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96–411 PDF 2004

BENEFICIAL OR CRITICAL? THE HEIGHTENED

NEED FOR TELEWORK OPPORTUNITIES IN THE

POST–9/11 WORLD

HEARING

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON

GOVERNMENT REFORM

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

JULY 8, 2004

Serial No. 108–210

Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpo.gov/congress/house

http://www.house.gov/reform

(II)

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM

TOM DAVIS, Virginia, Chairman

DAN BURTON, Indiana

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio

DOUG OSE, California

RON LEWIS, Kentucky

JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania

CHRIS CANNON, Utah

ADAM H. PUTNAM, Florida

EDWARD L. SCHROCK, Virginia

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee

NATHAN DEAL, Georgia

CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan

TIM MURPHY, Pennsylvania

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio

JOHN R. CARTER, Texas

MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee

PATRICK J. TIBERI, Ohio

KATHERINE HARRIS, Florida

HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

TOM LANTOS, California

MAJOR R. OWENS, New York

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri

DIANE E. WATSON, California

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts

CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland

LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California

C.A. ‘‘DUTCH’’ RUPPERSBERGER, Maryland

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of

Columbia

JIM COOPER, Tennessee

BETTY MCCOLLUM, Minnesota

———

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont

(Independent)

MELISSA WOJCIAK, Staff Director

DAVID MARIN, Deputy Staff Director/Communications Director

ROB BORDEN, Parliamentarian

TERESA AUSTIN, Chief Clerk

PHIL BARNETT, Minority Chief of Staff/Chief Counsel

(III)

C O N T E N T S

Page

Hearing held on July 8, 2004 ................................................................................. 1

Statement of:

Gardiner, Pamela J., Acting Inspector General for Tax Administration,

Department of the Treasury; Scott J. Cameron, Deputy Assistant Secretary, Performance, Accountability, and Human Resources, Department of the Interior; and J. Christopher Mihm, Director, Strategic

Issues, General Accounting Office ............................................................... 43

Kane, James A., president and chief executive officer, Software Productivity Consortium; Steve DuMont, vice president, Internet Business Solutions Group, Cisco Systems, Inc.; Eric Richert, vice president, Iwork

Solutions Group, Sun Microsystems; and Carol Goldberg, former

telework program manager, Fairfax County, VA, government ................. 66

Perry, Stephen, Administrator, General Services Administration; and Kay

Coles James, Director, Office of Personnel Management .......................... 17

Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:

Cameron, Scott J., Deputy Assistant Secretary, Performance, Accountability, and Human Resources, Department of the Interior, prepared statement of ........................................................................................................... 51

Cummings, Hon. Elijah E., a Representative in Congress from the State

of Maryland, prepared statement of ............................................................ 134

Davis, Chairman Tom, a Representative in Congress from the State of

Virginia, prepared statement of ................................................................... 4

Davis, Hon. Danny K., a Representative in Congress from the State

of Illinois, prepared statement of ................................................................ 15

DuMont, Steve, vice president, Internet Business Solutions Group, Cisco

Systems, Inc., prepared statement of .......................................................... 96

Gardiner, Pamela J., Acting Inspector General for Tax Administration,

Department of the Treasury, prepared statement of ................................. 45

Goldberg, Carol, former telework program manager, Fairfax County, VA,

government, prepared statement of ............................................................ 119

James, Kay Coles, Director, Office of Personnel Management, prepared

statement of ................................................................................................... 27

Kane, James A., president and chief executive officer, Software Productivity Consortium, prepared statement of ....................................................... 68

Kucinich, Hon. Dennis J., a Representative in Congress from the State

of Ohio, prepared statement of .................................................................... 138

Mihm, J. Christopher, Director, Strategic Issues, General Accounting Office, prepared statement of ........................................................................... 55

Perry, Stephen, Administrator, General Services Administration, prepared statement of ........................................................................................ 20

Richert, Eric, vice president, Iwork Solutions Group, Sun Microsystems,

prepared statement of ................................................................................... 108

Waxman, Hon. Henry A., a Representative in Congress from the State

of California, prepared statement of ........................................................... 8

Wolf, Hon. Frank, a Representative in Congress from the State of Virginia, prepared statement of ........................................................................ 11

(1)

BENEFICIAL OR CRITICAL? THE HEIGHTENED

NEED FOR TELEWORK OPPORTUNITIES IN

THE POST–9/11 WORLD

THURSDAY, JULY 8, 2004

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM,

Washington, DC.

The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:27 a.m., in room

2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Tom Davis (chairman

of the committee) presiding.

Present: Representatives Tom Davis of Virginia, Schrock,

Blackburn, Waxman, Maloney, Cummings, Kucinich, Davis of Illinois, Tierney, Watson, Van Hollen, Ruppersberger, and Norton.

Also present: Representative Wolf.

Staff present: David Marin, deputy staff director and communications director; Keith Ausbrook, chief counsel; Jim Moore, counsel;

Robert Borden, counsel and parliamentarian; Drew Crockett, deputy director of communications; Jaime Hjort, Michael Layman, and

Victoria Proctor, professional staff members; Teresa Austin, chief

clerk; Sarah Dorsie, deputy clerk; Allyson Blandford, office manager; Corinne Zaccagnini, chief information officer; Phil Barnett,

minority staff director; Kristin Amerling, minority deputy chief

counsel; Christopher Lu, minority deputy chief counsel; Tania

Shand, minority professional staff mmember; Earley Green, minority chief clerk; and Jean Gosa, minority assistant clerk.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. The committee will come to order.

Good morning, and I want to welcome everybody to today’s oversight hearing on the Status of Telework Programs and Policies in

the Federal Government. We are here to determine why many Federal supervisors have been slow to implement telework across all

levels of the Government work force. For years now, many of us

have recognized that telework offers significant benefits to managers, employees, and society. More recently, and perhaps more importantly, we now realize that telework needs to be an essential

component of any continuity of operations plan. Something we once

considered advantageous and beneficial has evolved into a cornerstone of emergency preparedness.

The innovations of the information age, laptop computers,

broadband Internet service, blackberries and so forth, continue to

make location less relevant in a working world. Telework capitalizes on these advances, offering a broad range of benefits to employers and employees, and the public.

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I have long argued that because of these benefits, we need to be

encouraging telework wherever possible across the country. Expanding telecommuting opportunities reduces traffic congestion and

air pollution; it promotes a productive work force and increases employee morale and quality of life, often resulting in higher rates of

worker retention; it is pro-family; it provides a whole new arena of

opportunities for people with disabilities; and it is a great way for

retirees to get the part-time employment many of them are working for.

Unfortunately, logic doesn’t always prevail in Washington. Politics is like a wheelbarrow: nothing happens until you start pushing. September 11 gave us a new reason to push for telework.

The war on terror makes the ability to work at offsite locations

more than an attractive option for employees and employers; it is

now an imperative. The ever-present threat of terrorist attacks on

U.S. soil should compel those in authority to incorporate telework

into any disaster contingency plans. Here in the Washington area,

we know that, in fact, many occurrences can interrupt government

operations, from snowstorms and hurricanes, to anthrax mailings

and Tractor Man. These disruptions are very costly to people all

over the country and the world that rely on a functioning Federal

Government every day.

Today’s hearing is set against the backdrop of Section 359 of

Public Law 106–346. This law, authored by one of our distinguished guests today, Congressman Frank Wolf, requires each executive branch agency to establish a telework policy ‘‘under which

eligible employees may participate in telecommuting to the maximum extent possible without diminishing employee performance.’’

The law made the Office of Personnel Management responsible for

ensuring that the requirements were applied to 25 percent of the

Federal work force beginning in April 2001 and to an additional 25

percent each subsequent year. That means, theoretically, that 100

percent of the Federal work force is supposed to be eligible to

telework by next April.

But I am sorry to report we are not there yet.

According to OPM data, only 102,921 employees of 751,844 who

were eligible had the capacity to telework in 2003, less than 14 percent. More unsettling is the fact that agencies are defining for

themselves what employees they consider ‘‘eligible.’’ Part of our

work today will be to determine whether a Government-wide definition of ‘‘eligible employees’’ would be appropriate and constructive.

We have long understood the barriers that prevent greater

telework implementation. Many managers remain unenthusiastic

about allowing their employees to be out of their sight during the

workdays. Some worry telework will worsen employee-management

relations; others worry employees may abuse the policy. Telework

requires a great deal of management confidence and a great deal

of employee responsibility. Our biggest challenge as we move forward may simply be changing organizational attitudes about the

possibilities technology affords managers and employees in the contemporary workplace.

It is important to note there are bright signs on the horizon. As

the government’s telework coordinators, OPM and the General

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Services Administration have recently directed several efforts to

boost telework programs.

Among its many activities in the last several weeks, OPM has

hosted special training sessions for employees from nine agencies

with extremely low telework participation; hosted emergency preparedness training forums for agency managers that emphasized

integration of telework into continuity of operations plans; and Director Kay Coles James personally guided agency representatives

through Fairfax Telework Center in suburban Virginia for a firsthand look at the operations of an offsite telework hub. I am also

aware of telework plans being crafted for Boston and New York, so

that the convention chaos doesn’t force Federal agencies in those

places to lose even an hour of productivity.

In addition, GSA has provided agencies with the needed guidance, technical assistance, and oversight of the establishment and

operation of telework programs. And, most notably, GSA recently

collaborated with the Department of Homeland Security to develop

a continuity of operations plan that emphasizes telework.

I know firsthand how telework can benefit a workplace. Ann

Rust of my district staff currently teleworks 4 days a week at the

George Mason University telework center in Herndon, VA. The

staff director of this committee, Melissa Wojciak, teleworked after

both of her children were born, giving a 21st century definition to

the term ‘‘maternity leave.’’

The bottom line is why do Federal employees have to commute

to and from their office each day to perform work that often can

be done equally well, or even more efficiently, at a more convenient

location? Our frustration with the slow pace of implementation is

peaking. That is why we will hear from Congressman Danny Davis

today about his proposal to establish a demonstration project to

evaluate Federal employees’ ability to perform essential and nonessential operations in the event that employees are not able to

work in their official duty stations.

More directly, that is why we are seeing language like that

added by Mr. Wolf to the CJS appropriations bill, threatening to

withhold funding for those agencies under his jurisdiction that

underperform in this area. Unfortunately, after all these years during which Federal agencies have not followed the law, I fear this

is the type of action required to get the wheelbarrow moving. I am

therefore prepared to follow my colleague Frank Wolf’s lead and

work to implement similar language that would apply to all Federal agencies. Let the message be clear: we are serious and we are

ready to help OPM and GSA to hold agencies’ feet to the fire.

We have three panels of witnesses here today who will help us

better understand where we have been and where we are going. On

the first panel we are pleased to have the distinguished Administrator of the GSA, Stephen Perry, and the equally distinguished Director of OPM, Kay Coles James.

Thank you both for being with us today.

[The prepared statement of Chairman Tom Davis follows:]

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Chairman TOM DAVIS. I now recognize the distinguished ranking

member, Mr. Waxman.

Mr. WAXMAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I would like

to thank you for holding this hearing, and I also want to welcome

the distinguished group of witnesses that we have testifying.

