United States General Services Administration

Interagency Telework Issues Working Group Subcommittee DRAFT Reports

United States Office of Personnel Management

(Revised May 10)

Background

The attached paper focuses on telecommuting as a crucial component of recruitment and retention strategies. The paper addresses existing arrangements that the Office of Personnel Management, the Presidential Task Force on Employment of Adults with Disabilities, the Congress and others have regarding telecommuting. Areas of concern with existing arrangements are also discussed along with existing flexibilities. Possible new approaches are discussed drawing on the Voinovich Report and finally, recommendations for increasing participation in telecommuting through innovative and cutting edge recruitment and retention strategies are offered for consideration.

Areas of Concern

• Ensuring that disabled employees, in eligible positions, are given every opportunity to telework and that opportunities are widely publicized.
• Ensuring that OPM develops training programs for managers, supervisors on the use of telework as a recruitment and retention tool.
• Ensuring that OPM and agencies determine the effectiveness of recruitment and retention efforts as a result of offering telework programs; thus, baseline data should be collected before and after such programs are offered.
• Ensuring that agencies address eligibility criteria for telework in vacancy announcements. What is a reasonable time period that a new hire should spend in an organization, if any, before he/she is eligible to telework?
• Ensuring that agencies address the "equity issue" or the "digital divide" in determining which jobs are eligible for teleworking for recruitment and retention purposes. What level of supervision is needed; portability of assignments; availability of equipment etc.

Recommendations

• Agencies will ensure that the special needs of disabled employees are addressed when determining enhancements needed to information technology for telework positions. Specifically, agencies will include disabled employees on design teams when making arrangements for a disabled employee(s) to work at home. Agencies will also use telework as a means of compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) in order to retain valued employees; reduce employee turnover and recruitment costs; and, control the rising cost of disability benefits. Some companies cited for using telework as a valuable tool for opening up the workplace to people with a wide range of disabilities and for complying with ADA requirements are Northland Insurance Company and RESOURCE, Inc. Nonprofit agencies include the Minneapolis United Way and SERVICE 800.
• Agencies will address "equity issues" or the "digital divide" by considering how to use technology to narrow the digital divide by considering: increased use of telecenters since they bring the work closer to the employee; better use of telecommunication technologies to provide job opportunities to job seekers; better use of technology to provide cost-effective ways to deliver training to job seekers who lack local job opportunities; use of mobile training centers for job seekers; advertisements to job seekers about training opportunities for teleworking that includes partnerships with local universities and community colleges to provide appropriate training; use of the USDA cooperative extension workers and facilities for assistance.
• The Human Resources Management Council will make telework an agenda item and establish a subcommittee to address recommendations from the telework workgroup.
• Human Resources Directors will send memorandums to managers emphasizing that the use of telework as a recruitment and retention tool is expected and they will be held accountable for results.
• OPM should openly and actively promote telework as a means for recruiting and retaining staff-especially for hard-to-fill and retain occupations.
• Federal agencies will work with the OPM employment group to develop a reporting mechanism using the CPDF.to facilitate reporting on participation in telework programs.
• OPM and GSA will develop a "best practices" website spotlighting private and public organizations that have made the use of telework for recruitment and retention purposes a priority, for exampleAT&T, the Department of Labor etc.
• OPM will conduct annual surveys of how agencies are using telework for recruitment and retention purposes and use the results to track performance.
• When conducting job fairs agencies will emphasize telework opportunities.

References

www.opm.gov/wrkfam/telecomm/policies.htm
http://policyworks.gov/org/main/mp/library/policydocs/manual5.htm
http://hydra.gsa.gov/pbs/owi/manual6.htm GovExec.com
Report To The President: The Crisis In Human Capital

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