Members of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee are requesting additional documents and information from the White House’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) regarding Federal agencies’ telework and remote policies.
Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., and Subcommittee on Government Operations and the Federal Workforce Chairman Pete Sessions, R-Texas, sent a letter to OMB Director Shalanda Young on Jan. 31 to gain a better understanding of Federal agencies’ implementation of an OMB memo from April 2023.
In that memo (M-23-15), OMB asked Federal agencies to increase the amount of in-person work at offices, while also balancing telework as an important retention tool. Director Young instructed agencies to develop updated “work environment plans” based on post-pandemic reentry plans.
The request for additional information comes after committee Republicans sent letters to 25 Federal agencies last spring to get more granular data on agency telework rates.
“It stood to reason that in the wake of OMB publishing M-23-15, agencies would be compiling the data we requested. Yet, even after a protracted delay in providing any response at all, agencies generally produced very little quantitative data underpinning their telework and remote work policies,” the lawmakers wrote in the Jan. 31 letter.
During a November hearing on the issue, Rep. Sessions explained that the committee received little quantitative data from the agencies, saying, “11 of the 25 did not include any figures at all regarding how many of their employees were currently teleworking.”
In their quest for better telework data, the lawmakers are now requesting OMB provide them with copies of Federal agencies’ work environment plans and a status report on all agency plans to increase in-person work.
They also want more information on employee resistance to increased in-person work; data regarding the impact of increased telework on agency performance; and challenges Federal leaders, managers, and supervisors face in “maximizing organizational performance and organizational health.”
“Ultimately, the telework debate is about agency performance,” they wrote. “The better agencies are able to measure performance, the better they can improve customer satisfaction and use taxpayer dollars more efficiently. Both Congress and the administration will also be able to better conduct oversight and make policy and budgeting decisions.”
The lawmakers are requesting a response from OMB no later than Feb. 14, 2024.