Today’s hearing focuses on the Federal Government’s effort to increase the use of telecommuting. According to experts, telework can

help the Government in its recruitment and retention of employees,

while also reducing the need for office space. Telework can also

have a major impact on traffic congestion, an issue of great importance in my own hometown, Los Angeles.

For employees, telework can allow them to structure their work

schedules around the need to care for elderly parents or young children. Telework can also provide disabled employees with greater

access to Federal employment.

Just as importantly, greater use of telework can allow the Federal Government to function in the event of an emergency, whether

it be a fire, a terrorist attack, God forbid, or a natural disaster.

In recent years, for example, congressional offices have been

closed because of anthrax contamination and Hurricane Isabel.

Had there been a great use of telework, there would have been

much less disruption in our ability to serve our constituents.

Representative Danny Davis, the ranking member of the Civil

Service Subcommittee, is working on a bill to ensure that telework

is better integrated into emergency planning, and I know well of

the leadership that Representative Frank Wolf has been providing

on this issue as well. I fully support them in their efforts, and I

hope the committee will move quickly on legislation.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Henry A. Waxman follows:]

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Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you. And I would like to ask the

committee’s permission. We have the distinguished chairman of the

CJS Appropriations Subcommittee. He has to go to the floor to

manage his bill so he can get out of here at a decent hour for the

time tonight, but he has been a leader in this area and, Frank

Wolf, we are very proud to have you here today to add your voice,

and thank you for the leadership you have taken. I recognize you

if you would like to say anything.

Mr. WOLF. Thank you, Chairman Davis. I appreciate it. And I

want to welcome the panel. I will be 30 seconds.

I think this is an important issue. It is a continuity of Government issues because we all went through what we went through

on September 11, and we saw the earthquakes and problems out

in California. It is an environmental issue. It is a traffic issue, as

you know, living in this region. It is a productivity issue, because

the studies show the people that telecommute or telework are very,

very productive with the new modern technology that is available.

It is also a family value issue. There is nothing magic about strapping yourself into a metal box and driving 35 or 45 miles, perhaps

sitting in traffic maybe 2 hours. There is nothing uncommon for

people in this region to get up at 4:30 or 5 a.m., to get into work,

and not to get home until 6 or 6:30 p.m. No opportunities to be active in Boy Scouts, their church, Little League, to be with the family. So it is a family value issue.

And for that I would hope—and I appreciate Chairman Davis

having this hearing—that the administration can take this. I know

the problem isn’t with the workers, because they want it. I am not

suggesting the problem is with OPM, either. But the problem appears to be at the leadership level. Some say mid-level, but at the

leadership level, whereby the word is not getting out. So I appreciate Mr. Davis having this. I hope some really good things. This

has been the law now for a long, long time; yet it is not being complied with, and perhaps this hearing will be the spur to really

make a difference.

So, Tom, thanks for having the hearing, and we look forward to

really good things whereby none of us in this region or any other

people will be called to say I work for the Federal Government, I

want to telework, but my agency won’t let me. So thanks for having

the hearing.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Frank Wolf follows:]

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Chairman TOM DAVIS. Well, thank you, Mr. Wolf, and thank you

for your leadership.

Any opening statements over on this side? Mr. Davis, yes, thank

you.

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

I will not read the statement, but I would just indicate that this

is indeed a very serious matter and it is a serious issue, and I

think that we have great opportunity to demonstrate the capacity

that exists to address it. Therefore, I will be introducing today a

bill that is designed to enhance the ability of Federal agencies to

function using telecommuting systems that obviously we are developing and learning about in the case of an emergency. So I look forward to not only the introduction of that legislation, but further

discussion of it, and hope that out of all of this we will be better

prepared should we experience any emergency that arises, and I

think we can rise to meet the occasion.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Danny K. Davis follows:]

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Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much.

Any other opening statements? If not, we have a very distinguished first panel that is part of the solution. We solute both of

you for your leadership in this area, the Honorable Stephen Perry,

Administrator of the GSA, and Kay Coles James of OPM. You

know it is our policy we swear you in, so if you would just raise

your right hands with me.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you both for being here.

Steve, we will start with you and then go to Kay, and then open

up for questions.

STATEMENTS OF STEPHEN PERRY, ADMINISTRATOR, GENERAL SERVICES ADMINISTRATION; AND KAY COLES JAMES,

DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT

Mr. PERRY. Good morning, Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, Congressman Wolf. Thank you for the opportunity to discuss the status of telework in the Federal workplace.

Along with the Office of Personnel Management under the capable leadership of Kay Coles James, GSA is a lead agency for promoting, supporting, and developing telework. According to statute,

GSA’s specific telework role is to provide guidance, assistance, and

oversight regarding the establishment of the operation of alternative workplace arrangements, and to acquire space and equipment for telecommuting centers.

In working with other Federal agencies, GSA promotes telework

as a key component of our mission to assist agencies in providing

a high performance, high-quality workplace.

In 2001, we presented testimony to this committee on our

telework activities, and today I am pleased to highlight some of the

results achieved, as well as to discuss some of the activities which

we have undertaken in effort to make more progress in increasing

our telework participation.

I will mention a few examples of the activities that we have undertaken in our statutory role first. The first of those is that we

continue to increase awareness. In order to do that, we have established a very active outreach technical assistance and communications program that provides up-to-date information on telework

issues. Awareness building is one of the keys to the solution of this

matter. We recently released a telework video targeted to Federal

agencies which demonstrates applications and benefits of alternative workplace arrangements, and I would certainly like to thank

Congressman Wolf for participation in that video.

A second thing that we have done recently is that we have collaborated, as the chairman mentioned, with the Department of

Homeland Security to develop newly issued policy and guidance regarding the use of telework centers for continuous operations planning and operations.

In the area of facility utilization management and funding, we

are implementing a new initiative to encourage and guide agencies

in the improvement of their facility management process through

the use of alternative work officing, which combines teleworking

with arrangements such as hoteling and desk sharing.

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In the area of new technology, which is of course becoming increasingly important to telework success, we are actively involved

in examining and testing applications of new technology to facilitate telework programs.

And last in these examples regarding our telework centers, we

have taken steps to boost agency utilization of these centers

through such things as having free trial periods for agencies to examine the use of the centers, including their use for COOP purposes and the new technology applications. As a result, recently we

had a free trial and we gained more than 100 new users, and we

will use this encouraging good news as a basis for more creative

promotion activities at these centers.

In addition to supporting telework as a means of developing a

high-performance Federal workplace, GSA has been proactive in

supporting telework as a means of reducing traffic congestion and

air pollution. And I would note that GSA has supported related initiatives such as the establishment of a Spouse Telework Employment Program which uses telework to provide career relief to

spouses of relocated Federal personnel, such as those in the military.

Regarding our own telework program at GSA, we have provided

this committee with a comprehensive overview of our telework program in our previous testimony, but I would like to just provide a

brief update now.

While we have experienced, and continue to experience, what are

referred to as the usual telework resistance issues, we have taken

steps in an effort to overcome this and to increase our telework

participation. We have made sure that our telework policies, first

of all, are in complete compliance with the standards as set by

OPM. Second, we have completed the work force review necessary

to declare that 90 percent of our over 13,000 workers are eligible

for telework, and that 90 percent compares to 43 percent on a governmentwide basis.

We have achieved telework participation rate of 24 percent, as

compared to the State-wide rate of 14. And we recognize that 24

percent, while a significant improvement, still falls very short of

what we all seek to achieve. We continue to work to build our program and to achieve optimal utilization of telework.

Mr. Chairman, we appreciate the congressional support that we

have received for the development of Federal telework, and we

share your frustration with the slow growth of the program. Since

our previous testimony, OPM and GSA have made significant efforts to boost Federal telework, and while these efforts have resulted in increased participation, they have not yet achieved the

level that we should have achieved and that we seek to achieve. To

achieve more progress, our current recommendations focus in two

areas: first is the area of management accountability and second is

the area of technological capability.

Regarding management accountability, we support OPM’s published emphasis on the need for Federal agency management to

take responsibility for meeting their statutory telework obligations.

We commend this more aggressive approach and we recommend

emphasis on agency managements working to ensure that they are

using the best and most efficient telecommuting policies, and clariVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:25 Nov 01, 2004 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00022 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\96411.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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fication of the standards that are used within agencies to determine telework eligibility; and OPM and GSA are prepared to work

with them in doing that.

Finally, regarding technological capability to facilitate significant

long-term telework expansion and productivity, there needs to be

improved management and investment in new technology.

Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, that concludes my

statement, and I would be happy to respond to questions you may

have.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Perry follows:]

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Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much.

Kay, thanks for being with us.

Ms. JAMES. Good morning. Mr. Chairman and members of the

committee, it is a pleasure to be before you today to address the

state of teleworking in the Federal Government. I am going to ask

that the complete statement be entered into the record, and I am

going to read an abbreviated statement.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Without objection, both complete statements are in the record.

Ms. JAMES. Thank you.

In your invitation to testify, you asked me to address four critical

questions. First, what is being done to encourage reluctant managers to adopt and implement telework policies. And I would like

to go through each of those four questions quickly.

In response to the first question, let me begin by expressing our

appreciation to Chairman Wolf and Representative Hoyer and

other members of the House Appropriations Subcommittees for providing a special appropriation of $500,000 to help us focus efforts

on agencies with less than 2 percent of eligible employees teleworking in 2002.

OPM, in collaboration with GSA under Administrator Perry’s

leadership, has under taken a number of strategic initiatives to address the situation. These initiatives included special consultation

and training for those 2 percent agencies and a multifaceted educational campaign designed for them that could be equally useful

to virtually all Federal agencies as they worked on developing and

enhancing their programs. For example, I have before me today a

sample telework kit. We wanted to make it as easy as possible. Everything you need to know in one place to train, to motivate, to encourage; it is all here to help agencies in their effort to promote

telework.

A few days ago I met with representatives of the Chief Human

Capital Officers on the subject of telework. We thought we would

go straight to the top in the agencies and asked the Chief Human

Capital Officers to join us in Fairfax for a firsthand view of what

it looks like and how it could work. This provided an excellent opportunity to reenforce the importance of telework to mission and to

discuss the solutions to the challenges they face in implementing

telework. Perhaps the most visible indication of our efforts to help

agencies implement telework is the information from the telework

Web site we maintain in collaboration with GSA, which is, of

course, www.telework.gov, that shows the range of information, assistance, and resources available to agencies, including our electronic manual for managers, supervisors, and telework coordinators. So if they want a hard copy, it is here; if you want to go to

the Web and get everything you need to know about how to

telework in the Federal Government, it is there.

Incidentally, those pages are attached to the testimony that I

submitted.

I have also provided the committee a list of OPM’s 2003 and

2004 training activities, presentations, and products that promote

telework.

Mr. Chairman, you said it is the wheelbarrow phenomenon: nothing happens until you start pushing. We have been pushing. We

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have given you the list so that you can see the kinds of things that

we are trying to do to encourage.

I emphasize our effective collaboration with GSA. Our staffs collaborate and consult almost on a daily basis, and senior staff meet

at least four times a year. The Memorandum of Understanding developed in October 2003 between the two agencies has helped to

clarify the duties and responsibilities of each.

