IRS officials stated that they have observed that telework availability is a key consideration for applicants, and an important tool in helping the agency hire over 5,000 new CSRs in fiscal year 2023. Image: Stasonych/Shutterstock.com
By: FEDweek StaffFollowing is the section of a GAO report showing some positive impacts for both employees and agencies from the higher rates of telework in recent years at four agencies sampled—the Farm Service Agency, IRS, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and Veterans Benefits Administration—while finding that impact on agency productivity is largely unknown.
FSA – Farm Service Agency
FSA officials at state and county offices told us the agency’s relative lack of telework use following reentry compared to the private sector or other federal agencies likely posed a challenge to recruitment, hiring, and retention. FSA officials at one county office said that they have had applicants take themselves out of consideration after learning that the position required them to be in the office most of the time. They also told us that USDA required staff to return to the office more often, which resulted in some staff leaving the agency.
FSA officials said, however, that other factors such as pay were more significant in both recruiting and retention challenges than telework. Officials in one state office said that it is difficult to find qualified applicants because the level of pay is not attractive to job seekers to relocate, and they do not have other financial incentives to offer. Pay and workload were the major reasons given by staff who resigned in exit interviews, according to FSA headquarters officials.
IRS
Recruiting. IRS officials stated that they have observed that telework availability is a key consideration for applicants, and an important tool in helping the agency hire over 5,000 new CSRs in fiscal year 2023. Specifically, the officials stated that offering telework expanded the potential talent pool to people who lived further away from agency locations. However, agency officials told us the 12 consecutive weeks of in-person training required for new CSRs expecting to telework may have contributed to significant attrition. At one location we visited, for example, a supervisor told us around 30 percent of new staff quit during in-person training. Retention. The increased use of telework at IRS coincided with improved employee engagement, the sense of purpose and commitment employees feel towards their employer and its mission. The agency’s Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey scores show that its employment engagement increased from 68.6 percent in 2019 to 72.9 percent in 2023. In addition, 68.5 percent of IRS respondents said they were satisfied with their job in 2023—a slight increase from 67.6 percent in 2019.
CSRs across sites we visited told us telework helped them avoid commuting expenses, which was particularly important for new staff at lower salary grades. CSRs we spoke with at a site in Baltimore told us they liked coming into the office and spending time getting to know their colleagues but could not afford to come in full time because of parking and transportation costs. Officials at IRS’s Accounts Management Denver site made similar statements about the importance of telework and avoiding commuting costs. They said without telework, very few people would apply to their location as a recent increase in the state’s minimum wage paid more per hour than entry-level IRS positions in Denver.
IRS field office officials from one site said that telework has positively affected retention because it made some positions more desirable. Further, they said that employees with less telework flexibility, such as clerical staff who must be in the office to receive hard-copy documents, are seeking telework-eligible positions. As clerical staff leave their jobs for positions that offer telework, they added that IRS could experience staffing gaps for in-office positions.
USCIS – Citizenship and Immigration Services
USCIS conducted an analysis of its 2023 Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey data and found that frequent teleworkers scored higher on performance dimensions of accountability and customer responsiveness than employees who teleworked less frequently or not at all. These results are important, as we have previously reported that DHS has faced challenges with low employee morale and engagement—an employee’s sense of purpose and commitment—since it began operations in 2003. We have made recommendations to help DHS make progress in this area.
In addition, USCIS’s analysis of its hiring data found a positive correlation between telework-eligible or remote positions and its ability to attract applicants. According to its analysis, USCIS found that telework-eligible or remote positions were attracting substantially more applicants than in office positions from 2019 through 2023. USCIS Asylum Division officials said they had applicants leave job interviews because they advertised positions as telework eligible but did not allow as much telework as the applicant was seeking.
USCIS found that applicants were three times more interested in remote work than telework-eligible or in-office positions in 2023. In our interviews with USCIS staff at one office, they told us that remote positions were highly desirable for both applicants and existing staff. Further, they stated that they were losing adjudicative staff to lower paying USCIS Service Center positions that offered remote work, resulting in staffing gaps.
VBA – Veterans Benefits Administration
Our analysis of VA All Employee Survey (AES) data found the percentage of VBA staff satisfied or very satisfied with their organization rose from 54 percent in 2019 to 65 percent in 2022.64 VBA also had a small increase in the percentage of employees stating they intended to remain with the agency, from 62 percent in 2019 to 63 percent in 2022. Employee retention is particularly important for disability claims processors, according to VBA frontline staff at one site, because it takes about 3 years for these new employees to develop job proficiency.
VBA officials said telework availability likely contributed to engagement and retention improvements, given that VBA employees generally had a very favorable perception of the agency’s implementation of telework. A telework satisfaction survey conducted by VBA’s Telework Evaluation Program Team found “the leadership team and employees expressed immense satisfaction with the telework program.”
VBA officials said they also observed increased interest from job seekers looking for positions that offer more telework. However, VBA officials at multiple locations told us they are increasingly competing for talent with other federal agencies and non-governmental organizations that offer greater telework and remote work options. Our analysis of AES data found that in 2023, more employees intended to leave VBA for work-life balance reasons, including greater telework flexibility (around 5 percent of total respondents) than in 2019 (around 3 percent).
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