Lawmaker calls for telework incentives during shutdowns

As snow continued to shut down federal agencies in the Washington area this week, a Virginia lawmaker asked the Office of Personnel Management to document productivity savings from telework and to consider how employees who work remotely are disproportionately affected by closures.

"You've got this double standard," said Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va. "The rest of the workforce is given a free day, but if you've signed a telework agreement in some agencies, you're required to work from a remote location. Obviously unintentionally, it serves as a disincentive."

Connolly said he didn't want to discourage telework, but that he hoped to talk to OPM Director John Berry about incentives to reward employees who telework when the work day is canceled for their office-working colleagues. He praised Berry for using the government closures to encourage managers and employees to put telework agreements to use, and for working to expand telework since he was sworn in last spring.

In a letter to Berry, Connolly asked him to quantify how many telework agreements in government require employees to keep working during office closures, and to determine what percentage of employees operating under such agreements worked remotely during the storms that have paralyzed Washington. Connolly told Berry he wanted to know what productivity savings the federal government achieved by having those employees work through the storm, and what savings might have been achieved if the federal government had succeeded in getting 20 percent of its workforce on telework agreements -- a goal included in legislation Connolly co-sponsors.

Connolly also wrote to John Catoe, general manager of the Washington Metro transit system, to ask what could have been done to avoid shutdowns of above-ground subway service and bus service that made it difficult for workers to commute to agencies in the District of Columbia.

"With more than 40 percent of federal employees dependent on Metro to get to work and more than half of all Metro stations located on federal property, the federal government has more than a passing interest in the safety and reliability of the Metro system," Connolly wrote.

The federal government estimates that closing agencies in the Washington area costs $100 million in lost productivity per day.

The storm produced some high-profile examples of telework, and a warning about the dangers of commuting during and after massive snowstorms. Martha Johnson was sworn in as administrator of the General Services Administration by telephone on Tuesday with her husband as a witness, and Berry said in a radio interview that he was teleworking so he didn't "jeopardize my aging bones with broken wrists or broken knees." White House Political Director Patrick Gaspard slipped on the snow and ice, dislocating his jaw and suffering a concussion.

Connolly said canceled meetings and votes on Capitol Hill, combined with an inability to go out and meet with constituents, "forced me to focus on other parts of the workload," giving him an experience with telework.