Federal Teleworking Leads to Real Property Rightsizing, Experts Say

By Kimberly Price

Editor’s Note: This edition of Managing Change contains articles with opposing positions on the value of Federal employee teleworking in reducing requirements for real property. This article is one of two presented and facts contained herein are presented without bias or comparison.

Relaxation of Federal employee teleworking restrictions took a step forward in the House of Representatives in February. Some teleworking advocates have already seen collateral benefit in the rightsizing of the Federal real property inventory. Increased telework opportunities stand to reduce more agencies’ lease and ownership requirements.

According to reporters for Congress Daily and Federal Times, on February 28th the House Oversight and Government Reform Federal Workforce Subcommittee passed The Telework Improvement Act of 2007 (H.R. 4106) by a vote of 3-0. H.R. 4106 calls for Federal agencies to develop telework polices and programs to train managers and employees on teleworking programs. Agencies must appoint telework managing officers, and the General Services Administration will have oversight responsibility.

The bill was passed with an amendment from House Oversight and Government Reform Federal Workforce Subcommittee Chairman Danny Davis, (D-IL). The amendment allows agencies to restrict employee teleworking during emergencies. It also allows GSA to waive a requirement for telework managers to be senior-level civil servants. Subcommittee members had been concerned that the requirement might add an unnecessary new layer of senior management to agency executive ranks.

The House vote is the most recent activity in an initiative introduced June 12, 2007 at a hearing of the U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, Subcommittee on Oversight of Government Management, the Federal Workforce and the District of Columbia. That hearing was called to review the Telework Enhancement Act of 2007 – legislation proposed by Senator Ted Stevens (R-AK).

During the hearing, United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) Director John Dudas drew a direct connection between teleworking and better management of real property costs. Dudas noted that his organization saved $1.5 million in rent per year in one facility alone by introducing a work-at-home program.

“Ten years ago,” Dudas noted, “there was no teleworking in the USPTO.” Today there are 3,414 USPTO teleworkers in a dozen different programs in 14 states and the District of Columbia. With 1,200 new patent examiners hired each year, the USPTO staff would not be able to fit in available space, Dudas said.

Through teleworking, the USPTO has shed three full floors of unnecessary office space in Crystal City, VA – a cost savings of $1.5 million in rent per year, which is now rolled into the organization’s operating budget moving forward.

The USPTO is looking into creating a nationwide workplace, where an examiner can work anywhere in the country. Potential benefits of this approach to alternative workplaces would include meeting “current and future workforce requirements while minimizing costs of expansion” being able to better “manage real estate costs associated with workforce expansion,” Dudas noted.

Stanley Kaczmarczyk, Deputy Associate Administrator in the GSA’s Office of Governmentwide Policy, also testified as to the connection between telework and real property. “Telework combined with alternative officing can enable agencies to reduce cost and improve the utilization of existing facilities,” he said. Additionally, Kaczmarczyk commented, remote alternative worksites can “reduce the adverse effects on employees impacted by Base Relocation programs.”

For Congress Daily’s reporting on the House telework vote, visit http://www.govexec.com/story_page.cfm?articleid=39414&dcn=todaysnews

For Federal Times’ reporting, visit http://www.federaltimes.com/index.php?S=3398379

For complete statements from the June 12, 2008 hearing, visit http://www.senate.gov/~gov_affairs/index.cfm?Fuseaction=Hearings.Detail&HearingID=454

Kimberly Price is VISTA’s Legislative Affairs Liaison. She can be reached via email at kimberly.price@vistatsi.com