Issue Summary
Telework offers benefits to federal agencies as well as to the federal workforce. It can be a workforce flexibility tool that can address skills gaps by helping attract, recruit, and retain the best possible workforce. Additional benefits include reducing the need for costly office space, and 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—such as during the COVID-19 pandemic.
There are 7 key practices federal agencies can use to ensure successful telework programs: program planning, telework policies, performance management, managerial support, training and publicizing, technology, and program evaluation.
However, agencies also face several challenges related to federal telework, including:
- Efficient use of 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 the High Risk List since 2003. For example, 17 agencies’ HQ buildings were at 25% capacity or less in the first 3 months of 2023. But the Office of Management and Budget hasn’t developed benchmarks for measuring building use that account for increases in telework.
- Work portability. Several agencies reported that some positions and procedures were not portable enough to allow for telework. Agencies also experienced challenges replicating the office environment and some processes in a remote setting—including with hiring, security checks and fingerprinting new employees, mail delivery and processing, and accessing office supplies and equipment. Additionally, the Office of Personnel Management needs to develop a plan to address long-standing data reliability issues that would improve its oversight of agencies’ telework and provide more accurate and useful information to Congress.
- IT challenges. An increase in telework can bring a variety of IT challenges, including equipment shortages, lack of training, and limited network capacity. Telework can also bring added cybersecurity risks that agencies need to address.
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