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GCN Home > 11/18/02 issue

Support for telecommuters is an uphill ride

By Jason Miller, GCN Staff

When Congress included Section 359 in the Transportation Department Appropriations Act of 2001, many observers said agencies got the kick in the pants they needed to establish telecommuting policies and start running pilots.

Section 359 of the act, which eventually became Public Law 106-346, required agencies to offer all eligible workers the ability to telecommute by 2004, in increments of 25 percent a year. But the law did not address the burden of supporting teleworkers, which is the one area many agencies are struggling with.

Many agency CIOs said the costs of sustaining the telecommuter and ensuring adequate computer and data security have limited the extent of telework programs.

“From a technology standpoint, it is a massive challenge to provide a high service level for this type of program,” said Doug Bourgeois, CIO of the Patent and Trademark Office, which has had a telecommuting program since 1997. “The work the telecommuters perform and the hardware and software tools they use have a dramatic impact on agencies’ ability to serve up automated solutions.”

The General Services Administration, which in May 2002 released a report on telework centers, found that the average cost per person working at home is $2,850. It costs agencies about $4,945 per person at one of 18 GSA-sponsored telework centers around the Washington region. Telework centers provide employees with a computer station and connectivity at remote locations. Agencies pay a monthly fee to use the telework center.

Congressional interest

Even though many agency programs are new—GSA reported that, as of October 2001, only about 4.3 percent of all eligible employees were telecommuting—Congress is paying attention to telework support. The General Accounting Office is working on a report on the constraints agencies face when implementing a program, said Forrest Kachura, the GAO analyst working on the study.

The National Academy of Public Administration, a nonprofit organization designed to help federal, state and local governments become more efficient, also is developing a report on the same topic for an individual agency, said Myra Howze Shiplett, director of NAPA’s Center for Human Resources Management.