Some Teleworkers ‘Situational’

Some 750,000 federal employees are now deemed by their agencies to be eligible to telework, an increase of 125,000 over the prior year’s accounting, but of those considered eligible, the percentage actually doing so remains about the same, at 14 percent, the OPM reported recently. OPM’s survey of major agencies found that some 103,000 federal employees telecommute, although of those, 39 percent were described as “situational” teleworkers-telework that occurs on an occasional, non-routine basis. Some experts consider such arrangements not to be telecommuting at all but merely a continuation of long-time practices of letting employees work from home in certain situations. Even employees considered to be “core” teleworkers spent only six days per month on average teleworking, either from home or from a satellite telework center; “situational” teleworkers averaged three days per month. OPM and the General Services Administration have been pushing teleworking for years but factors ranging from information security concerns to management reluctance to have employees out of sight have been blamed for a continued low rate of telecommuting.