United States General Services Administration

Interagency Telework Issues Working Group Subcommittee DRAFT Reports

United States Office of Personnel Management

Revised June 20, 2001

Existing Arrangements and References

This report addresses the definitions and applications of "official duty station," as well as the pay, hours of work, travel, and reduction in force (RIF) issues that are affected by duty station determinations for employees who are telecommuting/teleworking.

OPM

The relevant OPM references are the Guide for Processing Personnel Actions, Chapter 23 Change in Duty Station; 5 CFR Part 351, REDUCTION IN FORCE; 550.112(j); 551.422(b) and (d); 531.602; and the Personnel Policies and Procedures available on the Family-Friendly Workplace telecommuting web page at www.opm.gov/wrkfam/telecomm/policies.htm.

The definition for "official duty station" is in several pertinent documents and is defined or described differently in each. The OPM Guide for Processing Personnel Actions (Guide) was revised in December 1997 and is considered by OPM as the best reference for understanding duty station and the location of an employee's work site. For most employees, the work site is the place where the employee "works, or at which the employee's activities are based, as determined by the employing agency"; i.e., "the location of the employee's desk or place where the employee normally performs his or her duties...."

5 CFR 531.602 contains a definition of "official duty station" and is the only reference that addresses a temporary change of station situation, i.e., 6-30 month assignment in which travel allowances are authorized, as opposed to a TDY assignment of up to 6 months in which per diem is paid.

The Personnel Policies and Procedures document "recommend(s) that agencies designate the telecommuter's main office as the official duty station for such purposes as special salary rates, locality pay adjustments, and travel...", and goes on to state that "agencies may make their own determinations." This guidance was taken verbatim from GSA's original guidance on telecommuting at http://policyworks.gov/org/main/mp/library/policydocs/manual5.htm under the section "DUTY STATION AND PAY ISSUES."

5 CFR 550.112(j)(2) also addresses "official duty station". It, and 551.422(b), state that travel from home to work and vice versa, within the official duty station, is never hours of work. 551.422(b) states that "(a)n employee who travels from home before the regular workday begins and returns home at the end of the workday is engaged in normal 'home to work' travel; such travel is not hours of work." These regulations were issued prior to the concept of telecommuting/teleworking at home in which the home becomes an authorized or designated work site.

5 CFR Part 351 defines "local commuting area" under 351.203 as "the geographical area that usually constitutes one area for employment purposes." 351.402(b) defines competitive areas for RIF actions "in terms of the agency's organizational unit(s) and geographical location.... A competitive area may consist of all or part of an agency." This reference does not address a situation in which an employee is telecommuting/teleworking on a full-time basis from outside the commuting area of the organization to which assigned.

GSA

GSA's Federal Travel Regulations (FTR) at 41 CFR 300-3.1 defines "official station" as "the location of the employee's ... permanent work assignment" and describes the geographical limits of the official station for an employee as "(1) (t)he corporate limits of the city or town where stationed or if not in an incorporated city or town; (2) (t)he reservation, station, or other established area (including established subdivisions of large reservations) having definite boundaries where the employee is stationed."

GSA's internal Order on Time and Leave Administration, Chapter 12, HOURS OF DUTY, addresses Flexible Workplace Arrangements (Flexiplace Program) at paragraph 9. Paragraph o under the section Other management considerations addresses the official duty station by referencing the definition in the FTR and states, "(r)egardless of where the employee spends the majority of work hours, the conventional Federal office, for purposes of flexible workplace arrangements, remains the official duty station."

Section 302-1.3 of the FTR, which is available at http://policyworks.gov/org/main/mt/homepage/mtt/ftr/newftr/302-1_3.html, states that, for a permanent change of duty station, payment of travel and transportation expenses are not mandatory provided the transfer "is not primarily for the convenience or benefit of the employee or at his/her request" and, for a temporary change of station, payment of such expenses is discretionary. However, the FTR does not address a telework situation in which the employee requests to relocate away from the assigned office and whether travel expenses are mandatory or discretionary.

Department of State

The Department of State Standardized Regulations (DSSR) establishes allowances for the cost of living (based on factors that exceed that of the Washington, DC area), quarters, education, hardship area differentials, and danger pay for all Federal employees while stationed overseas. Agencies are not permitted to restrict allowances authorized for full-time employees; however, section 031.5 prohibits part-time employees from receiving any allowances, except danger pay.

