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Testimony: 

Before the Subcommittee on Federal Workforce, Postal Service, and the 
District of Columbia, Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, 
House of Representatives: 

United States Government Accountability Office: 

GAO: 

For Release on Delivery Expected at 10:00 a.m. EST: 

Tuesday, November 6, 2007: 

Human Capital: 

Telework Programs Need Clear Goals and Reliable Data: 

Statement of Bernice Steinhardt, Director Strategic Issues: 

GAO-08-261T: 

GAO Highlights: 

Highlights of GAO-08-261T, a testimony before the Subcommittee on 
Federal Workforce, Postal Service, and the District of Columbia, 
Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, House of Representatives. 

Why GAO Did This Study: 

Telework continues to receive attention within Congress and federal 
agencies as a human capital strategy that offers various flexibilities 
to both employers and employees. Increasingly recognized as an 
important means to achieving a number of federal goals, telework offers 
greater capability to continue operations during emergency events, as 
well as affording environmental, energy, and other benefits to society. 

This statement highlights some of GAO’s prior work on federal telework 
programs, including key practices for successful implementation of 
telework initiatives, identified in a 2003 GAO report and a 2005 GAO 
analysis of telework program definitions and methods in five federal 
agencies. It also notes more recent work where agency officials cite 
their telework programs as yielding benefits. 

As GAO has previously recommended, Congress should determine ways to 
promote more consistent telework definitions and measures. In 
particular, Congress might want to have the Office of Personnel 
Management (OPM) and the Chief Human Capital Officers Council develop 
definitions and measures that would allow for a more meaningful 
assessment of progress in agency telework programs. 

What GAO Found: 

Through a number of legislative actions, Congress has indicated its 
desire that agencies create telework programs to accomplish a number of 
positive outcomes. Many of the current federal programs were developed 
in response to a 2000 law that required each executive branch agency to 
establish a telework policy under which eligible employees may 
participate in telecommuting to the maximum extent possible without 
diminishing employee performance. The legislative framework has 
provided OPM and the General Services Administration with lead roles 
for the governmentwide telework initiative—providing services and 
resources to support and encourage telework. Although agency telework 
policies meet common requirements and often share characteristics, each 
agency is responsible for developing its own policy to fit its mission 
and culture. 

In a 2003 report, GAO identified a number of key practices that federal 
agencies should implement in developing their telework programs. Four 
of these were closely aligned with managing for program results: (1) 
developing a business case for telework, (2) establishing measurable 
telework program goals, (3) establishing systems to collect data for 
telework program evaluation, and (4) identifying problems and making 
appropriate adjustments. None of the four agencies we reviewed, 
however, had effectively implemented any of these practices. In a 
related review of five other agencies in 2005, GAO reported that none 
of the agencies had the capacity to track who was actually teleworking 
or how frequently, relying mostly on the number of telework agreements 
as the measure of program participation. 

Consistent definitions and measures related to telework would help 
agencies better manage for results through their telework programs. For 
example, program management and oversight could be improved by more 
consistent definitions, such as eligibility. Some information may take 
additional efforts to collect, for example, on actual usage of telework 
rather than employees’ potential to telework. However, other valuable 
information may already be available through existing sources, such as 
the Federal Human Capital Survey. The survey—which is administered 
biennially—asks federal employees about their satisfaction with 
telework, among other things. OPM and the Chief Human Capital Officers 
Council are well-situated to sort through these issues and consider 
what information would be most useful. The council and OPM could also 
work together on strategies for agencies to use the information for 
program improvements, including benchmarking. 

To view the full product, including the scope and methodology, click on 
GAO-08-261T. For more information, contact Bernice Steinhardt at (202) 
512-6806 or steinhardtb@gao.gov. 

[End of section] 

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee: 

I am pleased to be here today to discuss our observations of federal 
telework programs based on our past work, particularly those practices 
that are closely aligned with managing for program results. Telework is 
increasingly recognized as an important means to achieving a number of 
federal efforts, including effective strategic human capital management 
of the federal workforce, and a greater capability to continue 
operations during emergency events, as well as affording environmental, 
energy, and other benefits to society. However, in the absence of clear 
program goals and reliable data, agencies cannot identify problems or 
issues with their programs and cannot develop and implement changes 
necessary to improve their success. 

Congress has demonstrated its keen interest in promoting the use of 
telework in the federal government by establishing a wide-ranging 
statutory framework. This framework has included provisions directed at 
increasing employee eligibility for telework, requiring reporting and 
evaluation of telework implementation, establishing agency telework 
coordinators to lead the program, setting goals for application of 
telework provisions to the federal workforce, and even withholding 
funds from some agencies that fail to show progress. 

My statement today will describe first, the statutory framework that 
drives the agency telework programs and processes. I will also share 
observations from our past work that pertain to four key practices 
related to managing for results and our findings regarding the extent 
to which agencies have implemented them. 

