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Washington, D.C.—The third and final installment of telework guidelines issued to federal agencies by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) is missing two key elements critical to the success of telework—the importance of negotiating with employee representatives and a way to ensure that employees have the equipment they need to perform their jobs, the leader of the nation’s largest independent union of federal workers said today.

Only with the involvement of employees, through their unions, said President Colleen M. Kelley of the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU), can there be any certainty that all of the needs and concerns of employees are addressed before a telework program is implemented.

“The more employee input at the beginning,” Kelley said, “the more employee enthusiasm for the program and the more the agency and taxpayers will benefit.”

She added: “OPM also needs to stress to every federal agency the importance of providing teleworking employees with the tools they need to perform their jobs,” including high-speed Internet access, secure networks and access to the appropriate databases. “Not every agency fully understands this,” she said.

The NTEU leader offered her assessment as OPM issued this final installment of its guidelines to help agencies prepare for a flu pandemic or similar interruption to operations. The guide’s focus on a flu pandemic is “only part of the story,” Kelley said. While it’s true that agencies need to address such eventualities, “we shouldn’t confine or constrict the development and implementation of telework programs in any manner. OPM is thinking small by focusing on this narrow need for telework. Whether it’s an oil crisis, a hurricane, a flood or increased traffic congestion, the government needs the flexibility to operate after any event that disrupts operations,” said Kelley. President Kelley said NTEU has been and will continue to work with OPM and the NTEU-represented agencies on developing detailed procedures for emergency situations such as a flu pandemic.

Emergency planning aside, Kelley added, the demonstrated benefits from telework—reduced commuting costs, reduced pollution levels, improved employee morale—should provide impetus enough for federal agencies not only to establish but to aggressively implement such programs throughout the government. In many agencies, that has not been the case, Kelley said.

“Telework is an incredibly valuable tool,” she said, noting, for example, its importance to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) in the wake of severe flooding of its headquarters building in late June. The IRS building is expected to remain closed for some months, while employees work off-site. NTEU has long advocated telework as an effective tool for the federal workplace.

The NTEU leader also highlighted the vital importance to the success of telework in the federal sector of including employee representatives in ongoing efforts to train both managers and employees in its effective use.

In far too many instances, she said, telework represents “a change in workplace culture” that is feared by local managers, who then stand in the way of the expressed intention of agency leaders to institute an effective telework program.

As the largest independent federal union, NTEU represents some 150,000 federal workers in 30 agencies and departments.