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
“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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