The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has called on federal agencies to increase in-office work to at least 50% of employee time, but House Republicans say there is still not enough data on federal telework policy. He says he has not received it.
Even though I sent multiple letter federal agencies and letter While OMB Director Shalanda Young is calling for federal telework fees, members of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee said on April 30 that there is a lack of quantitative data from agencies and OMB. He said he was still not satisfied with the results.
Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) said at Tuesday's hearing that the federal government “does not believe that new, wide-open telework policies are improving efficiency or productivity.” Stated. “We don't even know what the telework policy is. All we know is that a significantly higher percentage of federal employees work from home than in the office.”
While telework has served as an important tool during the COVID-19 pandemic, OMB guidance The work will be outsourced to an agency in April 2023, and the amount of face-to-face work will significantly increase. The guidance directs agencies to develop updated “work environment plans” based on their post-pandemic re-entry plans.
OMB Deputy Director Jason Miller told committee members on Tuesday that federal agencies are moving toward a position where teams eligible to work from home will be in the office “at least half the time.” “OMB continues implementation with each agency.”
Miller said OMB “achieved the 50% goal because it is consistent with the current state of affairs in the private sector.” [and] We believe that is the right answer given the market situation. '' He noted that OMB is giving agencies that flexibility if they want to exceed 50%.
Notably, approximately half of federal employees are required to be physically present in the field to fulfill their responsibilities. But Miller said OMB is sticking to its 50% goal for federal civil servants.
“Our approach to significantly increasing in-person work was based on our belief that the amount of in-person work is critical to healthy teams,” Miller said. “In developing our government-wide guidance, we have followed research and actions by the private sector very closely.”
“Ultimately, we need to compete for talent. There is currently a large-scale effort underway in the federal government to deploy and enhance the use of AI. and will need to compete with the private sector,” he added. “In building our approach, we want to give our agencies flexibility based on their diverse mission needs. But absolutely we need to compete and our current Research suggests that where we land is the right answer. But of course we're going to continue to be dynamic.”
Miller also promised that OMB would provide more detailed telework data to Congress. He said OMB is currently “gathering updated information from agencies to prepare reports for the appropriations committees,” as directed by the Fiscal Year 2024 Appropriations Act.
Chairman Comer responded, “If you can prove through data that it is more efficient, we will accept it.'' “No one is saying we are totally against telework. We just want to see data that shows it's more efficient, but we don't think you have that data. yeah.”