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As Fresh as we can put it up! new.....
But first - lets review briefly some of the Federal Governments initiatives in reducin6g the cost, both direct and indirect of maintaining commuting workers in Federal Agencies.
An update on the status of the public law listed below is available at http://www.telework.gov/.
Excerpted from United States Office of Personnel Management Memo, dated February 9, 2001.
"Section 359 of Public Law No. 106-346, October 23, 2000
"SEC. 359. Each executive agency shall establish a policy under which eligible employees of the agency may participate in telecommuting to the maximum extent possible without diminished employee performance. Not later than 6 months after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Director of the Office of Personnel Management shall provide that the requirements of this section are applied to 25 percent of the Federal workforce, and to an additional 25 percent of such workforce each year thereafter."
Conference Report Language
"Section 359 establishes a program to reduce traffic congestion that will allow eligible employees of federal agencies to participate in telecommuting to the maximum extent possible without diminished employee performance. Within one year, the Office of Personnel Management shall evaluate the effectiveness of the program and report to Congress. Each agency participating in the program shall develop criteria to be used in implementing such a policy and ensure that managerial, logistical, organizational, or other barriers to full implementation and successful functioning of the policy are removed. Each agency should also provide for adequate administrative, human resources, technical, and logistical support for carrying out the policy. Telecommuting refers to any arrangement in which an employee regularly performs officially assigned duties at home or other work sites geographically convenient to the residence of the employee. Eligible employees mean any satisfactorily performing employee of the agency whose job may typically be performed at least one day per week. The House and Senate proposed no similar provision."
JOB CHARACTERISTICS
This document identifies some of the tasks/job characteristics that may/may not be suitable for telecommuting.
| Most Suitable for Telecommuting |
Least Suitable for Telecommuting |
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| Jobs that involve thinking and writing |
Jobs requiring face-to-face interaction |
| Data Analysis |
Positions that use Privacy-Act protected data |
| Writing Decisions or reports |
Frequent access to material that cannot be moved from the Federal office |
| Telephone Intensive Tasks |
Involvement with Top Secret documents |
| Computer-oriented Tasks (data entry, web page design, word processing, programming, engineers) |
Site specific occupations |
| Payroll transaction processing |
Trainee and entry-level positions |
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Analysis type work (investigators, program analysts, financial analysts)
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Positions dealing with classified material |
| Engineers |
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| Architects |
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| Researchers |
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| Customer service jobs |
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