GAO said challenges include measuring and shedding underutilized federal space, and reliability of telework data. Image: Roy Harris/Shutterstock.com
By: FEDweek StaffFollowing is testimony before a House committee in which GAO summarized the benefits, challenges and best practices regarding telework by federal employees that it has identified in assessing those programs, especially in light of the increase during the pandemic and the continued higher levels since then.
Potential Benefits
Telework offers potential benefits to federal agencies as well as to the federal workforce. These benefits include improving recruitment and retention of employees, reducing the need for costly office space, and creating an opportunity to better balance work and family demands. In addition, telework is a tool that agencies can use to help accomplish their missions during periods of disruption.
Last July, we reported on the impact of telework, both as it pertains to the workforce and various sectors of the economy. Studies we reviewed found that, while telework generally had a positive impact on worker productivity and firm performance in certain sectors, methodological issues complicate efforts to estimate its long-term impacts.
Federal human capital officers have identified telework as a workforce flexibility that can help address skills gaps by helping to attract, recruit, and retain the best possible workforce. For agencies to leverage telework to recruit and retain employees to close skills gaps in their workforce, they must ensure their telework policies, procedures, and other controls are appropriately implemented. Agencies must also ensure that the technology needed for employees to telework functions as it should.
Since 2001, we have included strategic human capital management in GAO’s High-Risk List. This is partially because of the need to address current and emerging skills gaps that are undermining agencies’ abilities to meet their missions. Last April, we reported that any progress to close mission-critical skills gaps will require demonstrated improvements in agencies’ capacity to perform workforce planning, foster employee engagement, train staff effectively, and recruit and retain the appropriate number of staff with the necessary skills. We found that agencies face challenges in these areas of human capital management.7 Effective implementation of telework policies and procedures could help improve talent management shortfalls, which is often how agencies experience skills gaps.
Challenges
Our prior work has identified a number of challenges related to telework. These challenges include:
Measuring and shedding underutilized federal space. Federal agencies have long struggled to determine how much office space they need to fulfill their missions. Retaining excess and underutilized space is one of the main reasons that federal real property management has remained on our High-Risk List since 2003. In a report we issued last October, we found that agency officials identified challenges to increasing utilization, including a lack of benchmarks for full utilization that accounts for increased telework.
Differences in agencies’ measures, calculations, and benchmarks can also contribute to differences in capacity and utilization measures across the government. A benchmark for measuring utilization that accounts for higher levels of telework could help the federal government more consistently identify underutilized space within and across agencies. This information could support better alignment of the federal real property portfolio with future needs and cost reductions from releasing unneeded space. We recommended that the Director of OMB should ensure that the Deputy Director of OMB, as Chair of the Federal Real Property Council, leads the development and use of benchmarks for measuring building utilization that account for greater levels of telework. OMB agreed with our recommendation.
In our October 2023 report, we reviewed the agencies’ use of their headquarters buildings at 24 federal agencies—including Interior—for three selected weeks during January, February, and March 2023. We found that Interior’s headquarters utilization was in the third quartile of the 24 agencies. The six agencies in the quartile used 23 percent of their headquarters buildings’ capacity on average over our sample period.
Reliability of telework data. In 2012, we reported that OPM had been concerned about the reliability of telework data it received from executive agencies through its annual data call over the prior decade. OPM also maintains data on telework use in its Enterprise Human Resources Integration (EHRI) system. In 2016, we found that several issues affected the reliability of the EHRI payroll system, including the telework variables within the database. We made five recommendations, including four to improve data reliability. In 2019, OPM implemented one recommendation by updating its EHRI database payroll data standards to include data on the number and instances of telework use by federal employees and the number of hours of telework used.
In 2023, OPM officials told us they implemented another recommendation by developing a process to monitor system generated error reports in EHRI. However, it still needs to close two other recommendations to improve data reliability. Specifically, OPM needs to finish updating control activities to further leverage EHRI datasets and data quality. It also needs to develop a schedule for integrating payroll data into a larger suite of EHRI databases.
OPM officials agreed that payroll data in EHRI could eventually be substituted for OPM’s current telework data calls but to do so would first require implementation of the above actions.
Until OPM develops a plan to fully implement all our recommendations to improve data reliability issues with its EHRI payroll data, it will continue to be unable to precisely assess telework usage across agencies and provide a full and accurate picture to Congress to support oversight. In February 2022, we recommended that Congress consider requiring OPM to develop an implementation plan to improve the reliability of information in EHRI, including telework information. In doing so, Congress should consider providing OPM a deadline for completing the plan.
IT. Agency officials reported a variety of IT challenges at the onset of the pandemic and took steps to try to mitigate these issues. These challenges included equipment shortages, lack of training, and limited network capacity. Agencies told us they needed to ensure that teleworkers had the right technology to perform their duties successfully. Other areas of importance to agencies included assessing organizational and teleworker technology needs, addressing access and security issues related to telework, and providing technical support when needed.