The second question you posed was why are some agencies falling short of the laws governing for teleworking. First some perspective. It is getting just a little better. Since the law passed in 2001,

the number of teleworkers has increased 93 percent, from 53,389

in April 2001 to 102,921 in October 2003. We are actively working

to understand and mitigate the real and perceived barriers agencies are encountering as they seek to implement and expand their

telework programs.

In a focus group setting, we explored what the phrase ‘‘management resistance’’ actually means. That is, what are the specific aspects of telework that may lead to reduced usage? Participants

were first-line supervisors from 25 agencies, some of whom currently or previously supervised teleworkers. Commonly expressed

concerns from the survey included maintaining office coverage, especially with some employees already on compressed work schedules; finding times when everyone is available for meetings; nature

of work; need to say no to some aspiring teleworkers while saying

yes to others, with the attendant concerns about perception of unfairness; adequacy of employees, computer, and telephone systems;

information security; perception of teleworkers that they would not

advance professionally due to lack of direct contact with supervisors; evaluating employees without being able to see them working.

With that list in hand, OPM has used these findings to shape the

training; we use that information to help us know where to target

the training.

The third question was when will the law’s goals be met. I believe we can expect greater progress through the rest of this decade. That is not nearly soon enough, does not satisfy me, and I

know does not satisfy you as well.

With respect to the last question, what, if any, legislative steps

are needed to further motivate agencies to comply with the law,

our view is that further legislation is unnecessary at this time;

however, should the Congress believe additional legislation is needed, we stand ready to provide any technical assistance that may be

useful.

Mr. Chairman, telework is growing steadily in the Federal Government. Our goal is to make it a part of the new contemporary

work force. I assure you that we will continue to champion

telework as a key human capital strategy for the Federal Government.

I would be glad to answer any questions that you may have.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Ms. James follows:]

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Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you both. I will just tell you where

I come down on this. I think we may need additional legislation to

get the word down to management. Despite your best efforts, Ms.

James and Mr. Perry, to talk to some of these agencies, I think

what Representative Wolf has proposed and what we may put on

other appropriation bills may be something we need to do to get attention.

We are way behind the private sector in this. I have gone into

some of the new companies locating out in northern Virginia,

where they have cubicles for their employees and they are virtually

empty, and they are saying they don’t need to be here; they can

be on the road, they can be doing a lot of other things than hanging

around.

There are the traditional issues of how you get coverage and

meetings and those kinds of things. You don’t even need to be

present for meetings anymore. I don’t know if they know that or

not, but the reality is that is why you have teleconferencing and

everything else.

We are way behind the private sector, which thrives on efficiency, and American taxpayers deserve the same thing.

Second, I don’t know if anybody has looked at traffic out there

lately; I guess it dissipates a little bit in the summertime, but your

average Federal employee commute here, it is not good in the Tidewater area. That is time they could be maybe at their home or

someplace closer getting their work done. Just so many things I

think we are missing out on.

Now, there are some important issues, and, Ms. James, as you

talked about in your surveys with managers, there are always legitimate concerns. You need somebody to answer the phone; somebody is going to have to be somewhere to answer inquiries coming

in. And there are employees, let us face it, that will take advantage

of the situation; oh, yeah, I am working, and ‘‘your put’’ you can

hear it in the back. So we have that any time we go to something

new. We faced this with credit cards. There is always going to be

some employee abuse, and we just have to adjust our oversight accordingly.

And what we found out as we have done these things, and I

think you have seen this at GSA, Mr. Perry, is when we move to

these areas, there is always a percent of employees who will try to

gain the system and abuse, and they are not going to be with us

forever in the private sector, the public sector, on Capitol Hill, and

everything else. But the efficiencies that you gain by your good employees who then don’t have to spend their time in traffic, who

don’t have to take off in the middle of the day to go to their kids’

play, who, if they have a doctor’s appointment, can be sitting there

with their laptop and doing other things until they are called in far

outweigh the abuse. And that is why the training and the kits are

important, and why maybe Mr. Davis’ suggestion that we set up

some very established pilot programs and move quickly on this are

so important.

I just think we are missing the boat on this. I agree with Frank

Wolf on this. And living in this region and seeing the traffic mounting every day—it is not all Federal employees, to be sure, the people moving in the street, but we should not be following the private

36

sector and lagging way behind; we ought to be ahead of the curve

on this kind of thing.

So that is kind of where I come down.

Mr. Perry, let me ask you as more eligible employees telework,

do you think GSA can provide the technology and assistance to

keep up with the Government’s needs?

Mr. PERRY. Yes, we can. We, today, are able to provide some

4,000 virtual network facilities for people who telecommute from

home, and our people tell me that we could expand that with a

small investment, less than $200,000, to be able to provide for up

to 75 percent of our work force, if that became necessary.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. The business model that we have had for

so many years is you have office parks and people in offices and

people driving to offices. As that model changes, we could save,

theoretically, a lot of money on office space and stuff. I am talking

about over the next 5, 10 years, if this gets implemented. Is that

a possibility?

Mr. PERRY. Yes. One of the things we work on at GSA is what

we call Workplace 20/20, and in the design of facilities for the future, you take into account alternative workplace arrangements, including telework, and you can actually occupy a smaller space and

save the rent that would otherwise be paid. So there is no question

there are benefits.

One of the, I think, issues that has to be considered is whether

or not, even though this launch has been too slow, the question is

whether or not the foundation has now been put in place such that

the inertia will begin to erode away and we will see more progress

in the next couple of years. That might be optimistic, but I do believe that there has been a lot of good foundational work put in

place so that the accomplishment of the next year certainly should

exceed what we have been able to do in the previous year.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. I guess my last question is as we take a

look at the possibilities for teleworking, you really don’t need

telework centers. As broadband becomes available into homes, as

you are able to get the laptops, people with cells and blackberries

and everything else, the need for centers may not be as pronounced

as we originally thought. Really, if you have an alert worker who

takes their job seriously and pride in that, and wants to be efficient, in theory they could work out of their home; you don’t need

a center to report to.

What are each of your views on that?

Mr. PERRY. Well, one of the considerations is the issue of cost.

There are many other considerations. On the basis of cost, telework

centers are still the most efficient. In other words, even at roughly

$6,600 to equip a household, assuming they have the right telephone lines and so forth, when you compare that to what it would

cost to work at a telecenter, it is less costly to do that. That may

change with the advent of new technology and so forth. And it also

will be impacted once you consider other factors; in other words,

the convenience of home versus the telecenter and so forth. But

cost alone would say that, at least as of today, it is still more economical to use a telecenter as opposed to equipping an individual’s

home.

37

Ms. JAMES. Mr. Chairman, probably the largest hurdles that we

have to overcome with the Federal work force in promoting

telework are the attitudes and perceptions of managers. As a result

of that, I believe that telework centers are an incredibly important

necessary interim step. You cannot visit one of these centers without understanding the tremendous opportunity that they provide

for workers to come there, and to get the job done in an efficient

manner. And I think when we take managers and supervisors into

these centers and they can see them, it may alleviate some of the

fear or anxiety that they have about the whole notion of telework.

And, second, I think that the economy of scale is very important,

because they provide far more than just a place to sit at a computer terminal; there are also the opportunities for conference

rooms, there is also the opportunity to use other office machines

that a person may not have at their own home. So if you need to

fax something or copy something or put a document together or

hold a meeting, you can in fact do those things in some of our

telework centers as well.

So I think, with the opportunity to alleviate fear and anxiety

with managers, and show and tell is still one of the best ways to

do it, we need to get more of our managers out there and visiting

these centers to understand exactly what they are and how they

can benefit their mission, particularly in a post-September 11 environment.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. So the telesupport centers, to some extent,

are like training wheels for management, basically, when you get

down to it.

Ms. JAMES. That is a good way to put it.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. OK. Thank you very much.

Mr. Davis.

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Director James, you have mentioned the attitudes of managers

and supervisors. Are these attitudes a feeling of the inability to supervise, that is, to actually manage the quality of the work that is

being done, is that what the fear is all about?

Ms. JAMES. I would say yes. It is managing in a different way,

and our Federal work force, like most work forces are, is hesitant

to change, and is cautious about new things. This is cutting-edge

technology, or it was 10 years ago, but we are catching up, and people’s attitudes have to grow and develop along with that. So I

would say for a manager who is used to seeing 10 employees sitting

near them that they can monitor and watch, the concept of having

someone at a remote location is a little difficult for them to adjust

to. So managers have to learn new skills; managers have to learn

cutting-edge technology, and managers and supervisors have to

learn what it is like to have a contemporary work force, and that

takes time.

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. Mr. Perry.

Mr. PERRY. I would agree completely. You know, the manager is

in the position of being held responsible for delivering a certain volume of work by his or her team, and I think as Director James

points out, there is a little bit of anxiety or nervousness as to

whether or not they will still be able to maintain the same or expected level of productivity and accomplishment if their workers

38

are not there and they can observe the work happening. If you can

put measurement systems in place that enable managers to be assured that the work is being done in a timely and accurate way,

I think that fear will subside. But right now their ‘‘legitimate concern,’’ if you will, is what will happen to my ability to be productive

as a work team if I can’t observe people doing the work?

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. I have always maintained that a good

part of work was the sense of being a part of a group, being a part

of an activity, a part of what is taking place, I mean, the team concept. Are there any experiences which would suggest that workers

might lose some of that? There are people who look forward to

going to work because they are going to interact with other people

in the office, or in the plant, or in the setting, or in the facility.

Have we had any experiences which would suggest that there

might be some impediment to that kind of relationship-building,

which I think becomes a great part of productivity and a great part

of the ability to get tasks accomplished?

Ms. JAMES. Well, very few of our teleworkers do it 100 percent

of the time, so as a result of that you have the opportunity for both;

you are still a part of a very active team and you are plugged into

that team, but you also have the opportunity on several days a

week or a month, depending on how often you do it, to use that

particular efficiency as well.

I am sure that data exists out there, and perhaps some of the

panels that come later can actually talk about that phenomena, I

have seen it, I don’t have it available in front of me right now, that

talks about the kinds of things that happen in a work environment

when people telecommute, and the data suggests that individuals

who do that are able to maintain their sense of teamwork and camaraderie and mission. Of course, a lot of that depends, as I said,

on how often a person actually telecommutes.

Some of that is overcome, by the way, again, when we go back

to the centers, because they are not isolated and at home by themselves, but are in telework centers with other employees either

from the Federal Government or the private sector, and I am sure

those kinds of relationships develop as well.

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. Thank you very much.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Mr. Schrock.

Mr. SCHROCK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you for

holding this hearing.

Mr. Perry, it is nice to have you here. It is always interesting to

hear what you have to say. And it is always good to have my longterm friend, Kay Coles James, with us. And I am guessing if Director James could telework herself, she would want it to be in a center directly next door to her brand new first and only grandchild,

is that right?

Ms. JAMES. Absolutely.

Mr. SCHROCK. Absolutely. I know. That is the happiest woman

on the face of the Earth.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. That is not a good argument, I don’t

think, here. I don’t think that is a good argument, Ed.

Mr. SCHROCK. No, she won’t do that; she has got a nice office

now.

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Chairman TOM DAVIS. She would be a doting grandparent, I

know.