Agency Arrangements

Agencies have established arrangements in which employees work at a variety of alternative workplaces both within and outside the designated radius of the main office. Some employees work full time several states away, or even overseas, from their main office and may or may not periodically travel to their main offices, depending on the arrangement. Some arrangements require that an employee travel to the employee's main office one or more days during a pay period, normally at the employee's expense, while other arrangements do not have such a requirement if outside the normal commuting area.

Areas of Concern with Existing Arrangements

Obviously, the definitions of official duty station are not consistent in these source references. The OPM and GSA guidance on telecommuting and GSA's own program rely on the location of the employee's main office, whereas application of the Guide for Processing Personnel Actions (Guide) would result in a change in duty station if the employee's work site is "normally" outside the duty station of the main office. As pointed out in both the OPM and GSA guidance documents, a change in duty station may have a significant impact on pay rates, travel expenses and allowances, and RIF determinations that are based on "commuting areas."

Establishing a separate competitive area for an employee who is telecommuting/teleworking full-time from outside the organization's commuting area, when the commuting area constitutes a separate competitive area, can be both beneficial and detrimental to an employee. It can be beneficial in terms of avoiding being impacted on others affected by a RIF in the organization's commuting area and may facilitate a worker transition plan by being isolated; conversely, by being isolated, an employee is highly vulnerable for being terminated from Federal service, unless a reasonable offer can be made for a position within the employee's commuting area. Thus, the more remote that an employee works, the less that an employee has job security.

The interagency workgroup agrees with 5 CFR 551.422(b), that travel before and after the regular workday should not be considered hours of work; however, the workgroup feels that not all travel to and from home should be excluded as hours of work when the home is a designated or authorized work site. To address these concerns, the following question with several scenarios was sent to the OPM compensation staff for consideration. In its response, OPM provided general guidance and responded to each scenario. The OPM responses are in italics.

General Guidance

Commuting from home to work and vice versa is not hours of work. When an employee travels directly from home to a temporary duty location outside the limits of the employee's official duty station, the time the employee would have spent in normal home-to-work travel is deducted from hours of work. (See 5 CFR 550.112(j)(2) and 5 CFR 551.422(b).)

Travel during the employee's regularly scheduled basic tour of duty is hours of work. Employees should be required to obtain approval for travel from their supervisors. It is not appropriate to schedule overtime hours to cover travel time. (See 5 CFR 550.112(g)(1), 5 CFR 551.422 (a)(1), and 5 U.S.C. 6101(b)(2).)

Supervisors generally may not change an employee's regularly scheduled basic tour of duty after the workweek begins. (See 5 U.S.C. 6101(a)(3).) However, supervisors may cancel regularly scheduled overtime work or may order irregular or occasional overtime work. For employees under flexible work schedules, supervisors may require, during a workweek, that some (planned) flexible hours of work be performed at another time not in excess of 8 hours in a day or 40 hours in a week. (See OPM's Handbook on Alternative Work Schedules, section 12d.

When an employee's home (or telecenter or satellite office) is an authorized or designated work site, when is an employee's travel/commute between that location and the employee's main office location considered work or nonwork hours? Does the employee's work schedule change?

Consider the following scenarios:

1. when an employee has a preplanned event, e.g., a meeting, scheduled in the main office on the employee's telecommuting day and remains at the main office for that employee's normal work schedule.

   This scenario implies that the agency has a compelling reason to require the employee to work at the main office for at least part of the day. When that occurs, the agency may want to cancel the employee's authority to telecommute on the day of the meeting in the main office or reschedule his or her telecommuting day. If a telecommuter is required to travel to the main office during his or her regularly scheduled basic tour of duty on that day, the agency must credit the travel time as hours of work. In order to maximize productivity and avoid situations where a telecommuter has a greater pay benefit than employees who do not telecommute, agencies should avoid requiring a telecommuter to travel to the main office during his or her regularly scheduled basic tour of duty.

2. when an employee is directed to come in (called back) to the office for an unplanned event, e.g., to work on an urgent assignment for which the employee doesn't have the resources available at home to complete.

