By Corinne Murdock |
Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ) introduced legislation to expand remote work for federal employees.
Sinema rolled out the bill, the Telework Reform Act of 2023, earlier this month alongside Sen. James Lankford (R-OK). In a press release, Sinema said that the bill would especially improve work opportunities for military families.
“We’re cutting costs and expanding career opportunities by improving federal telework for Arizonans and military spouses who rely on telework to stay employed when moving due to military orders,” said Sinema.
Lankford stated that remote and telework expansion would help break up the Washington, D.C. centralization and diversify the federal workforce.
“By re-thinking how the government uses remote work, we are encouraging federal agencies to hire in diverse communities across the country; instead of requiring our workforce to be centralized in Washington, DC,” said Lankford.
The bill specifically requires all executive agency leadership to produce a report on how their agencies could coordinate with the Secretary of Defense to recruit military spouses for remote work positions. The legislation also contains a provision enabling an executive agency to noncompetitively appoint veterans, military and law enforcement spouses, and high-performing employees to remote work positions.
Other aspects of the annual report would identify opportunities and benefits to remote work and telework expansion, including cost savings and productivity boosts, as well as the technology necessary to accomplish it.
Federal guidance distinguishes teleworkers and remote workers based on their main work site, or “duty station.” A federal agency’s home office serves as the duty station for teleworkers, meaning they have some mandatory in-person office attendance in addition to their remote work. A remote worker’s duty station is their home.
The bill would require federal agencies to determine which jobs would be accomplished feasibly through remote work, and perform annual reviews to determine whether remote work remains feasible or necessary for those jobs.
It would also require teleworkers to report at least twice per pay period to their agency’s home office.
In July, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported that over 500 million square feet of federal government office space has been greatly underutilized. The GAO found that 17 out of a sample of 24 agencies (constituting 21.5 million square feet of office space) had only achieved an average capacity of 25 percent or less over a three-month review.
According to the GAO, federal agencies spend an average of $7 billion annually: $2 billion on maintaining and operating office space, and $5 billion to lease the buildings.
The last Office of Personnel Management (OPM) report analyzing the status of federal employee telework, issued last December, reported that 47 percent of federal employees participated in routine or situational telework in the 2021 fiscal year.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
