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Washington, D.C.—With approval of a measure to expand federal telework programs, the House has moved to provide government agencies with an enhanced version of this highly-successful tool in their continuing efforts to recruit and retain the talented employees they need, the leader of the nation’s largest independent union of federal employees said today.
President Colleen M. Kelley of the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) welcomed House approval of H.R. 4106, and called for passage of its Senate counterpart, S. 1000, which already has won the okay of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.
“There is abundant evidence that telework programs have a wide range of positive impacts on employees, their agencies and their communities,” the NTEU leader said. “Among other welcome results, they boost employee productivity and morale—in particular by making it easier to balance their work and family responsibilities—and they help in reducing traffic congestion and related pollution.”
NTEU has a long history not only of advocating for expanded federal telework opportunities, but of negotiating such programs as well. Its highly-successful program involving employees at the Patent and Trademark Office frequently is held as the model for the federal sector.
H.R. 4106 would require agencies to develop a program allowing employees to telework at least 20 percent of every two-week work period. In addition, agencies would have to designate a senior-level employee to serve as a telework managing officer; and they would be required to incorporate telework into their continuing operational planning.
The involvement of a senior-level manager would be a particularly useful step forward, President Kelley said, since much of agency opposition to expanding telework is centered among front-line managers who fear a loss of control unless employees are in the workplace and visible.
“It is simply old-fashioned and outdated to think that employees cannot and will not be productive if they are at a work site other than their office,” Kelley said. NTEU is pressing for approval this year of legislation that would expand telework opportunities to significantly more federal employees.