   If a telecommuter is directed to travel to the main office during his or her regularly scheduled basic tour of duty, the telecommuter's travel hours must be credited as hours of work. If the telecommuter is directed to travel back to the main office before or after his or her regularly scheduled basic tour of duty for irregular or occasional overtime work, the employee is entitled to at least 2 hours of overtime pay under the "call back" rules. (See 5 CFR 550.112(h) and 551.401(e).)

3. when an employee forgets to take home the correct resources needed to work all day, so comes in long enough to get them and return home.

   A telecommuter must receive approval from his or her supervisor for any trips to the main office on his or her telecommuting day. If the trip is approved and occurs during the telecommuter's regularly scheduled basic tour of duty, the employee's travel time is hours of work. For this reason, the supervisor must evaluate whether such a trip is necessary before granting approval. The supervisor may want to require the employee to work at the main office for the remainder of the workday. If a telecommuter repeatedly fails to plan properly and does not have the necessary resources to work at home, the agency should reevaluate the employee's continued participation in the telecommuting program.

4. when an employee needs or desires to arrive or leave during the normal work schedule and is approved to complete the day at the alternate work site/home.

   As stated above, if an employee is permitted to travel to and from his or her telecommuting work site during his or her regularly scheduled basic tour of duty, the travel hours are hours of work.

5. when the employee's alternate work site/home is outside the 50 mile commute radius or takes more than an hour for the normal commute.

   As stated above, normal commuting from home to work, and vice versa, is not hours of work. This applies no matter how long the employee's normal commute is.

Existing Flexibilities

The Guide provides some latitude for agency determinations of duty location within the parameters of the definitions. Both the OPM and GSA guidance on duty determinations provide for agency determinations.

Possible New Approaches

Since regulations prevail over any guidance, including the Guide, both 5 CFR and 41 CFR should be revised to be consistent and serve as the source references and definitions for both the HR and finance staffs. The Guide may then need to be updated to be consistent with the revised regulations.

Recommendations

1. All relevant regulations should reference or utilize the definition for "official duty station" that is in the Guide for Processing Personnel Actions. However, the Guide should be changed to delete the first sentence in paragraph 3 - "The location of an employee's work site is the location of the employee's desk or the place where the employee normally performs his or her duties." Instead, the definitions and resultant determinations for "local commute," "remote commute," and "remote work" in the attached "Proposed Definitions and Applications for Duty Station Determinations" document should be adopted and incorporated in the applicable regulations and Guide.
   
   
2. Because of the travel, RIF, and, particularly, locality pay impacts of duty station determinations, agencies should establish procedures that inform affected employees and their supervisors/managers of the impacts of a change in duty station before arrangements are finalized. Agencies should identify whether the employee's new duty station constitutes a separate competitive area in the employee's telework agreement.
   
   
3. Revise the applicable sections of the DSSR to authorize agencies to limit the total amount of allowances for full-time employees that request to telework from an overseas location to an amount not less than the locality pay for the locality in which the employee's organization is located when the total amount of authorized allowances plus base pay exceed the locality pay area for the assigned organization (note: this recommendation has been presented to the Department of State Office of Allowances staff and is pending acceptance).
   
   
4. Revise Section 302-1.3 of the FTR to include "remote commute" telework situations under subparagraph (2) Discretionary coverage so that agencies can be responsive to employee requests to relocate outside their normal commuting area, change their duty station determination appropriately to reflect that location, and not be obligated to pay all travel expenses associated with regular commutes to the assigned office (note: this recommendation has been presented to the GSA travel policy staff and is pending further discussion with that staff).
   
   
5. Revise the applicable parts of the FTR and 5 CFR that specify the mileage radius of the duty station to delete the mileage so it is unlimited miles. This will not change compensating employees for official travel beyond the employee's normal commute to the employee's main office or alternative work site.
   
   
6. Revise 5 CFR 550.112(j)(2) and 551.422(b) to reflect that, when a home is approved as a designated work location, travel to and from home during approved work schedules is normally hours of work; however, this does not preclude a supervisor from adjusting daily work schedules when travel home may be needed for personal reasons, such as to remove a sick child from a day care provider or to avoid unusual traffic problems.

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