 percent said technical issues prevent them from teleworking. Another 13 percent said they have not been approved even though their job would lend itself to teleworking while 12 percent said they choose not to telework.
More on Telework Rules for Federal Employees at ask.FEDweek.com
Similarly, 16 percent said that alternative working schedules are not available to them but another 10 percent said they choose not to participate in them.
In both cases, employees who do participate expressed high levels of satisfaction with the programs, with only single digit percentages saying they are dissatisfied or very dissatisfied.