My comments are based on previously issued GAO reports that were 
developed in accordance with generally accepted government auditing 
standards. This statement highlights some of GAO's prior work on 
federal telework programs, including key practices for successful 
implementation of telework initiatives, identified in a 2003 GAO report 
and a 2005 GAO analysis of telework program definitions and methods in 
five federal agencies. It also notes more recent work where agency 
officials cite their telework programs as yielding benefits. 

Congress Has Established a Statutory Framework to Promote Agency 
Telework Programs and Increase Employee Participation: 

Through a number of legislative actions, Congress has indicated its 
desire that agencies create telework programs to accomplish a number of 
positive outcomes. These actions have included recognizing the need for 
program leadership within the agencies; encouraging agencies to think 
broadly in setting eligibility requirements; requiring that employees 
be allowed, if eligible, to participate in telework, and requiring 
tracking and reporting of program results. Some legislative actions 
have provided for funding to assist agencies in implementing programs, 
while other appropriations acts withheld appropriated funds until the 
covered agencies certified that telecommuting opportunities were made 
available to 100 percent of each agency's eligible workforce. 

The most significant congressional action related to telework was the 
enactment of Sec. 359 of Pub. L. No. 106-346 in October 2000, which 
provides the current mandate for telework in the executive branch of 
the federal government by requiring each executive agency to establish 
a policy under which eligible employees may participate in telework.In 
this law, Congress required each executive branch agency to establish a 
telework policy under which eligible employees of the agency may 
participate in telework to the maximum extent possible without 
diminishing employee performance. The conference report language 
further explained that an eligible employee is any satisfactorily 
performing employee of the agency whose job may typically be performed 
at least 1 day per week by teleworking. In addition, the conference 
report required the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to evaluate 
the effectiveness of the program and report to Congress. 

The legislative framework has provided both the General Services 
Administration (GSA) and OPM with lead roles for the governmentwide 
telework initiative--to provide services and resources to support and 
encourage telework, including providing guidance to agencies in 
developing their program procedures.[Footnote 1] In addition, Congress 
required certain agencies to designate a telework coordinator to be 
responsible for overseeing the implementation of telework programs and 
serve as a point of contact on such programs for the Committees on 
Appropriations. 

GSA and OPM provide services and resources to support the 
governmentwide telework implementation. OPM publishes telework 
guidance, which it recently updated, and works with the agency telework 
coordinators to guide implementation of the programs and annually 
report the results achieved. GSA offers a variety of services to 
support telework, including developing policy concerning alternative 
workplaces, managing the federal telework centers, maintaining the mail 
list server for telework coordinators, and offering technical support, 
consultation, research, and development to its customers. Jointly, OPM 
and GSA manage the federal Web site for telework, which was designed to 
provide information and guidance. The site provides access for 
employees, managers, and telework coordinators to a range of 
information related to telework including announcements, guides, laws, 
and available training. 

Although agency telework policies meet common requirements and often 
share some common characteristics, each agency is responsible for 
developing its own policy to fit its mission and culture. According to 
OPM, most agencies have specified occupations that are eligible for 
telework and most apply employee performance-related criteria in 
considering authorizing telework participation. In addition, OPM 
guidance states that eligible employees should sign an employee 
telework agreement and be approved to participate by their managers. 
The particular considerations concerning these requirements and 
procedures will differ among agencies. 

Better Performance Measures and Program Evaluations Could Improve the 
Assessment of Telework in the Federal Government: 

In our 2003 study of telework in the federal government,[Footnote 2] we 
identified 25 key practices that federal agencies should implement in 
developing their telework programs. Among those were several practices 
closely aligned with managing for program results including: 

* developing a business case for implementing a telework program; 

* establishing measurable telework program goals; 

* establishing processes, procedures, or a tracking system to collect 
data to evaluate the telework program; and: 

* identifying problems or issues with the telework program and making 
appropriate adjustments. 

Yet, in our assessment of the extent to which four agencies--the 
Department of Education, GSA, OPM, and the Department of Veterans 
Affairs--followed the 25 key practices, we found these four practices 
to be among the least employed. 

None of the four agencies we reviewed had effectively developed a 
business case analysis for implementing their telework programs. In 
discussing the business case key practice in our 2003 study, we cited 
the International Telework Association and Council, which had stated 
that successful and supported telework programs exist in organizations 
that understand why telework is important to them and what specific 
advantages can be gained through implementation of a telework program. 
According to OPM,[Footnote 3] telework is of particular interest for 
its advantages in the following areas: 

* Recruiting and retaining the best possible workforce--particularly 
newer workers who have high expectations of a technologically forward- 
thinking workplace and any worker who values work/life balance. 

