United States General Services Administration

Interagency Telework Issues Working Group Subcommittee DRAFT Reports

United States Office of Personnel Management

(Revised May 17)

Existing Arrangements

This report addresses the definition and application of telecommuting, telework, or flexiplace work arrangements.

In recent years, both GSA and OPM have issued guidance on how agencies should implement telecommuting, telework, and/or flexiplace work arrangements. Agencies have had a wide latitude in how they want to structure and define their programs.

Areas of Concern with Existing Arrangements

Telecommuting, telework, and flexiplace are terms that can mean different things to different people. These terms can connote work at home, satellite offices, telecenters, and alternative work sites within or outside the commuting area of the agency's office. These terms can encompass; for example, short term, ad hoc work arrangements that are assignment-specific, or entail carrying out the full range of job responsibilities on a full-time basis from a remote alternative work site in another state or country. Another consideration is the fact that how flexiplace/telecommuting/telework work arrangements are being carried out by agencies has evolved over time with advances in telecommunications and information technology enabling work to be performed independent of location. Should these terms be used interchangeably or do they connote different things? GSA and OPM have used these terms differently. The International Telework Association and Counsel (ITAC) was also consulted, and this organization has a different view on how to make distinctions between these terms:

a. In GSA's guidance, "flexible workplace," work-at-home, telecommuting, teleworking all refer to a work situation or an employer/employee relationship where the location of the work site is shifted away from the traditional office. GSA views flexiplace as a general umbrella term that includes both work-at-home and telework (telecommuting) centers. Flexiplace arrangements may include the following:

(1) Work-at-home. Working in a space/area in the employee's residence specifically set aside as an office

(2) Telework center. Working from an office near the employee's home. Telework center employees work there primarily because it is close to their home, not necessarily because they belong to the same work unit or organization.

Types of flexiplace arrangements:

(1) Periodic or intermittent arrangements. Infrequent periods of time when projects/assignments have short turnaround times and/or require intense concentration.

(2) Short-term work-at-home arrangements. Occasional or short periods usually scheduled for 6 months or less.

(3) Long-term work-at-home arrangements. Regularly scheduled arrangement, designed to last over 6 months, typically those scheduled for 1 year, which may be extended based on an annual basis by mutual agreement between employee and supervisor.

(4) Telecommuting Centers. GSA offers telework (telecommuting) arrangements at established satellite work centers.

b. ITAC makes a distinction about the terms "telecommuting" and "teleworking." While they are often used interchangeably, there are subtle but important differences between them. Telecommuting employs telecommunications to avoid the drudgery and risks of commuting to the traditional office. The work-at-home variety of telework is the dominant form of technology-enabled remote work but it is a more restrictive definition.

Telework is a much broader term that means using telecommunications to work wherever you need to in order to satisfy client needs; whether it be from a home office, telework center, satellite office (which could be in an entirely different commuting area), a client's office, an airport lounge, or a hotel room.

c. OPM in its Telecommuting Briefing Kit defines telecommuting as working away from the principal (or traditional) office. People think telecommuting implies that one must have some form of electronic (computer and/or telephone) connectivity to work away from the office, but that is not a required condition and is not what the term means.

People are sometimes confused about the difference between Flexiplace and Telecommuting and think the terms have different meanings. Some think that Telecommuting implies some sort of electronic connectivity and that Flexiplace means working at home without a computer, but there is really no difference. Flexiplace was the name of the Federal work-at-home pilot project conducted by OPM between 1990 and 1993; however, today OPM uses the industry term Telecommuting to describe a situation where an employee perfoms work at an alternative worksite. Some Federal agencies call their telecommuting programs Flexiplace.

A recent OPM "Telework Fact Sheet" uses the term telework which means allowing an employee to work at home or another approved location away from the regular office. Depending on individual agency policy and supervisory approval, telework can include the following:

(1) Regularly established schedules for an employee to work one or more days a week at home or another approved location.

(2) Individual situations in which an employee works at home to complete a specific task or to meet a short-term need. For example, an employee may be able to complete a project more quickly away from the day-to-day demands of the office; an employee incapacitated by illness or injury may be able to perform some work at home; or an employee may be able to continue working even though the office is closed because of a natural disaster.

(3) Regular assignments of an employee to work a part of each week at a telework center that is geographically more convenient than the employee's regular office.

Possible New Approaches

OPM, GSA and Federal agencies need to come to a general understanding of how these terms will be used. Also, guidance from GSA and OPM on these work arrangements needs to take into account the increasing number of employees working from remote alternative work sites and whether these situations need to be treated differently from those who work off site in the same commuting area as their principal office.

Recommendations

We recommend that the term "telework" be adopted as an umbrella term in recognition of the fact that work is being performed at alternative work sites within the commuting area or outside the commuting area of the regular office including remote locations. Alternative work sites may include the employee's home, telecenter, satellite office, or field installation.

Telecommuting is a more restrictive term that connotes work performed at an alternative work site to reduce the costs, stress, and time it takes to commute to and from the principal office. Telecommuting is more limited in scope than telework, because it implies that the alternative work site is located within the commuting area of the principal office and that some form of electronic (computer and/or telephone) connectivity enables work to be performed away from the office.

Now that legislation has been enacted requiring agencies to have a Atelecommuting@ policy in place, there needs to be a more formal structure for implementing telework programs with an official definition. Telework needs to be integrated into the regulatory framework on pay and travel regulations (see report on duty station determinations) in recognition of the fact that employees may be performing work at an alternative work site in a different commuting area.

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