Over the last decade, telework has emerged as a management tool in the federal government. Congress and the executive branch have shown interest in telework, primarily based upon the belief that its use will benefit the federal government. Benefits of telework include reducing traffic congestion and pollution, improving recruitment and retention of employees, increasing productivity, and reducing the need for office space. Employees also can realize benefits from teleworking, including reduced commuting time; lowered costs in areas such as transportation, parking, food, and wardrobe; removal of barriers for those with disabilities who want to be part of the workforce; and improvement in the quality of worklife and morale accruing from the opportunity to better balance work and family demands. Guidance issued by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, along with telework-related literature, also suggests that telework programs can facilitate emergency preparedness by helping agencies to maintain continuity of operations in emergency situations, thereby increasing agencies’ effectiveness. In light of the uncertainties facing the United States today, telework can be a particularly relevant and useful tool. The importance of telework to federal employees has been highlighted in recent studies. Based on its 2000 Merit Principles Survey, the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) reported that, of all the family-friendly programs studied, telework showed the greatest disparity between importance and availability, potentially making it the most desired but least available family-friendly program. In addition, the MSPB said that, of all the work-life programs it asked about in the survey, only telework appeared to have a relationship to employees’ intentions regarding leaving their employment in the coming year, with those who considered telework important being more likely to plan to leave when it is not available (55 percent) than when it is available (44 percent). According to OPM’s 2002 Federal Human Capital Survey, almost 74 percent of federal employee respondents said that telework was at least somewhat important to them. Despite this level of importance, more than 59 percent of the respondents reported that this flexibility was not available to them. Since 1990, Congress has supported the telework initiative by holding hearings and passing a number of laws related to telework, including laws that provided for the establishment and funding of the GSA telework centers. Most significant was the Department of Transportation and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2001, Pub. L. No. 106-346, October 23, 2000. Section 359 of this law provides the current mandate for telework in the executive branch of the federal government. This law, which was to be implemented in 25 percent increments over 4 years, required each federal agency to “establish a policy under which eligible employees of the agency may participate in telecommuting to the maximum extent possible without diminished employee performance” and instructed OPM to provide for the law’s requirements to be met. Telework has also received significant attention in the executive branch since 1990, when the President’s Council on Management Improvement approved plans for the implementation of a governmentwide pilot flexiplace program. In the executive branch, telework has been proposed as a tool to address a number of issues, including establishing a family- friendly workplace, reducing traffic congestion and pollution, and enabling people with disabilities to join the federal workforce. Currently, GSA and OPM share responsibilities for the federal government’s telework initiative, providing federal agencies with services and resources related to this initiative. To this end, both GSA and OPM have included strategies, goals, and measures directly related to their efforts to support the governmentwide telework initiative in their fiscal year 2003 annual performance plans and their related strategic plans. For example, GSA’s fiscal year 2003 performance plan includes a goal to increase the percentage of federal employees that telework to 5 percent by the end of fiscal year 2003 under its performance goal to increase the number of agency programs meeting their social and environmental responsibilities in areas of GSA’s Office of Governmentwide Policy responsibility. Also among efforts in the executive branch was the formation of an Interagency Telework Issues Working Group, with participants from 15 federal agencies. GSA and OPM jointly established and led this group, which canvassed agencies to identify policy actions needed to facilitate agency use and expansion of telework. A final report, issued in August 2002, contained a series of recommendations related to such policy actions. Interest in and implementation of telework programs has also occurred in states and foreign countries. Several states piloted telework programs in state government agencies in the mid- to late 1990s and have since implemented telework in individual agencies or on a statewide basis. For example, in Florida, telework became a permanent option for state employees in October 1998 after two 3-year pilot studies. In Europe, about 6 percent of the workforce was teleworking as of 1999 and, in some countries, the participation rate for telework was higher. Finland, for