* Helping employees manage long commutes and other work/life issues 
that, if not addressed, can reduce their effectiveness or lead to 
employees leaving federal employment. 

* Reducing traffic congestion, emissions, and infrastructure effect in 
urban areas, thereby improving the environment. 

* Saving taxpayer dollars by decreasing government real estate costs. 

* Ensuring continuity of essential government functions in the event of 
national or local emergencies. 

In addition, some federal agency telework policies suggest other 
potential advantages. For example, the Department of Defense's telework 
policy includes enhancing the department's efforts to employ and 
accommodate people with disabilities as a purpose of its program. The 
Department of State's policy notes that programs may be used to 
increase productivity. As another example, the U.S. Department of 
Agriculture credits telework with having a positive effect on sick 
leave usage and workers compensation. 

A business case analysis of telework can ensure that an agency's 
telework program is closely aligned with its own strategic objectives 
and goals. Such an approach can be effective in engaging management on 
the benefits of telework to the organization. Making a business case 
for telework can help organizations understand why they support 
telework, address relevant issues, minimize business risk, and make the 
investment when it supports their objectives. Through business case 
analysis, organizations have been able to identify cost reductions in 
the telework office environment that offset additional costs incurred 
in implementing telework and the most attractive approach to telework 
implementation. 

We have recently noted instances where agency officials cited their 
telework programs as yielding some of the benefits listed above. For 
example, in a 2007 report on the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office 
(USPTO), we reported that, according to USPTO management officials, one 
of the three most effective retention incentives and flexibilities is 
the opportunity to work from remote locations.[Footnote 4] In fiscal 
year 2006, approximately 20 percent of patent examiners participated in 
the agency's telework program, which allows patent examiners to conduct 
some or all of their work away from their official duty station 1 or 
more days per week. In addition, USPTO reported in June 2007 that 
approximately 910 patent examiners relinquished their office space to 
work from home 4 days per week. The agency believes its decision to 
incorporate telework as a corporate business strategy and for human 
capital flexibility will help recruitment and retention of its 
workforce, reduce traffic congestion in the national capital region, 
and, in a very competitive job market, enable the USPTO to hire 
approximately 6,000 new patent examiners over the next 5 years. As 
another example, in a 2007 report on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission 
(NRC), we noted that most NRC managers we interviewed and surveyed 
considered telework and flexible work schedule arrangements to be very 
to extremely valuable in recruiting, hiring, and retaining NRC 
personnel and would be at least as valuable in the next few 
years.[Footnote 5] 

With regard to the second key practice aligned with managing for 
results, none of the four agencies had established measurable telework 
program goals. As we noted in our report, OPM's May 2003 telework 
guide[Footnote 6] discussed the importance of establishing program 
goals and objectives for telework that could be used in conducting 
program evaluations for telework in such areas as productivity, 
operating costs, employee morale, recruitment, and retention. However, 
even where measurement data are collected, they are incomplete or 
inconsistent among agencies, making comparisons meaningless. For 
example, in our 2005 report of telework programs in five agencies--the 
Departments of State, Justice, and Commerce; the Small Business 
Administration; and the Securities and Exchange Commission--measuring 
eligibility was problematic.[Footnote 7] Three of the agencies excluded 
employees in certain types of positions (e.g., those having positions 
where they handle classified information) when counting and reporting 
the number of eligible employees, while two of the agencies included 
all employees in any type of position when counting and reporting the 
number of eligible employees, even those otherwise precluded from 
participating. 

With regard to the third key practice--establishing processes, 
procedures, or a tracking system to collect data to evaluate the 
telework program--in our 2003 review we found that none of the four 
agencies studied were doing a survey specifically related to telework 
or had a tracking system that provided accurate participation rates and 
other information about teleworkers and the program. At that time, we 
observed that lack of such information not only impeded the agencies in 
identifying problems or issues related to their programs but also 
prevented them from providing OPM and Congress with complete and 
accurate data. In addition, in our 2005 study at five agencies, we 
found that four of the five agencies measured participation in telework 
based on their potential to telework rather than their actual usage. 
The fifth agency reported the number of participants based on a survey 
of supervisors who were expected to track teleworkers. According to 
OPM, most agencies report participation based on telework agreements, 
which can include both those for employees teleworking on a continuing 
basis as well as those for episodic telework. None of the five agencies 
we looked at had the capability to track who was actually teleworking 
or how frequently, despite the fact that the Fiscal Year 2005 
Consolidated Appropriations Act covering those agencies required each 
of them to provide quarterly reports to Congress on the status of its 
telework program, including the number of federal employees 
participating in its program. At that time, two of the five agencies 
said they were in the process of implementing time and attendance 
systems that could track telework participation, but had not yet fully 
implemented them. The other three agencies said that they did not have 
time and attendance systems with the capacity to track telework. 