Ms. JAMES. However, I would say, Mr. Chairman, that in order

to show some leadership, I have made a commitment to telecommute 1 day a month, and I do. And if you ask my staff about how

efficient it is, everyone always knows when it is the day after, because I have read the reports and I am able to analyze the data,

and I am able to do the writing, and always a day after my

telework day is a very productive day for everybody else at OPM.

Mr. SCHROCK. Gee, I wonder if we want to go into that a little

deeper.

Let me ask Director James, in your opinion, is the 2000 law realistic? And if not, what standards could make that more attainable?

Ms. JAMES. Well, I do believe that it is realistic, and I think we

can get there. I think probably the only thing that is unrealistic is

the timing, just how long it takes to change a culture, because that

is what we are talking about fundamentally here, is a cultural

change, to get people to think differently, to act differently. And

when you have a work force of 1.8 million people and you are trying to institute cultural change, that can take longer than it does

in some smaller organizations. So I believe that it is realistic, but

it may take us a little longer to get there.

And I think Administrator Perry was absolutely on point when

he says that the groundwork has been laid, and I think we are

going to see some exponential changes in terms of the numbers as

we look ahead in the future. It is not going to take as long because

people are beginning to understand, the leadership is becoming

more committed.

So I think that the goals that are there are attainable, but it

may take a little longer than people anticipated.

Mr. SCHROCK. Mr. Perry, can I ask you the same question? Then

I also want to followup with, in your view, why have the agencies

failed to meet the telework goals that were set by Congress. I think

Ms. James commented on that somewhat; I would be interested in

your opinion as well.

Mr. PERRY. Yes. Well, first of all, with respect to my personal

telecommuting, as I said to Director James, I tend to do that on

Saturday and Sunday. But in all seriousness, I think this matter

of cultural change is a big part of the reason why we haven’t made

more progress, because it is the case that cultural change does take

time. I also, though, would say to you that what I believe is also

a part of the issue is that agencies just haven’t had this as a priority. Now, as a result of the education and training that has been

done in this last year and a half, I think that too is now changing.

I don’t see that we have the same degree of resistance at the senior

levels of agencies, and I see more and more cases where agency

people are, as a result of this training and education, becoming

more committed.

So I think the reasons for the slow take-up have been the cultural change and priority, and I believe that both of those are on

a track toward resolution. The big question is are they on a track

that will accelerate to the pace that we really need, or do we need

another impetus to get to that pace. That question I don’t know the

answer to.

40

Mr. SCHROCK. Let me ask you, too, what IT concerns do—I keep

wanting to say teletechnet, because that is what we have at home

at Old Dominion University—telework pose and what is GSA doing

to address those?

Mr. PERRY. Well, the issue of cost had been a concern, but that

has been coming down. Now there is the issue of implementing

newer technology now that wireless is no more secure——

Mr. SCHROCK. I was just reminded I left out a key word: IT security.

Mr. PERRY. IT security? Well, it is the fact that this kind of telecommuting is now more secure, can be made more secure when it

needs to be, and in some instances the use of wireless technology

can be done in a secure way. So as that kind of technology enhancement comes along, then people will become more comfortable

with the issue of information security in a telecommuting situation.

Mr. SCHROCK. Let me ask Director James is the number of employees deemed eligible by agencies representative of the actual

number of eligible employees, and do you recommend a governmentwide definition of eligible? And from what you learned, are

employees even aware that they can do this?

Ms. JAMES. I would hesitate to implement any sort of Governmentwide definition of eligible because I believe that each agency,

based on each agency’s mission and based on how it orders its

work, it could vary from agency to agency. One particular classification may be eligible in one agency, but not necessarily in another. So I would exercise some caution there and would like to

look at any language that talks about any type of Governmentwide

eligibility.

Having said that, a part of our mission has been to try to make

every employee who is eligible know and understand that they are,

and that is a part of our mission at OPM and it is also something

that we are monitoring and working with our Chief Human Capital

Officers in each of the agencies to make sure that every employee

who is eligible knows and understands that they are.

Mr. SCHROCK. Are you getting a good response from that?

Ms. JAMES. I think the response has been good. I dare say you

can still find Federal employees out there who are eligible who

don’t know that they are, and that is because our job isn’t entirely

done yet.

Mr. SCHROCK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you.

Ms. Watson.

Ms. WATSON. I want to thank both of the administrators for

being here and really formalizing for us the wave of the future. As

I read through the projects that are already underway, I just would

like you to clarify for me, No. 1, I notice most consistently it is 1

day a week. Would it be more opportune to allow them to have a

work schedule more than 1 day a week? Because I can see this saving space in a location where they all would come to. If you want

to utilize the facilities, I would think you would want more workers

doing telework. So you might want to comment on that. The pilots

I am sure will give you some results that will help you with that.

41

Then if it is a structured work day at home and you are looking

at performance, how is the performance reported, and is it reported

on a day-by-day basis?

Overall, would we be able to save the cost of infrastructure, a facility, let alone the benefit to the environment?

And I think it is an excellent program, period, particularly for

family people.

So can you comment, either one?

Mr. PERRY. Well, I will start. The statistic that shows the prominence of the 1-day a week are the statistics for the use of telecenters. So those are the centers, as opposed to telecommuting from

home. The guidelines that OPM has put out defines telework as

you can be counted as a teleworker if you are teleworking at least

1 day a week. But many people do telework more often than that.

That is not a limitation, it just says if you are telecommuting more

than 1 day a week, you are not counted. And there are people who

telecommute in the evening or maybe half a day or something, but

in order to be counted in these statistics, it has to be at least 1 day

a week; and there are many who telecommute more than that.

Your second point is certainly correct: as more and more people

telecommute, even 1 day a week or certainly more than that, then

it relieves the pressure on how much physical space you have to

lease or construct to house your work force. And we haven’t seen

a big impact of that yet, but we do take that into account as we

look at designing buildings and leasing facilities in the future, and

our expectation is that, yes, our leasing cost will come down as

more and more people work from alternative locations.

Ms. WATSON. May I just comment? Wouldn’t the telecenters, if

you expect them to go to a center, have the same problem as you

have now in your regular structured environment?

Mr. PERRY. In terms of having to provide the physical space?

Ms. WATSON. Yes.

Mr. PERRY. Yes. And telecenters I think are an interim. It is not

the ultimate, but it is a way of stepping into the process, sort of

a low-cost approach before you might get to the ultimate, which

would be each individual telecommuting from their individual location, where that is appropriate.

Ms. WATSON. Now, with the job market the way it is in many

parts of the country, is it realistic to believe that if this kind of

telework concept catches on nationally, is it realistic to think that

people will have the equipment in their homes in order to

telework? And is there a grant program, is there some financial assistance, if it is a governmental program, to supply them with the

necessary equipment rather than a telework center?

Mr. PERRY. Yes, I think that is the trend, as the cost of equipping a home comes down, and to the extent that a person would

regard their home as being the most appropriate place to work.

There are some who would not prefer to do that because of children

or other family members or what have you, but the trend seems

to be that more people are moving toward telecommuting from

home than telecommuting from centers. It has been our practice,

at least at GSA, when a manager says yes to an associate who

would like to telecommute, that a part of that saying yes is to

equip the home adequately to provide for that telecommuting, if

42

that is where they decide the telecommuting has to be done from.

So I think we will see more and more of that.

Ms. JAMES. Mr. Chairman, I think we shouldn’t gloss over or

move over too quickly that this is an expensive proposition and

that there are issues related to paying for this in employees’

homes, how you maintain upkeep the equipment in many different

locations; and those are all questions that we have to address.

I did want to mention just for a minute the 1-day a week that

you talked about. That is just the minimal in order to be counted.

There are several categories of teleworkers. For example, there is

the situational teleworker, who may telework for a period of time

because of an illness or an incident or an event. Situational teleworkers averaged about 3 days a month; and for core teleworkers,

those teleworkers average about 6 days a month. So it is far more

than just the 1-day a week.

So I just wanted to make sure that you understood those distinctions.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you.

Ms. WATSON. Do I have any more time?

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Your time has expired.

Ms. WATSON. Thank you.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. We have another panel I want to move on

to.

I want to thank you both for being here. We will continue to have

dialog with you and your agencies, and I want to thank you both

for your leadership in this.

We will take about a minute recess while we change panels.

I am going to call the next panel and, if it is all right with the

participants, try to call everyone together, the second and third

panel together, so we can get everybody up here together, both government and private sector. I think it will help expedite the questions.

So we will move to our next panel and take a very brief recess.

[Recess.]

Chairman TOM DAVIS. We move to our second panel, and I appreciate everybody going together, but given our vote schedule and

trying to move everybody out of here and keep Members here, I

think this is the best way to go.

Your entire testimony is in the record, so you don’t have to use

all of your 5 minutes if you don’t want to; you can highlight the

important factors. We have questions based on the written testimony that you submitted, and depending on what you highlight,

we may change the questioning.

Our panel is Pamela Gardiner, who is the Acting Inspector General for Tax Administration at the Department of the Treasury. We

have Scott Cameron, the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Performance, Accountability, and Human Resources, Department of the Interior. We have Scott Mihm.

Is that how you pronounce it? I am sorry, Chris Mihm.

Mr. MIHM. Yes, sir.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. The Director of Strategic Issues, General

Accounting Office. Then we also have Dr. James Kane, who is the

president and chief executive officer of the Software Productivity

Consortium out in northern Virginia. We have Steven DuMont,

43

who is the vice president, Internet Business Solutions Group, at

Cisco Systems, Inc.; Eric Richert, vice president for iWork Solutions Group, Sun Microsystems; and Carol Goldberg, who is the

former telework program manager for the Fairfax County Government.

I thank all of you for being here. It is our policy we swear everybody in before your testimony; we are a major investigatory committee. Just rise with me and raise your right hands.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much.

Pamela, we will start with you, and we will move right on down

the line. Your light will light up, after 4 minutes it will turn orange, and after 5 minutes red; and if we can move to summary if

it turns red. And if you can beat that, all the better, then we can

move to questions.

Thank you very much for being with us.

STATEMENTS OF PAMELA J. GARDINER, ACTING INSPECTOR

GENERAL FOR TAX ADMINISTRATION, DEPARTMENT OF THE

TREASURY; SCOTT J. CAMERON, DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY, PERFORMANCE, ACCOUNTABILITY, AND HUMAN

RESOURCES, DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR; AND J.

CHRISTOPHER MIHM, DIRECTOR, STRATEGIC ISSUES, GENERAL ACCOUNTING OFFICE

Ms. GARDINER. I appreciate the opportunity to appear before you

today to discuss the challenges and success that the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration [TIGTA], has experienced

with telework. Much of the work we do at TIGTA, audits and investigations of the Internal Revenue Service, lends itself to being

done in a virtual environment. We believe telework increases productivity, enhances employees’ satisfaction, and saves American

taxpayers’ dollars.

As you may know, TIGTA has enjoyed tremendous success with

telework and serves as an example of best telework practices for

the Federal community. TIGTA was even recognized for excellence

in telework by receiving the Commuter Connections Employer Recognition Award for Telework in 2003. Currently, 854, or 97 percent,

of our total 884 employees are eligible to telework. Of these 854 eligible employees, 92 percent choose to participate in the program.

