Recently, OPM published its Annual Report to Congress on the Status of Telework in the Federal Government for fiscal year 2022. The timeframe for the report coincides with the beginning and implementation of re-entry plan after the end of the Pandemic but precedes the OMB Memo M-23-15, that called to increase “meaningful in-person work” at EPA and other agencies. The report found that telework continues to provide flexibilities for better employee engagement and retention in addition to saving federal agencies on costs, including real estate and energy. OPM Director Kiran Ahuja acknowledged that the snapshot of telework as represented by the data in the report may not be current, given that COVID-19 is no longer is the driver for telework as well as the shift in the last year toward more in-person work. Director Ahuja said, “To support this work, OPM has been engaging with agencies to improve the quality of government-wide and agency-specific telework data. OPM anticipates that future reports will reflect these improvements.”
During fiscal year 2022, Federal agencies reported that 46% of all federal workers participated in some form of telework. The report noted that the number of employees eligible to telework in fiscal year 2022 rose to 52%, up from 50% last year. However, the report also found that 87% of telework-eligible employees did telework in fiscal year 2022, which was down from 94% last year. Based on data from OPM’s 2022 Federal Employee Viewpoints Survey, it was determined that telework enhanced an employees’ engagement and was positively correlated with an increased desire to remain at the agency, instead of seeking outside employment or retirement. In the report, employees teleworking at least three days per pay period scored a 77.1 out of 100 on the survey’s Employee Engagement Index. Employees who did not telework that frequently scored only a 58.5 (with the exception of those who reported to prefer in-person work and choose not to telework [73.2]).