Recommendation: The Chairman of the NMB should document NMB's authorizations for its use of cloud services approved through FedRAMP and submit the authorizations to the FedRAMP Program Management Office. (Recommendation 1)

Agency: National Mediation Board
Status: Open

Comments: NMB agreed with this recommendation and said it would take action to address it, completing these actions by the end of fiscal year 2020.

Recommendation: The Chairman of the NMB should update NMB's security policies and procedures to include FedRAMP's authorization requirements. (Recommendation 2)

Agency: National Mediation Board
Status: Open

Comments: NMB agreed with this recommendation and said it would take action to address it, completing these actions by the end of fiscal year 2020.

Recommendation: The Chairman of the NMB should develop a written plan to document NMB's process for reviewing and monitoring the agency's annual appropriation to ensure that funds are used effectively. (Recommendation 3)

Agency: National Mediation Board
Status: Open

Comments: NMB agreed with this recommendation. Agency officials said they would take action to address it, but did not provide a time frame for completion.

Recommendation: The Chairman of the NMB should establish a process for the Board to effectively monitor and evaluate NMB's adherence to audit protocols and implementation of actions to address audit recommendations. (Recommendation 4)

Agency: National Mediation Board
Status: Open

Comments: NMB agreed with this recommendation. Agency officials said they would take action to address it, but did not provide a time frame for completion.

Recommendation: The Chairman of the National Mediation Board should develop and execute a plan to address the rail arbitration case backlog. (Recommendation 1)

Agency: National Mediation Board
Status: Open

Comments: NMB agreed with this recommendation and stated that it is examining the growing arbitration backlog and investigating steps the Board may take to reduce it. In particular, the agency noted that it is discussing proposals with stakeholders and formulating a plan to reduce the backlog in 2018.

Recommendation: The Chairman of the National Mediation Board should develop and implement policies for approval and monitoring of employee requests for outside employment and other outside activities to prevent violations of ethics rules, consistent with Office of Government Ethics standards of conduct and federal internal control standards. (Recommendation 2)

Agency: National Mediation Board
Status: Open

Comments: NMB agreed with this recommendation. The agency stated that it has taken significant steps to investigate this matter and has established new controls in order to prevent this type of activity in the future, including establishing a relationship with the IG of the National Labor Relations Board to operate a telephone hotline and email address for the reporting of suspected fraud, waste and abuse at NMB.

Recommendation: The Chairman of the National Mediation Board should complete and take actions on the organizational climate assessment and survey results as a means to address employee concerns. (Recommendation 3)

Agency: National Mediation Board
Status: Open

Comments: NMB agreed with this recommendation. The agency stated that the Board is concerned that the 2017 Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey revealed a level of dissatisfaction among NMB employees. It plans to conduct an Internal Climate Assessment in 2018 and agency looks forward to the opportunity to better understand and address any employee concerns.

Recommendation: The Chairman of the National Mediation Board should revise NMB's travel policy and develop appropriate internal controls to ensure compliance with federal requirements for travel. (Recommendation 4)

Agency: National Mediation Board
Status: Open

Comments: NMB agreed with this recommendation. The agency stated that it is in the process of reviewing the current travel policy, and will revise the policy to be in compliance with federal travel regulations as necessary.

Recommendation: The Chairman of the National Mediation Board should revise NMB's telework policy and develop appropriate internal controls to ensure compliance with federal requirements for telework. (Recommendation 5)

Agency: National Mediation Board
Status: Open

Comments: NMB agreed with this recommendation and stated that it will revise its telework policy and strengthen internal controls, as necessary.

Recommendation: The Administrator of General Services should ensure that the appropriate GSA offices develop guidance including, but not limited to, how agencies can use telework as a strategic space-planning tool for reducing and optimizing office space efficiency and that the offices make the guidance readily available. (Recommendation 1)

Agency: General Services Administration
Status: Open

Comments: As of February 2020, GSA has provided GAO with some documents that indicate steps toward addressing this recommendation. For example, the documents cover topics on workplace and space design. GSA officials said that they are working on a document that focuses on the relationship between space planning and telework that will more directly address this recommendation. The estimated completion date for this document is the end of fiscal year 2020.