Based on our findings, the conference report for the fiscal year 2006 
Appropriations Act that covered these agencies included the following 
language for them: 

"The conferees are troubled that many of the agencies' telework 
programs do not even have a standardized manner in which to report 
participation. The conferees expect each of these agencies to implement 
time and attendance systems that will allow more accurate reporting." 

Despite this language, four of the five agencies have not yet developed 
such systems and are still measuring participation as they did in 2005. 
In the fifth agency--the Department of Justice--an official told us 
that the department has now implemented a Web-based time and attendance 
system in most bureaus and that this system allows the department to 
track actual telework participation in those bureaus. The Federal 
Bureau of Investigation (FBI) was the major exception. This fiscal 
year, however, the FBI began a pilot of a time and attendance 
application that will also have the ability to track telework. Upon 
completion of the pilot, the official said that all of the Department 
of Justice bureaus would have the ability to track telework. 

As for the fourth key practice closely related to managing for program 
results--identifying problems or issues with the telework program and 
making appropriate adjustments--none of the four agencies we reviewed 
for our 2003 study had fully implemented this practice and one of the 
four had taken no steps to do so despite the importance of using data 
to evaluate and improve their telework programs. An OPM official told 
us, for example, that she did not use the telework data she collected 
to identify issues with the program; instead, she relied on employees 
to bring problems to her attention. 

To help agencies better manage for results through telework programs, 
in our 2005 study we had said that Congress should determine ways to 
promote more consistent definitions and measures related to telework. 
In particular, we suggested that Congress might want to have OPM, 
working through the Chief Human Capital Officers (CHCO) Council, 
develop a set of terms, definitions, and measures that would allow for 
a more meaningful assessment of progress in agency telework programs. 
Program management and oversight could be improved by more consistent 
definitions, such as eligibility. Some information may take additional 
effort to collect, as for example, on actual usage of telework. Other 
valuable information may already be available through existing sources. 
The Federal Human Capital Survey, for example--which is administered 
biennially--asks federal employees about their satisfaction with 
telework, among other things. In the latest survey, only 22 percent 
indicated they were satisfied or very satisfied, while 44 percent 
indicated they had no basis to judge--certainly, there seems to be room 
for improvement there. In any case, OPM and the agency CHCO Council are 
well situated to sort through these issues and consider what 
information would be most useful. The CHCO Council and OPM could also 
work together on strategies for agencies to use the information for 
program improvements, including benchmarking. 

In conclusion, telework is a key strategy to accomplish a variety of 
federal goals. Telework is an investment in both an organization's 
people and the agency's capacity to perform its mission. We continue to 
believe that more fully implementing the practices related to managing 
for program results will significantly contribute to improving the 
success of federal telework programs. 

Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee, this completes my 
statement. I would be pleased to respond to any questions that you may 
have. 

Contacts and Acknowledgments: 

For further information on this testimony, please contact Bernice 
Steinhardt, Director, Strategic Issues, at (202) 512-6806 or 
steinhardtb@gao.gov. Contact points for our Offices of Congressional 
Relations and Public Affairs may be found on the last page of this: 

testimony. Individuals making key contributions to this testimony 
include William J. Doherty, Assistant Director; Joyce D. Corry; and 
Judith C. Kordahl. 

[End of section] 

Footnotes: 

[1] GAO reported that the efforts of OPM and GSA, with lead roles in 
implementation of telework in the federal government, had not been well 
coordinated, and, in response, the two agencies took a number of 
actions to improve coordination, including developing and signing a 
joint memorandum of understanding. GAO, Human Capital: Key Practices to 
Increasing Federal Telework, GAO-04-950T (Washington, D.C.: July 8, 
2004). 

[2] GAO, Human Capital: Further Guidance, Assistance, and Coordination 
Can Improve Federal Telework Effort, GAO-03-679 (Washington, D.C.: July 
18, 2003). 

[3] U.S. Office of Personnel Management, A Guide to Telework in the 
Federal Government (Washington, D.C.: Aug. 3, 2006). 

[4] GAO, U.S. Patent and Trademark Office: Hiring Efforts Are Not 
Sufficient to Reduce the Patent Application Backlog, GAO-07-1102 
(Washington, D.C.: Sept. 4, 2007). 

[5] GAO, Human Capital: Retirements and Anticipated New Reactor 
Applications Will Challenge NRC's Workforce, GAO-07-105 (Washington, 
D.C.: Jan. 17, 2007). 

[6] U.S. Office of Personnel Management, Telework: A Management 
Priority--A Guide for Managers, Supervisors, and Telework Coordinators 
(Washington, D.C.: May 2003). 

[7] GAO, Agency Telework Methodologies: Departments of Commerce, 
Justice, State, the Small Business Administration, and the Securities 
and Exchange Commission, GAO-05-1055R (Washington, D.C.: Sept. 27, 
2005). 

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