The Status of Telework in the Federal Government 2004
VI. Conclusions
Telework is growing slowly but steadily in the Federal Government,
whether progress is measured by numbers of teleworkers or assessments
of the maturity of agency programs. Numbers of telework eligible
and teleworking employees continue to rise. Telework policies
are nearly universal, and agencies are taking concrete steps to
implement their programs. Nearly half of the agencies have developed
a formal procedure for notifying employees of their telework eligibility.
A variety of mechanisms are being developed to track telework
and to provide supporting resources such as help desk assistance,
equipment repair, and access to excess agency equipment. Agencies
report taking concrete steps to overcome telework barriers through
training, marketing, and enlisting the support of top level managers.
OPM's goal is to make telework an integral part of agencies functioning,
rather than a "new" or "special" program that needs a great deal
of external support. During the past year, we have taken several
steps to help agencies strengthen their telework programs and
link them to agency strategic goals. We have emphasized the responsibility
of the agencies themselves to comply with telework legislation,
and are laying the groundwork for moving toward inclusion of telework
in our evaluation of agencies. We have drawn the distinction between
core and situational teleworkers and encouraged agencies to use
situational telework as a trial period and then move employees
toward the more efficient core telework. We have pointed to the
necessity for established telework programs as one aspect of agency
continuity of operations plans for disasters and other business
disruptions. A special appropriation of $500,000 allowed us, working
in partnership with GSA, to provide agencies with a variety of
tools which will make them more self-sufficient in their efforts
to promote telework. We will evaluate the effectiveness of all
these measures through further telework reports.