TIGTA offers employees four levels of participation. The participation level dictates the number of days a week the individual will

telework and the associated costs that TIGTA will pay. The four

levels of participation are defined as: full, which allows an employee to telework 4 to 5 days per week; expanded, which allows

an employee to telework 2 to 3 days per week; limited, which allows an employee to telework 1 day per week; or episodic, which

allows for situational or task-based telework.

While telework at TIGTA is very successful, we did experience

challenges when first developing the program. In fiscal year 2000,

TIGTA was one of the first Federal agencies to pilot and implement

a telework program. There was no model to follow, so we developed

our own. We experienced difficulty in finding resources available to

answer questions, propose policy, and identify appropriate training.

Apart from the policy aspects, a significant technical challenge was

44

in the area of broadband service. While availability has somewhat

increased, it is still not available in all locations where TIGTA employees live. Additionally, at the time of implementation broadband

technology was new to TIGTA, and non-standardization of service

posed added complexity. Finally, gaining management buy-in to the

program was a significant hurdle.

In addressing these challenges, TIGTA used information from

our pilot program, private industry best practices, and conducted

management training to address concerns. We developed a comprehensive network of technical and human resources support that

shared organizational successes by communicating increases in productivity and work quality. There are several factors we have identified that we think other agencies may find helpful in developing

their own programs: we timed our program rollout in conjunction

with a technology upgrade to minimize expenses; we provided all

employees with laptops, rather than desktop computers; we installed a virtual private network to ensure top-notch security; we

required the use of high-speed broadband technology for participants at the full and expanded participation levels to ensure productive data transmission; we structured a flexible telework policy

to meet the needs of the work environment; we provided training

to all employees and managers before participation; and we provided employees on full-time telework with printers and other key

tools.

Our Atlanta office demonstrated a high level of successful participation in telework, which led us to the next phase of our program:

hoteling. This concept entails significantly reducing overall office

space and the number of individually assigned work stations. Individuals use software to reserve a workspace when they need to be

in the office. We anticipate rent savings of $100,000 from this one

office in the first full year of operation.

TIGTA has also incorporated telework into our Continuity of Operations Plan [COOP], and it is an integral part of our business resumption planning activities. By having the policies and provisions

in place, should activation of the COOP become necessary, TIGTA

will be able to maintain a steady work force and quickly resume

normal business operations overseeing the IRS and protecting tax

administration.

In closing, telework is good for TIGTA because we believe we can

get the job done quicker and less costly. It is good for our employees because we believe they can focus on doing their work instead

of getting to work. And, most importantly, it is good for taxpayers

because we believe Federal resources are at their optimal use.

This concludes my statement.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Gardiner follows:]

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47

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Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much.

Mr. Cameron.

Mr. CAMERON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the

committee, for the opportunity to testify before you today.

The Department of the Interior supports teleworking as part of

our overall commitment to improving the quality of work life for

our employees. Since 1994, the Department has encouraged managers to use telework as one of the flexible work arrangements that

create a family friendly atmosphere.

We have encouraged our bureaus to use the extensive guidance

material presented by OPM and GSA. While the majority of our

bureaus have telework policies, the Department is in the process

of formalizing the first Department-wide policy. That will be in

place this October.

We also encourage the use of telework when employees may face

difficulties in commuting. Because of our proximity to the World

Bank, for instance, and other financial institutions, we have encouraged employees with approved telework agreements to

telework during meetings of the International Monetary Fund or

when there are other major events in downtown Washington such

as the NFL kickoff last year on the national mall and the day before the World War II Memorial dedication this spring.

The Department of the Interior employs over 70,000 employees—

actually, it is 70,000 FTE, but about 80,000 employees—at over

2,400 worksites around the country. Many of these worksites are

in remote locations, in very small offices of 10 employees or less.

Many employees in our national parks and wildlife refuges, for instance, are in jobs that require them to be at a park or a refuge,

providing service directly to the public. Also, Interior has the third

largest number of law enforcement personnel for protecting many

of the Nation’s important monuments and dams. Since September

11 and during periods of heightened security, their responsibilities

have not been conducive to teleworking.

We do realize, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee,

that we have a long way to go; there is more we can do at Interior

in terms of providing teleworking opportunities. We plan to hold

focus groups to bring our successful managers together to share

their best practices and identify the obstacles they have overcome.

We think that will help.

I would like to reflect, if I could, for the balance of my time, on

a number of points, Mr. Chairman. First of all, with the new emphasis on outcomes and results under the Government Performance and Results Act over which this committee has jurisdiction,

we feel that increasingly the performance agreements with individual employees will be outcome- and results-oriented, less processoriented. That should raise a comfort level of managers, to simply

say, ‘‘deliver on the outcome and the results that we want, that you

are accountable for under the strategic plan, and we don’t need to

watch you 8 hours a day.’’ If you deliver the results, that is what

we are interested in; that is what counts. So I think over time the

new improved GPRA plans will help facilitate teleworking.

The second point I wanted to observe relates to, I think, a very

astute observation of Mr. Davis from Illinois earlier in the hearing

when he talked about how employees want to be part of a team,

50

how they get inspiration from being in a group setting. Mr. Schrock

and I participated at a dedication at Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge of a visitor center honoring former Congressman Herb

Bateman from Mr. Schrock’s district, and he and I both noticed

half a dozen really bright young Fish and Wildlife Service employees, probably in their 20, in their Fish and Wildlife Service uniform. Well, they were probably all biologists, and the reason they

are working for the Fish and Wildlife Service is they like being in

the field; they want to have the waders on, they want to be out

there banding the ducks, they want to be doing sampling of fish

populations. Telling somebody like that, guess what, you get to

spend a day, a week sitting at home in front of a computer is like

giving them a sentence. They would hate that. In fact, real world

experience is whenever we try to drag our employees in from the

field to a regional office or headquarters, they come kicking and

screaming. They want to be out there in the national parks, they

want to be out there on the wildlife refuges, because that is where

they get inspiration, Mr. Davis. That is what is fun.

So while some folks might be eligible for teleworking, you would

have a hard time convincing them that they ought to be sitting at

their home on a computer instead of out with the waders on, walking around the marsh. So that point I think is worth making.

About 72 percent of Interior’s employees, in fact, work in the

field. That is almost the converse, for instance, of the Education

Department, where around 72 percent work in Washington, DC. So

the vast majority of our employees are working in the field; they

need to be interacting with the public on a daily basis. Think of

Great Falls National Park, think of Chincoteague, Yorktown,

Jamestown. We need our employees there to talk to the public;

they want to talk about Old Faithful Geyser, they want to provide

interpretation. So while they may have the legal opportunity to

telework, you might have a hard time dragging them out of the

marsh, I guess is part of the point I would like to make.

We are trying to lead by example, recognizing our problems. In

my own office, I have several employees who work for me who are

teleworking, and, frankly, it is more productive; they get a lot more

work done than when they are sitting there in the office and I am

interrupting them every couple of hours. So we are trying to lead

by example, Mr. Chairman, but we realize we have a long way to

go.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Cameron follows:]

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Chairman TOM DAVIS. Basically, you are saying the statistics

don’t apply when you have 70 percent of your people in the field.

Mr. CAMERON. Yes. I think that is right, Mr. Chairman. I would

say if you looked at the employees in our regional offices and our

headquarters office, just at them, we are probably at around the 10

percent level, which is not where we need to be, granted, but it

looks a lot better than if you count all the field level employees.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. OK.

Mr. Mihm, thanks for being with us.

Mr. MIHM. Chairman Davis, members of the committee, it is a

pleasure to be here today to discuss how we can increase Federal

teleworking. As has been noted that telework has received significant attention, of course, here in Congress and across the executive

branch and is a popular flexibility among Federal employees, a successful telework program has a number of benefits that we have

discussed this morning, including improving employee morale, reducing traffic congestion, pollution, and the rest.

Moreover, in the aftermath of September 11, there has been a

growing appreciation that teleworking is not just a good thing, but

a very important thing. This is exactly the point, Mr. Chairman,

that you were making in your opening statement. We reported in

a report that we did back in April that telework can help employees continue to contribute to the agency in the event of a disruption, and these disruptions, as Mr. Cameron just noted, can cover

a wide range of events are not just the horrific incidences of terrorism.

OPM and GSA guidance has underscored that the ability to

telework has been and will continue to be important in times of

emergency situations, and, for example, OPM suggests, and our

work certainly confirms, that agencies should make telework a consistent and concerted part of their continuity of operation planning.

This last May OPM released its annual telework report of its

survey of 74 agencies last fall. OPM reported that the percentage

of telework-eligible employees grew from 35 percent in 2002 to 43

percent in 2003. And as has been noted, this is a positive development to be sure, but still well below Congress’ expectations.

Importantly, however, the report also indicated that the percentage of telework-eligible employees who actually telework, as opposed to eligibility, those who were actually engaging in telework

remained roughly stable between 2002 and 2003 at about 14 percent, although, of course, the number increased from about 90,000

in 2002 to 103,000 in 2003.

On your first panel this morning, OPM Director James and GSA

Administrator Perry discussed the efforts that their agencies are

taking to increase telework. We in GAO have attempted to play a

constructive role in this regard as well, and to help agencies develop successful telework programs, we identified a set of key practices for the implementation of telework. These practices, developed

as part of a report that we did for you last year, Chairman Davis,

are shown in my written statement on page 4 and on the boards

over here to my right. And they are not designed to be read by you

but they are in the written statement. OPM and GSA have distributed these practices to agency telework coordinators and recVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:25 Nov 01, 2004 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00057 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\96411.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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ommended that the agencies use them to self-assess their programs.

Our report also discussed these practices in more detail and provided illustrations of their implementation. We found last year,

when we reviewed the progress of several agencies, that these individual agencies needed additional guidance, guidelines, and/or individualized technical support to fulfill many of these practices, thus

underpinning the importance of the successful implementation of

the initiatives that Director James and Administrator Perry discussed today. For example, we found, in the agencies that we studied, that they had not established program goals, were not providing full funding to meet the needs of their telework programs, nor

had they established eligibility criteria to ensure that teleworkers

were selected on an equitable basis. Obtaining support from top

management for telework, addressing managerial resistance to

flexibility, and providing training and information on the telework

program were also identified as challenges at the agencies that we

examined.

Mr. Davis raised today the issue of being connected, and that is

that in a Federal work environment that is increasingly knowledgebased and team-based, it is important that employees feel and actually are connected to the larger work around them, a vital point.

I would also note, though, that as part of that telework can actually help with this view of connection. In our own experience in

GAO, where we have had disruptive events that have required us

to evacuate parts of the building, we have found that the ability

to telework increased the feeling of connection. In this case it was

employee at home computer talking to employee at home computer

rather than employees talking, one at a home computer talking to

people at work. So telework can have this vital connecting effect as

well.

A final point, and this is in regards to making sure that we keep

an expansive view of exactly what telework is, and this is what Ms.

Watson was asking in some of her questions. We need to be clear

that telework can both be the continuing telework that Chairman

Davis discussed at your district office manager has, a short-term

telework, which is what your staff director had, and as well as episodic telework, which is what Ms. Gardiner says they are doing at

TIGTA and that we have at the GAO. And I didn’t get a chance

to ask Ms. Gardiner about this, but our experience at GAO is that

this episodic telework is going to be the largest amount of telework

that you actually have, that is, that certain parts of each person’s

job over the period of a year, there are points at which it makes

more sense than less for them to be working at home. That is the

key flexibility that employees like to have. That is the advantage

to telework.

