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7 Things New OPM Report Tells Us about Telework During COVID-19
February 28, 2022
Categories:
OPM, The Insider
The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) has issued a new report on federal agencies’ use of telework in 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, killing 340,000 people in the U.S. alone by the year’s end. It was not a surprise that the use of telework shot up as agencies scrambled to maintain their operations while trying to keep workers safe.
OPM Director Kiran Ahuja touted telework as an important tool for agencies to use to carry out their missions during these tough times. OPM has produced this kind of report for almost a decade, but Ahuja said this year’s report is different.
“Because it captures a period when federal employees worked through the challenges wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet just as federal employees have always done, they rose to the occasion and demonstrated their resiliency. Agencies carried out their missions effectively, and federal employees continued to perform their jobs, at the highest level, from locations other than their regular duty station, apart from their managers, supervisors, and colleagues. Telework was a critical component of this success,” she said in a letter accompanying the report.
Here are 7 takeaways from the report
- Telework helped the government save $180 million in 2020. The most common cost savings came from reduced commuting costs, reduced absences, human capital, utilities, office space, and training.
- The number of workers eligible for telework increased. In 2020, 50% of 2.4 million federal employees were eligible to telework, an increase of 11 percentage points compared with fiscal 2019.
- 90% of workers eligible for telework actually teleworked, a 34% increase.
- 45% of all federal workers teleworked in 2020, a 23% increase.
- 86% of agencies were able to maximize telework with more than 80% of their employees teleworking during this period.
- A majority of teleworkers teleworked 3 or more days per two-week period. Some teleworked 1 to 2 days per two-week period. A very small number teleworked no more than once a month.
- Agencies set improved emergency preparedness as their number one goal for telework (80%). There were other goals such as improved employee attitudes (54%), recruitment (56%), retention (48%), reduced commute (38%), better performance (29%), reduced energy use (14%), and reduced estate costs (13%).
“This experience makes clear that, that when implemented correctly, telework can help us deliver on our mission,” Director Ahuja added. “As we look to the future, OPM is encouraging agencies to strategically leverage workplace flexibilities such as telework to help attract, recruit, and retain the best possible workforce, as well as leverage telework as a way to ensure greater resiliency and emergency preparedness through the federal government.”
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