GAO wants agencies to evaluate and enhance telework programs

Telework programs in the federal government should benefit mission, operations and work-life balance at agencies, according to the Government Accountability Office. Yet some agencies are not fully aligned with key practices to ensure successful telework implementation, the watchdog found in a new report. 

The Internal Revenue Service, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and Department of Agriculture’s Farm Service Agency all told the GAO that they have not yet fully evaluated the effects of telework on agency performance, it explains in the report. Similarly, the Department of Veterans Affairs cannot do so for the Veterans Benefits Administration because it does not have a system in place that provides telework agreement information in an accessible manner.

The report — the first in a series — comes as the future of telework in a post-pandemic world faces uncertainty, particularly with the incoming Trump administration claiming it will require federal employees to return to office full-time. While the GAO recognized the COVID-19 pandemic as a driver for agencies to begin widespread and essential telework, it also cited a shift back to in-office activities through a 2023 Office of Management and Budget memorandum, which “instructed federal agencies to increase meaningful in-person work — particularly at agency headquarters — while still using flexible operational policies such as telework to enhance employee recruitment and retention.”

The watchdog also touted the gains agencies have made to facilitate telework and teleworker interactions with the public, such as “expanding online document submission services and providing virtual online appointments.”

Connecting such gains to meaningful impacts at the agencies in the watchdog’s study proved difficult. Within the report, GAO shared that FSA partially evaluated its telework program and has taken some initial steps to “examine compliance” with program requirements. However, it has not completely evaluated telework’s role and effects because agency officials were “unsure of what indicators to use in telework evaluations.”

IRS, similarly, took some steps to evaluate its program, such as identifying where teleworking employees did not have telework agreements or instances where a teleworking employee did not “meet performance standards” and the agency “required them to come back to the office during a performance improvement period.” GAO found that the IRS still does not meet the requirements for evaluating the program because it has not fully taken steps to assess the telework program to understand how it affects organizational improvement.

GAO shared that USCIS has partially evaluated its telework program by “routinely reviewing data to correct data anomalies” and additionally found that in 2023, applicants were three times more interested in remote work than telework-eligible or in-office positions. The agency, in response to the April OMB memorandum, created indicators that would support the assessment of the telework program. Officials told GAO that “they have not used these or other indicators to identify problems or issues with the telework program or evaluate the effects of telework on organizational performance.” 

Meanwhile, because the VBA, unlike the other agencies, does not yet have a system to “easily and reliably access telework agreement information,” it cannot maintain quality telework data — which the GAO finds necessary — because it uses a system that cannot accept documents in the file format that the agency uses for some telework agreements.

VBA has reportedly identified a technology solution to “expand its capability” to electronically extract usable telework data from agreement forms and expects to complete implementation by December. 

As a result of its audit, the GAO asked the IRS, USCIS and FSA each to evaluate their telework programs, to make “appropriate adjustments” and to assess the effects of telework on overall agency performance. For the VA, GAO asked it to require the Veterans Benefits Administration to update its telework system to collect and maintain quality data.