Let me, with that, conclude my statement. I would welcome any

questions that you may have.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Mihm follows:]

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Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much.

Dr. Kane, thanks for being with us.

STATEMENT OF JAMES A. KANE, PRESIDENT AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, SOFTWARE PRODUCTIVITY CONSORTIUM;

STEVE DUMONT, VICE PRESIDENT, INTERNET BUSINESS SOLUTIONS GROUP, CISCO SYSTEMS, INC.; ERIC RICHERT, VICE

PRESIDENT, IWORK SOLUTIONS GROUP, SUN MICROSYSTEMS; AND CAROL GOLDBERG, FORMER TELEWORK

PROGRAM MANAGER, FAIRFAX COUNTY, VA, GOVERNMENT

Mr. KANE. Thank you. Chairman Davis, members of the committee, guests and committee staff, I appreciate the opportunity to be

here with you this morning to share our perspectives on telework.

It is very appropriate that this committee is looking at telework,

given the history of this committee and your initiatives specifically,

Chairman Davis. How we acquire technology is dramatically different in the last 10 years because of FARA and FASA. How we

invest in technology, rather than look at it as a cost element, is totally different because of the Information Technology Management

Reform Act. And how citizens and business interact with government is very different just over the last few years because of the

Electronic Government Act. So, in fact, we have seen dramatic

changes in government over the last 8 to 10 years, and as we look

at telework, we have the option to either sort of solve the problem

or seize an opportunity.

In looking at why there has been a low rate of adoption in

telework, we have looked at three issues: cost, technology, and policy. It is not cost. The Federal IT budget this year, as you know,

Chairman Davis, is about $59.1 billion. Typically, agencies spend

about 30 to 40 percent of their IT on infrastructure. So with those

numbers, it is not a cost issue.

Technology. A lot of what we have heard this morning has an implicit comment that the technology is sort of a 1980’s, early 1990’s

vintage technology; that what telework allows is sort of the solitary

worker doing individual types of tasks. It doesn’t account for the

types of collaboration that current technology allows. Technology

are much more enabling now, and so the types of eligibility that

is associated with current technology are greatly expanded.

Third, in the area of policy, the policies that we have largely reflect that 1980’s, 1990’s vintage technology, and so, therefore, as we

start to look at policy, we have to change from sort of like a policy

that is sort of like telework is enabled if it doesn’t diminish productivity. We know that it increases. We look at it from a standpoint

of eligibility. It is not just the solitary worker, but it is also the

manager, the executive because I can see you. Session cost: the

desktops are there, the network access is there; the session costs

are minimal, and so the technology is there.

And finally in terms of an approach to telework, an awful lot of

what we see in terms of existing policy has been one of containment, as opposed to necessarily one of enablement; so that as we

develop new policies toward telework, I would strongly encourage

the policy approach that sort of seizes the opporutnity here and

really lets us move forward with it.

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In recommendations which we have put forth in our written testimony, let me highlight three. First of all, policy approach. Policies

that sort of take advantage of contemporary technology, policies

that are adaptive, and policies that are dynamic, because as I said

in my written testimony, pardoning the slang, you ain’t seen nothing yet. I mean, the technology is going to be dramatic as it

changes over the next few years.

Second, you can’t manage what you can’t measure. OMB keeps

track of expenditures for information technology. We know how

much is going on to infrastructure, we know how much in security,

and we know how much in architecture. Why don’t we know how

much is being spent by agencies to support telecommuting and distributed work?

And finally we heard this morning that this is a complex problem, there are cultural issues, there are business issues, that we

are behind the curve. Well, I would encourage the committee to

consider creation of some type of national center for telework and

distributed work so that individuals with diverse disciplines of

technology, business, human resource management can come together and, instead of being behind the curve, we can get ahead of

the curve.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Kane follows:]

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Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you.

The bell is going off. We have three votes on the floor, but I think

we have time at least for Mr. DuMont to get your statement in.

Then afterwards we will come back and pick yours up and get to

questions.

Thank you for being here.

Mr. DUMONT. Mr. Chairman, distinguished members, it is a

pleasure and a privilege to be with you here today to share both

our experience and the experience of many of our clients around

the world in facing the challenges associated with change management. Clearly, that is the issue that is on the table.

Today we still have the attitude that work is someplace you go

rather than something you do, and that obviously is not supportive

of telecommuting. My organization, my group is involved at this

point in time as a trusted advisor on a pro bono basis with about

half of the global 500 companies and over 100 major government

agencies around the world. The problem is a recurring problem,

that is, how do we effect change.

We did a study last year of 300 companies and asked the question of what challenges did they face in attempting to implement

change. The going-in assumption would be that the problems of

today are primarily associated with technology. What we discovered is that the No. 1 challenge in implementing change is indeed

cultural; No. 2 is a lack of buy-in from leadership; No. 3 is the fact

that the processes are not conducive to change; and on the fourth

position in this study was the fact that there are still some lingering challenges associated with technology, but it was by far the

least significant factor.

Let me relate a little bit of our experience, and one of the things

that we have learned about change management is it typically only

occurs when there is a crisis; otherwise, people resist change. In

1992 we faced a challenge, we faced a crisis. The problem we were

having is that our growth rate could not be sustained by available

people to hire in Silicon Valley. We needed talented engineers;

there were essentially none available. The approach that we took

was to formulate a policy, a guideline to use telecommuting in

order to expand our recruitment area well beyond Silicon Valley so

that we could go to the engineers wherever they were, and if they

weren’t willing to relocate, we would allow them to work on a telecommuting basis.

So we have over 10 years of experience deploying this kind of

technology, and today, with our global human resources distributed

over 81 countries, we are at a point where in excess of 90 percent

of all of our employees, regardless of their job function, are telecommuting. They are telecommuting with broadband access from

their residence. So we find that this indeed can be accomplished.

We measured the financial impact in terms of hard dollars for

our last fiscal year ending July of last year, and our direct benefits

associated with telecommuting were $187 million.

Today we are embarking upon a new generation of telecommuting. We have a pilot underway in our organization where 600 individuals are using a new generation of technology to telecommute.

One of the challenges we faced in the past is that our people have

said we don’t want to be deprived of any of our applications, and

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we are at the present time not able to provide full access to video,

to e-learning, and those types of applications. With the new generation technology we will be able to do that. We will start this fall

and we will convert essentially 100 percent of our people to new

generation technology at their homes.

In terms of recommendations for how the U.S. Federal Government might move forward, No. 1, we would recommend that the

focus not be on who is eligible, but that the focus be on who is ineligible, because we think that should be a far smaller number of

people, and we believe that if people focus on the question of, well,

why couldn’t an individual telecommute, you will discover that

there are very few who can’t telecommute or, in the case of the

folks out in the marshes, they should, in our opinion, be connected

so that they can commute from the marsh.

We, at the present time, have an interesting policy, and our policy today is if you don’t telecommute, we will subsidize you. So the

current program is that we pay you up to $100 a month in order

to get into a carpool or to ride the Metro to a location where, in

reality, I think we have agreed we don’t want you. We would suggest that we broaden the concept of commuting to include telecommuting, so that if you are willing to stay home, perhaps we

could reimburse you for the broadband service so that you could be

more effective at home.

We do believe that continuation of operations should have a very

significant component in the form of telecommuting. We believe

that we need to reinvent the processes in such a fashion that they

are digitized. So if you look in my office, I have one file in my office, and only one file. It contains receipts so that in the event that

the IRS should want to come visit, they could have something to

look at. Other than that, I have no paperwork in the office, so I

can commute from anywhere.

We think that metrics are important. We ought to be able to

measure the work that is accomplished rather than the time that

is put in. That will change the attitude of management. We don’t

believe in building second facilities; we believe that homes are

probably the ideal place for most people to commute from. And we

believe that it is important for the Federal Government to become

competitive in attracting new people, because over 50 percent of

the U.S. Federal Government employees will be eligible for retirement in the next 5 years and will face a challenge attracting new

people.

So we personally find that telecommuting does lead to a competitive advantage in attracting people and continue forward with the

next generation of telecommuting.

Thank you very much.

[The prepared statement of Mr. DuMont follows:]

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Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much.

And, Mr. Richert, Ms. Goldberg, we will get back to you after—

why don’t we take about a half hour recess, allow you to get something to eat, and we will come back. Thank you very much.

The hearing is in recess.

[Recess.]

Mr. SCHROCK [assuming Chair]. Thank you all for indulging us.

We are victims to these bells, and when they go off, you have to

go, because if you don’t vote, 2 years hence somebody will say he

didn’t vote. So I want to thank you all again.

Mr. DuMont, before we start, is your compound in Santa Clara

County?

Mr. DUMONT. I am sorry?

Mr. SCHROCK. Is your head office complex in Santa Clara County, CA?

Mr. DUMONT. We are in Silicon Valley in San Jose.

Mr. SCHROCK. San Jose.

Mr. DUMONT. Right next to Santa Clara.

Mr. SCHROCK. Did you take an old campus and convert it, is that

where you are?

Mr. DUMONT. Yes. We are down Tasmine Boulevard. We started

a number of years ago with a very clever scheme of building buildings and calling them A, B, C, D, not recognizing that when you

get beyond 26 buildings it becomes challenging. So we are now up

to about Z+25.

Mr. SCHROCK. I think I have been there. I think I know where

you are.

Mr. Richert, thank you for your patience, and the floor is yours.

Mr. RICHERT. Just to clarify, I think that it was Sun that developed the campus that you are talking about, the old development

mental hospital.

Mr. SCHROCK. Yes. OK. It was a mental hospital.

Mr. RICHERT. It was appropriate for our organization.

Mr. SCHROCK. Is that right? Your words, not mine. It is amazing

what you did with that campus.

Mr. RICHERT. Thank you.

Mr. SCHROCK. Just amazing. That is where my parents live, and

my dad would drag me through there for years while you were constructing it, and when it was done it was just amazing. Good use

of an old property.

Now that we are done with that, the floor is yours.

Mr. RICHERT. Thank you.

First of all, I would like to say that in all the comments that

have preceded mine, clearly the Government and various agencies

have a very good idea, a good grasp of the benefits of telework programs, as well as the challenges, so I am not going to repeat those

now. I will just say that we have a very broad implementation, so

I am going to make several comments based on that broad implementation.

To give you an idea of the breadth of the implementation so far

at Sun, we have 43 percent of our work force who are what we call

flexible or home-based workers. And when I say 43 percent, that

is the number of people who have given up an office of their own

so that they work from home or they work from multiple locations

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around the world, really, anywhere that they want to work. We

hope that will go up to 58 percent in this coming year.

So there are several comments I wanted to make just based on

what the discussions this morning were. I absolutely agree with

Steve DuMont’s recommendation that if it is as all possible to

change the policy wording from identifying eligible employees to

identifying ineligible employees, I think you will have much better

luck in gaining participation. At Sun, 100 percent of Sun’s employees are, in this terminology, eligible. But then what we have built

is a suitability assessment tool, essentially, a Web-based, portalbased assessment tool so that any employee can go in, assess his

or her ability, express their willingness and preferences, analyze

their support, whether from a technology perspective or management perspective, and basically analyze whether they are suitable

for such an arrangement and the scope of that arrangement.