example, had a telework participation rate of about 17 percent of the workforce in 1999. However, only 4 percent of all teleworkers in European countries worked for government entities. According to OPM’s January 2003 report to Congress on the status of telework in the federal government, 77 executive agencies reported that, as of November 2002, 90,010 of their employees teleworked on either a regular or episodic basis, which is 5 percent of those agencies’ 1,806,192 employees. The U.S. Department of Labor reported that, in May 2001, 19.8 million persons, accounting for 15 percent of total employment, usually did some work at home as part of their job. However, only 17 percent of these workers had a formal arrangement with their employer to be paid for the work they did at home. Legislation related to telework began to emerge from Congress in 1990. Since then, these provisions have typically, but not always, been included in a variety of appropriations acts and have covered a wide range of issues related to telework. The statutory framework for telework includes provisions that require agencies to take certain actions related to telework, provide agencies with tools for supporting telework, and provide both GSA and OPM with lead roles in the implementation of telework in the federal government. Within this framework, the most significant congressional action was the enactment of Section 359 of Pub. L. No. 106-346 in October 2000, which provides the current mandate for telecommuting in the executive branch of the federal government. This law, for the first time, required each executive branch agency to establish a telework policy “under which eligible employees of the agency may participate in telecommuting to the maximum extent possible without diminished employee performance.” It also directed OPM to provide that the law’s requirements were applied to 25 percent of the federal workforce by April 2001 and to an additional 25 percent of the federal workforce in each subsequent year, until 2004 when the law is to be applied to 100 percent of the federal workforce. The requirements of this law should also be considered in combination with its conference report and guidance that has been issued by OPM. The conference report accompanying Pub. L. No. 106-346 stated that agencies shall “develop criteria to be used in implementing [a telecommuting] policy” and “ensure that managerial, logistical, organizational, or other barriers to full implementation and successful functioning of the policy are removed.” Furthermore, it stated that agencies “should also provide for adequate administrative, human resources, technical, and logistical support for carrying out the policy.” It also clarified what constitutes eligibility for telework by defining an eligible employee as “any satisfactorily performing employee of the agency whose job may typically be performed at least one day per week [by telecommuting].” On February 9, 2001, OPM sent a memorandum to department and agency heads containing guidance on the requirements of Pub. L. No. 106-346 that directed agencies to examine the barriers that inhibit the use of telecommuting, act to remove them, and increase participation. This memorandum went on to say, “The law recognizes that not all positions are appropriate for telecommuting; therefore, each agency must identify positions that are appropriate in a manner that focuses on broad objective criteria. Once an agency has established eligibility criteria, subject to any applicable agency policies or bargaining obligations, employees who meet them and want to participate must be allowed that opportunity if they are satisfactory performers.” OPM recently clarified this statement in a publication entitled, Telework: A Management Priority—A Guide for Managers, Supervisors, and Telework Coordinators. This guide, which was released on May 8, 2003, indicates that agencies should offer eligible employees the opportunity to telework by having supervisors extend the option of teleworking to all employees they determine are eligible, using established criteria. Congress also passed other laws that require agencies to take certain actions related to telework. One such provision requires executive agencies to consider whether needs for additional space can be met using alternative workplace arrangements, such as telework. Another recent provision, contained in the fiscal year 2003 appropriations for the Departments of Commerce, Justice, and State, the Judiciary, and the Small Business Administration, makes $100,000 available to each of the departments and agencies covered by this provision only for the implementation of telecommuting programs. These departments and agencies are required to provide the committees on appropriations with a report on the status of their telecommuting programs every 6 months and to designate a “Telework Coordinator” to oversee the implementation of telecommuting programs. In addition to these provisions, another provision directs executive agencies to make a minimum of $50,000 available annually for the necessary expenses to carry out telecommuting programs, which would permit employees of 20 specified federal departments and agencies, including Education, GSA, OPM, VA, the Department of the Interior (DOI), and the Department of Energy (DOE), to perform all or a portion of their duties at GSA telework centers.