Work portability and replicating on-site work process. Several agencies reported that some positions and procedures were not portable. They added that they needed additional time at the outset of the pandemic to revise guidance and policies to accommodate full-time telework for eligible employees occupying those positions. Agencies also experienced challenges replicating the office environment and some processes in a remote setting. These included challenges with hiring, security checks and fingerprinting new employees, mail delivery and processing, and accessing office supplies and equipment.
Implementation of Key Practices Can Help Ensure the Success of Federal Agencies’ Telework Programs
In our prior work, we have also identified key practices for federal agencies to implement with their telework programs. These key practices can be grouped under seven categories: (1) program planning, (2) telework policies, (3) performance management, (4) managerial support, (5) training and publicizing, (6) technology, and (7) program evaluation. These telework key practices—several of which are required by statute—provide a roadmap for federal agencies to successfully implement their telework programs.
Program planning. The Telework Enhancement Act of 2010 (the act) required agencies to designate a telework managing officer (TMO). Establishing such a leadership position is consistent with the key practices we identified. The TMO is the primary agency official devoted to the development and implementation of the agency’s telework program and facilitates its compliance with the act. Agencies may also designate other officials to implement the day-to-day operations of the telework program.
Other key practices we identified related to program planning include establishing a cross-functional project team, establishing measurable telework program goals, developing an implementation plan for the telework program, developing a business case for implementing a telework program, providing funding to meet the needs of the telework program, and establishing a pilot program when initiating telework efforts.
Telework policies. Agencies should establish telework policies and guidance to ensure that their workforce is telework ready. Another key practice to facilitate telework is to establish telework agreements for use between teleworkers and managers. Agencies are required to have such agreements. The act requires agencies to ensure an employee enters into a written agreement with an agency manager who outlines the agreed-upon specific work arrangement between the manager and the teleworking employee before the employee participates in telework. Our previous work found that telework agreements should establish job duties and expectations, performance standards, measurable outcomes and deliverables, and periodic review.
Other key practices related to telework policies include establishing eligibility criteria to ensure that teleworkers are approved on an equitable basis using criteria such as suitability of tasks and employee performance; establishing policies or requirements to facilitate communication among teleworkers, managers, and coworkers; and developing guidelines on workplace health and safety issues to ensure that teleworkers have safe and adequate places to work offsite.
Performance management. Our past review of telework-related literature found that agencies should ensure that the same performance standards are used to evaluate both teleworkers and nonteleworkers. In addition, agencies need to establish guidelines to minimize any adverse impacts that telework could have on nonteleworkers before employees begin to work at alternate worksites. Following these practices can help eliminate any perceived unfairness and reduce potential sources of tension between teleworkers and nonteleworkers.
The act makes performance a criterion for continued program participation and states that telework policies should ensure that telework does not diminish employee performance or agency operations. It requires agencies to ensure that teleworkers and nonteleworkers are treated the same for the purposes of performance appraisals, among other management activities.
Managerial support. Our previous review of telework-related literature found that, to establish an effective telework program, it is critical to obtain support from top management and address managerial resistance to telework. Managers may resist telework in part because the change requires them to shift from managing by observation to managing by results. Managers’ acceptance of telework is highly dependent on top management’s commitment to those changes.
Training and publicizing. Telework involves different ways of working, as well as supervising employees. A key practice we identified from telework-related literature is that both employees and supervisors should receive training to ensure a common understanding of the program. Telework training should include two key components: it should (1) address policy issues and include general information, such as policy updates and an orientation to telework; and (2) focus on telework program activities, including such topics as IT applications, performance management, and time management.
It is also important to inform the workforce about the telework program. The act requires agencies to provide an interactive telework training program to telework-eligible employees and to managers of teleworkers. The act further requires that employees successfully complete the training before entering into a telework agreement. OPM guidance also recommends managers complete telework training prior to approving telework agreements.
Technology. Our prior review of telework-related literature found that agencies should assess teleworker and organization technology needs; develop guidelines about whether the organization or employee will provide necessary technology, equipment, and supplies for telework; provide technical support for teleworkers; address access and security issues related to telework; and establish standards for equipment in the telework environment. Agencies must also have an appropriate IT infrastructure in place that allows large numbers of employees to telework simultaneously.
Program evaluation. Telework-related literature we previously reviewed recommends that agencies develop program evaluation tools and use them from the very inception of the program to identify any problems or issues with the program, and develop an action plan to guide any necessary changes for telework or the organization. The literature also emphasized the need for tracking systems that can help accurately ascertain the status of telework implementation in the agencies and, subsequently, the federal government. Such a tracking system should include a formal head count of regular and episodic teleworkers, as well as nonteleworkers.
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