Recommendation: To support the consistent application of agency telework policy throughout the agency, the Secretaries of the Departments of Education and Labor and the Chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission should implement controls to verify that supervisors have completed telework training prior to entering into telework agreements with their employees and that completion of this training is documented.

Agency: Department of Labor
Status: Open

Comments: In a letter to GAO dated May 26, 2017, the Department of Labor stated that the department currently offers interactive manager/supervisor telework training to all supervisors, the completion of which is documented in the manager and supervisor training records. However, officials said this training was strongly encouraged but not required. In fiscal year 2019, telework training was added as a mandatory course for all managers and supervisors, the completion of which is documented in manager and supervisor training records and reported to departmental leadership. As of August 2020, the Department of Labor was developing and testing a telework tracking application system that will require and document completion of manager/supervisor telework training through the Department's internal learning development system before a supervisor can use the system to approve telework agreements. The Department of Labor anticipates the system will be ready for implementation in FY 2021. We will continue to follow up with the Department of Labor on this and will provide an update when available.

Recommendation: To help ensure that telework agreements accurately reflect telework participation, and to further ensure the accuracy of telework data reported internally and externally, the Secretary of the Department of Labor, the Administrator of the General Services Administration, and the Chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission should require documentation of regular or periodic reviews of all telework agreements in agency telework policies.

Agency: Department of Labor
Status: Open

Comments: In a letter to GAO dated May 26, 2017, the Department of Labor stated that the current policy requires supervisors to conduct an annual review of telework agreements to ensure the arrangement is current and the needs of the agency are being met. In October 2019, Department of Labor officials stated the department is revising its telework processes to include a defined procedure for managers/supervisors to document and report the annual reviews. As of August 2020, the Department of Labor was developing and testing a telework tracking application system that will require and document annual telework agreement recertification for all telework program participants and their supervisors to ensure a regular review of telework agreements. The Department of Labor anticipates the system will be ready for implementation in FY 2021. When we confirm that Labor has fully completed these actions, we will provide updated information.

Recommendation: To improve the accuracy of telework data transmitted to OPM, the Secretary of the Department of Labor should direct the Chief Human Capital Officer to work with the Telework Managing Officer to develop and implement a plan to modernize Labor's telework agreement tracking system to enable more timely access to accurate telework data.

Agency: Department of Labor
Status: Open

Comments: In a letter to GAO dated May 26, 2017, the Department of Labor stated that it will benchmark best practices used by other federal agencies to explore options for utilizing its existing telework agreement tracking system to facilitate more timely access to telework agreement data. As of October 2019, Labor is developing a telework tracking application to improve access to telework data and the quality of telework data reported by its agencies. It is projected this tracking application will be launched as part of a broader internal web-based collaborative platform in FY 2021. When we confirm that Labor has fully completed these actions, we will provide updated information.

Recommendation: To provide additional guidance to agencies and encourage the elimination of barriers to increased telework opportunities consistent with the act, and to ensure the accuracy of telework information OPM annually reports to Congress, the Director of OPM should strengthen controls for reviewing, validating, and reporting telework data in annual Status of Telework in the Federal Government reports. Specifically, OPM should follow up with agency officials on data outliers, including significant changes in year-to-year data.

Agency: Office of Personnel Management
Status: Open

Comments: In a letter dated May 16, 2017, the acting director stated that OPM did not agree with the recommendation. While OPM recognizes the importance of data accuracy to effectively evaluate federal telework programs, OPM does not agree that the Telework Enhancement Act imposes any obligation on OPM to allocate significant resources necessary to validate telework data collected from agencies or that a year-over-year comparison of survey data is needed or advantageous to ensuring a reasonable and rigorous data analysis. We agree that OPM should not independently validate agency data, but OPM should take the steps necessary to identify and explain data outliers and limitations. Because OPM is the agency responsible for reporting telework data, OPM should ensure its annual reports to Congress include a clear discussion of data reliability limitations. Following up on data outliers and large year-to-year changes can help OPM identify data errors that could be corrected by agencies and provide OPM with the opportunity to discuss data limitations with agencies. Including such information clearly in the annual telework reports to Congress can make them more useful to Congress and to others. As of January 2020, OPM has not taken action on this recommendation. If we confirm that OPM does take action in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.