I will say that the vast majority of people, much as has been

stated here earlier, choose to do this arrangement and work from

home 1 to 2 days a week. I think that is very consistent with what

has been stated here earlier, a smaller percentage working primarily from home 3 to 5 days per week. And I will also say,

though, the key to all this is it is not only a home to primary location thing, it is a Sun location to Sun location phenomenon as well.

So, in other words, if you are a flexible employee at Sun, you can

work literally from anywhere, from any Sun location, from home.

We do have drop-in locations because there are employees who simply cannot work from home because of various circumstances. Remember, we are talking about a worldwide program, so there are

some situations where that is just not practical, and yet they want

the advantages of telework.

The second point I would like to make in response to questions

about—matter of fact, I think, Mr. Schrock, you brought up the

questions of technology security. Clearly, Sun is very concerned

about that, and in response to that Sun has provided two primary

ways to connect to its network. One is a way in which I think probably many of the Federal agencies do, as a matter of fact, we use

Cisco technology to do it, it is VPN technology, virtual private network. So if you have what is called in the industry a fat client,

which is a laptop or a PC, the way you could gain access to the

network is through VPN.

But a much more secure way, and where we are headed for all

of Sun’s employees, and I know that the Department of Defense is

beginning to use it as well, and other governmental agencies, is

what we call a thin client technology, and the product line is what

we call Sunrays. But the beauty of Sunrays is that there is additional security through a smart card, in our case it is a java-based

card, which identifies its holder on the network, and then, of

course, all the applications, all the information, all the data resides

in the data center, not on the device. So if somebody steals the device, if it is lost, it is of no circumstance.

The third thing I would just like to point out or suggest is

around manager resistance. The primary thing we started with,

which was enormously useful, was collecting data on work and

work practices. Managers who believe that they need to see their

employees all the time, and there are managers who believe that,

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are surprised when they realize that in fact today they are not seeing their employees all the time, that today employees are doing

what they need to do to get their work done, and the way to demonstrate that is through a rigorous program of data collection on

work and work practices and work profiling.

And final comment is Mr. Davis mentioned the importance of

group affiliation. We absolutely agree; it simply takes some new

techniques, some new discipline, some new skills to assure that

group affiliation is maintained.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Richert follows:]

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Mr. SCHROCK. Thank you very much.

And all the way from Fairfax County, Ms. Goldberg. Thank you

for your patience, and the floor is yours.

Ms. GOLDBERG. Thank you for the opportunity to be here. I want

to mention that Chairman Davis supported telework early on when

he was chair of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, and he

continues to do so today, and we are all very, very grateful for that.

Given all the testimony, and being last, but not least, I want to

focus on three points from my written statement. Fairfax County

Government, first of all, think about the scale here. We are talking

about 11,000 permanent employees. We did exactly what has been

discussed today, and it worked for us. We determined who wouldn’t

be eligible; and it was never who, it was the kind of work, what

kind of work wouldn’t fit telework. Then we did develop an assessment tool so people could look and see whether they actually did

fit the other category. We determined that there were at least

5,000 jobs. We wanted to hit 20 percent of those 5,000.

But backing up a bit, let me tell you what I want to focus on.

We followed the Federal Government’s lead 10 years ago, and it

sounds today as though we are still very much in concert with you

and following as well.

I also want to mention a couple of our perspectives on the challenges we still face. We are like a lot of employers. We did a pilot

program, very small, 50 employees, 14 different agencies. Even

that small pilot in 1 year saved 180,000 commuting miles—remember, everyone is in this region—and 6,000 commuting hours. When

we hit our goal of 1,000 teleworkers, 20 percent of the 1,000—and

that is just an interim goal—we are going to be saving almost 1.8

million driving miles, and it factors out to something like 800,000

pounds of pollutants removed from the air. We also saw measurable productivity increases, and that managers and teleworkers

were really satisfied with the arrangement.

We did start an expansion campaign, as the Federal Government

has done, that relied on marketing and training. That was also

mentioned today. We tried everything; Web presence, face-to-face.

I mean, it truly was marketing to all employees, as well as training

for those that would be potential teleworkers and their supervisors.

It really paid off. We had less than 150 teleworkers when we started the expansion program in January 2002. By October 2003 we

had 550, and the latest report is 729. Now, it is all scale; remember

we are much smaller, but we are really getting growth in telework.

We have had over a 400 percent growth since January 2002. So

Fairfax is very close to its goal. They will reach their goal, they will

exceed their goal, and they will continue to grow telework.

Some of the challenges: support from the top of the organization

is absolutely essential. That said, just because it is there doesn’t

mean everybody really believes it. It isn’t enough to make the success happen; it just isn’t enough. So people have talked about incentives as well as maybe even penalties. We would rather stick to

the incentive side.

The devil is in the details of taking top-level pronouncements

and support and advocacy, and translating it into operations. It

really takes persistence. Sometimes we thought it was a really

hard sell when it seemed like such a logical thing to do and such

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a positive thing to do. But I can’t emphasize enough that you have

just got to stick with it; you have to stay on message. What you

are trying to do is reach critical mass so that telework can become

as ordinary as a compressed work week. I am old enough to remember 20 years ago when a compressed work week was heretical.

It was scary; people weren’t going to really work those extra hours

when the supervisor wasn’t there to watch them. We are really

having the same dialog, it is just focused in a different area.

Managers are a key constituency, and we view them as a constituency. They need support. If they haven’t managed a distributed work force, then they need support to be able to do it. Our

police officers and library people and social service people got it because they manage a distributed work force. So they were quick to

identify jobs and tasks that could be done. Even though you

wouldn’t necessarily think public safety could be included, but in

fact there are jobs in public safety that can be included. So we really do want to help them find the ways to do the measuring and reporting that is necessary. And essentially that question: ‘‘how do I

know they are working if I am the supervisor, how do I know they

are working if I can’t see them?’’ And rhetorically, but honestly, the

answer is: ‘‘how do you know they are working when you can see

them?’’ I mean, they can be totally checked out; you don’t really

know. So you have to measure the outcomes.

I would like to mention, although I will defer to others on the

panel about this, but technology is a challenge. Most of the people

that telework are not technical people; they know how to do certain

things, that it is different when they are working without tech support. The technology can be uneven. There are wonderful things

out there; they cost money. Also, management isn’t always aware

of how to use even what they have. Fairfax County uses a thin client, as you were discussing. In other words, the data for security

is residing on the computers in the county’s network, in its area.

People are—it is almost like back to the future, they are using a

dumb terminal to get into those data; and that definitely works.

We are finding—and it wasn’t mentioned much today, telecommunications is still a challenge. Everybody doesn’t have a cell

phone. We can’t afford cell phones for everybody. We need to keep

phone numbers private and we need ways to handle long-distance

calls and so forth. So we are still working on that.

And last, no matter how easy and attractive you make this arrangement, some people don’t want to do it. And they need to be

able to combine it with compressed schedules and also with options

for vanpooling and carpooling so that we can still address those

traffic issues. Fairfax is making progress, and we will continue to

do so.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Goldberg follows:]

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Mr. SCHROCK. Thank you. I can be away from the office, but I

am not away from the office when I have this. And the miles you

said they save, especially in a gridlock area like Fairfax County, it

is worth it from that standpoint alone. And any time there is

change, no matter what organization it is in, people are reluctant,

especially government. Nobody trusts government, local, State, or

Federal, and when they think they are doing something for you to

help, you are telling them you are helping them, it takes a long,

long time to get people on board; but they will. And if industry does

it and it works, I think the Government will get on board at some

point.

Thank you very much.

Ms. Gardiner, of the 92 percent of employees that telework, can

you describe the frequency to which TIGTA employees participate?

Ms. GARDINER. Yes. We have what we call the four levels, and

so people who telecommute 4 to 5 days a week, that is 112 people,

that is about 13 percent; for people who do it 2 to 3 days as week,

that is 217 people, 25 percent; limited is just the 1-day, that is 61

people; and then episodic is 397. So 1 or more days a week is 390

people; the episodic has 397.

Mr. SCHROCK. Your Atlanta office participates in this program,

but what other locations do you have that are participating? Is this

a regional issue? I would be curious to know where else they are

participating.

Ms. GARDINER. Actually, that is our total staff. We telework all

across the country. We have more than 70 offices nationwide. I

brought up the Atlanta office because that was one where they

really bought into it more than most cities. We had a large presence there because IRS had previously had a large regional office

and a service center and district offices there. We had a lot of folks

in those offices, and since they were teleworking so frequently, we

would find that the office space just was not utilized, that people

would all the time be complaining, you know, I went down to visit

and there was nobody there but two people. So that is where we

decided to experiment with the hoteling, where we share

workstations and people reserve them. So we were able to turn

back 50 percent of the space in just one of the offices and reduce

the number of workstations. That has worked very effectively.

Mr. SCHROCK. If you were trying to sell this program to other

agencies, what would be your pitch? And, by the way, your agency

should be commended for the incredible results you have in making

this thing work. But how would you pitch this?

Ms. GARDINER. That it really does work; that it does improve morale, it does improve employee productivity, it saves money. It actually creates better managers, too. The points that the other panel

members have said, and I believe are true. That just because somebody is sitting in front of you doesn’t mean anything, and that is

what we have been trying to get people away from that mentality.

Now, I will say that the occupations that the people in our office

are in, auditors, investigators, data programmers, we know what

they are doing, we know about how long it should take. We can

very easily measure productivity and whether they are doing what

they are supposed to be doing. So whether they are sitting at a

desk in front of us or they are traveling or they are in a hotel or

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they are at home or in a Starbucks, it really doesn’t matter as long

as they produce results.

Mr. SCHROCK. Scott, thank you for mentioning the Herbert Bateman Center and, I guess as a way of a plug, the Herbert Bateman

Education Center is in the Chincoteague Wildlife Reserve, and it

absolutely has to be the most incredible education center of its kind

in the world, and I think it is so stated; it is just incredible.

So if you are thinking about a vacation this summer, might I

suggest the eastern shore of Virginia and Chincoteague. The folks

in Chincoteague and the eastern shore will love that, I can assure

you.

Scott, you explained that the nature of many of the Interior positions makes telework impossible, but even the rate of those who

can participate is fairly low. So how does your department determine what employees are eligible to telework?

Mr. DUMONT. Frankly, Mr. Schrock, that has been a problem.

We have largely left it up to our bureaus, our eight bureaus, Park

Service, Fish and Wildlife, Geological Survey, and so on, to come

up with their own policy and their own criteria up until now. But

we have noticed, in looking at the results from one bureau to another, there are some really obvious anomalies. So that is one reason why we are coming up with the departmental policy and trying

to get more consistency to try to get people to apply definitions in

a common way, and we will have that in place end of September,

early October.

Mr. SCHROCK. It is clear the nature of Interior work is you are

out in the wild, which is a wonderful thing, but you still have a

big old building down here on Constitution, I think it is. I would

think some of those people would relish the thought of not coming

into this gridlock everyday.

Mr. DUMONT. You are right, Mr. Schrock. In fact, I suspect it is

Interior employees, main Interior building employees or we have

two or three other office buildings where we have space here in

downtown D.C. that are disproportionately represented among the

2,000 or so of our employees who in fact are teleworking. Just

walking down the hallways talking to people in the normal course

of my daily work experience, I hear all the time that Joe is teleworking today from home, so it seems to be, for the Washington,

DC. employees at least, not a particularly unusual situation.

Mr. SCHROCK. Mr. Mihm, what recommendations would the GAO

suggest to better encourage folks to telework?

Mr. MIHM. I think one of the things that is most important, and

Director James was pointing to this, was making sure that we have

a good understanding of exactly what the barriers are, and she said

we have that because of the surveys that she has done, as well as

kind of other work that we have all been discussing here today,

and then train exactly off of that with a real leading practice or

best practice approach. As you know, Mr. Chairman, they have the

Chief Human Capital Officers Council, which is, in our view, just

a great vehicle that she could be using with her kind of parts or

her colleagues in each of the executive branch agencies to identify

leading practice, identify very specific cases where agencies have

said we have a barrier, have been able to overcome it, have cost

savings and all the rest, and then show that to agencies. Nothing

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works better in Washington than being able to show a specific example.

Second thing that I think they ought to do, and we spent a lot

of time on the practices that are key to successful programs, and

they have already distributed those to agencies as well as GSA, is

to continue to train off of those and show that you do need to have

a good performance management system in place, you do need to

be thinking of a whole series of issues that are policy-related and

support-related and the rest.

And then third and what I think is very important, if what gets

measured gets done in most organizations, here in Washington

what gets overseen gets done. And so congressional oversight, this

hearing will send clear messages back to agencies.

Mr. SCHROCK. We hope.

Mr. MIHM. Just simple conversations in the other context of, oh,

by the way, how are we doing at telework at your agency. That is

the type of thing that goes from the secretary and filters right

down.

So I think those are really the three keys.

Mr. SCHROCK. If you had to recommend to Congress about a new

legislation or new initiatives, what would you recommend?

Mr. MIHM. At this point it is not so much that we see the need

for new legislation. I mean, there may be the need for that eventually. We think that there is so much that agencies need to do with

the current authorities that they have been given. Congress has

sent a message on what we want to have done in terms of eligibility for telework. There really needs to be the need.

Now, I know that Mr. Danny Davis is considering legislation or

dropping legislation that would be looking at considering additional

pilot programs. Something like that is certainly worthy of consideration, but in terms of broad, across-the-board additional guidance

to agencies, you have said what you need to say; it is now up to

the agencies to step up.

Mr. SCHROCK. I would certainly think the more of these hearings

you have, the more people start to get the message, hey, Congress

isn’t going to ease up on this thing, so, frankly, probably new legislation isn’t necessary.

Mr. MIHM. Absolutely. And, sir, as Carol was saying, there comes

a point of critical mass or the tipping point of where an organization gets it, where they see and managers see that it is possible

to manage, that you don’t lose control, that work gets done and

productivity increases, and then that is where you get to the

launch point. I don’t think we are there yet governmentwide. We

may be approaching it, but I think sharing some best practices and

training very specifically off of some of the weaknesses is exactly

the way to go.

Mr. SCHROCK. Ms. Gardiner’s organization is the key organization, they are the showcase, I would think.

Mr. MIHM. We enjoyed the opportunity during the break. I was

pumping her for information on episodic, because it is something

that we are just entering into at GAO.

Mr. SCHROCK. So it was good we were gone for a half hour.

Mr. MIHM. Well, I would never say that to a Member, sir.

Mr. SCHROCK. No problem.

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Dr. Kane, again, thank you for your indulgence, and thanks for

bringing my friend, Tim Hugo, with you; appreciate that. You have

discussed how the current commercial technology has changed, the

type of work that can now be done by using telework. Can you give

us some specific examples of that technology and what it makes

possible?

Mr. KANE. I think a good example was a recent clip on Channel

4 here in Washington where, instead of just sort of workers connecting simply, we had basically Leesburg, VA, connected to Stockholm, Sweden, actually out of Stockholm. It was all in realtime; we

were able to see one another, we were able to sort of share a common document. So this whole idea of sort of having face time——

Mr. SCHROCK. That is a teletechnet approach, isn’t it?

Mr. KANE. Yes. And it was all commercially available technology.

It was all over the public Internet, so there was no additional telecommunications cost, and it was really a combination of that desktop application as well as Internet access. That, to me, sir, is one

of the points that I think a lot of how we are thinking of telecommuting is sort of like, well, I can be remote and sort of maybe

do email or access a file, but what we see at the Consortium is the

technology now is so rich that the work experience is very much

as if I were sitting here looking at you directly and talking with

you directly.

Mr. SCHROCK. It is amazing. The Navy does a lot of that because

the commanders sitting in Norfolk can see their people on the ships

at sea and have meetings. It is just incredible.

Mr. KANE. Exactly.

Mr. SCHROCK. I guess we need more and more of that inside the

Beltway here.

Mr. DuMont, thanks for coming from California. Do you live in

California?

Mr. DUMONT. No, sir. I have my office in California. Depending

on the depth of the snow in northern Utah, I either telecommute

from northern Utah or from Chicago. So it is between 700 and

2,000 miles, and, once again, I have no real necessity to be in my

office in California, which is a shared conference room because it

only has one file in it.

Mr. SCHROCK. I set myself up for that, didn’t I? So you telecommute.

Mr. DUMONT. I telecommute, spending half of my time out of the

country as well.

Mr. SCHROCK. In a society that is very concerned with terrorist

attacks, as we should be, are we certain that confidential information like Social Security numbers, military secrets, etc., is not vulnerable to hacking through these telework systems?

Mr. DUMONT. We can be reasonably assured of that, although I

think it is conservative to say that there is probably no network

in the world that is totally non-vulnerable. But in reality what we

now have is technology which enables us to connect thousands of

points—i.e., home residences—through to networks with the same

degree of security that we would have if we put all of this into a

single building. So the answer is yes. We can do encryption, and

the new exciting thing that we are discovering is that we now have

the ability to put low-cost technology in these thousands of locaVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:25 Nov 01, 2004 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00134 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\96411.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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tions that enables encryption of video and data and voice traffic simultaneously with high levels of security.

Mr. SCHROCK. Just like the military, I guess. How integral is

telework to your organization’s continuity of operations plans?

Mr. DUMONT. We automatically inherit a high level of continuity

of operations. When you think about the fact that over 90 percent

of all of our employees, that is 34,000 people distributed across approximately 100 countries, that over 90 percent of those individuals

are fully equipped with broadband connectivity in their homes, if

we were suddenly of all of our office facilities, we would still find

that we have the vast overwhelming majority of people in a position where they can continue to function as if nothing had happened.

Mr. SCHROCK. I have heard stories that Osama bin Laden, although he rides horses, can communicate with one of these and a

laptop; he needs nothing more. Same kind of concept, except you

are the good guy, I want to make that real clear.

Mr. DUMONT. Absolutely. I think the same applies to good guys

and bad guys, that those that want to telecommute can. And I

think the point is with the newest technology we are in fact able

to address this socialization issue, because in our new technology

package that we will be rolling out this fall to essentially all employees worldwide, they will have, and every employee today has

a laptop, but they will have that connected with broadband

connectivity so it will respond very rapidly; they will have a color

high resolution video conferencing telephone available to them, so

when you just make a telephone call, dial someone’s number on the

assumption that they have the same equipment, you will automatically have a video conference; and all of the information with regard to data bases is instantaneously available and as manipulatable as if you were in an office location somewhere. So essentially

it becomes one and the same.

Mr. SCHROCK. It kind of follows me to the last question I was

going to ask you. What additional technology would you like to incorporate into your telework programs in the future?

Mr. DUMONT. Well, I think the big jump that we are talking

about is the whole concept of video for e-learning, for interaction,

as well as video in what we call executive communication context,

so that people can download those video modules whenever they

are available to view them.

Mr. SCHROCK. Mr. Richert, thank you for being patient, and you

really do have a magnificent campus. Why anybody would want to

telework away from there is a mystery to me, but that is what this

hearing is all about.

How do you determine the productivity of an employee who

works through the iWork program?

Mr. RICHERT. How do we determine the productivity? It is very

difficult to directly measure productivity; I think everybody would

tell you that and would say that. So we do a variety of things. First

of all, on an individual basis, the primary thing is setting goals,

setting objectives, and measuring people’s results against those objectives in the aggregate so that when we, as a program office, are

looking at the effects on productivity, we look at the aggregate of

performance reviews, we look at voluntary turnover, we look at inVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:25 Nov 01, 2004 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00135 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\96411.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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dicators of productivity or impacts on productivity. Until some genius figures out how to measure directly the productivity of knowledge workers, we look at the intermediates.

Mr. SCHROCK. Which is kind of interesting. Just because you are

in an office somewhere being watched over, sometimes can make

you less productive.

Mr. RICHERT. Right.

Mr. SCHROCK. When I was in the Navy, I was stationed in Florida one time, and there was a lieutenant colonel in the Marine

Corps who would always tell the boss I am leaving. He would say,

where are you going? He would say I am going to coordinate. And

he got by with it. And he got more done, whatever he did, out there

somewhere than if he was sitting in the office twiddling his

thumbs, waiting for 5 to come. So being out there sometimes makes

you more aware of what is going on in the real world than if you

sit in a cloistered office somewhere. So it makes a lot of sense.

Mr. RICHERT. Absolutely. The point is, and all of our data shows

it, is that a very large percentage of our work force is on the move

in one way or another, working in multiple venues in one way or

another. It is simply better if we support them in doing that, which

is what the iWork program is about.

Mr. SCHROCK. I agree.

Ms. Goldberg, I have one final question. It sounds like you are

excited about what Fairfax is doing, and obviously it is working.

And if it works for Fairfax, that should be an example for everybody. How would you recommend Congress motivate agencies to

telework? The big stick, huh?

Ms. GOLDBERG. Well, remember I said that top level support is

essential, but it is not enough. And I think what Chris was saying

is so true: the information is out there, but departments, agencies,

and individual managers and employees who are potential teleworkers really do need that hand-holding, whether it is on the

technology piece, or how they are going to record their productivity;

and we have done it in very, very simple ways. I think the focus

needs to be on the translation piece, from the policy, to the actual

implementation, to operations. So it has to be somebody’s job and

somebody needs to be accountable for it.

Mr. SCHROCK. If every Federal agency would let most of their

employees telework on Fridays, it would sure help me get home a

lot quicker to Virginia Beach, I can assure you. Fridays are a

nightmare.

I appreciate your being here, all of you. It is very important to

hear what you all have to say. This is a very important topic that

is going to continually be revisited, because it is clearly the wave

of the future, and when you have something that is so far-reaching,

sometimes people can’t comprehend and don’t want to participate.

But the testimony you have given us here and the dialog we have

had back and forth has been very important. I appreciate your all

coming, and we may see you here again. Thank you very much.

This hearing is adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 12:05 p.m., the committee was adjourned, to reconvene at the call of the Chair.]

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[The prepared statements of Hon. Elijah E. Cummings, Hon.

Dennis J. Kucinich, and additional information submitted for the

hearing record follow:]

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