DOGE Leaders Demand Office Return as GAO Finds Telework Effective at Recruitment, Retention
Telework is helping federal agencies recruit and retain talent according to a new watchdog report. This as advisors in the upcoming Trump Administration signify they want federal employees to return to the office.
The report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) examined the telework policies and use at four agencies deemed High Impact Service Providers: the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), USDA’s Farm Service Agency, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), and the Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA). The time studied, from July 2019 through December 2023, covered pre-pandemic, during the pandemic, and post-pandemic policies.
The report breaks down numbers on how many employees are teleworking. And it found that numbers varied widely. The VBA had 66 percent telework use during one February period, while FSA was just 11 percent of total hours worked. USCIS was about 53 percent telework or fully remote. The IRS was about 51 to 58 percent of total hours teleworked during a one-year period.
The report also found that customer service metrics generally rose during the time of increased telework.
VBA, however, was the only agency among the group that formally evaluated telework’s role in employee performance, and determined it had a positive impact.
Recruitment and Retention Improvements
A common thread is that telework is improving workforce recruitment and retention. The report notes that the IRS said telework helped the agency recruit customer service representatives (CSR) by expanding the potential talent pool to people who lived further away from agency locations. USCIS's analysis of its hiring data found telework availability significantly increased applicant interest in positions.
And FSA mentioned that the lack of telework (many employees are required onsite for farm inspections, etc.) is hindering recruitment.
“FSA officials at one county office said that they have had applicants take themselves out of consideration after learning that the position required them to be in the office most of the time,” noted the GAO report.
The GAO report also noted that the IRS, FSA and USCIS must do more to fully evaluate the impact of telework, while the VBA has only partially completed efforts to collect telework data.
DOGE Leaders Push Return to Office
Regardless, Billionaire Elon Musk and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, the two leaders of the upcoming so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which will serve as an entity outside the federal government to advise the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), are pushing a five-day return to the office.
“Requiring federal employees to come to the office five days a week would result in a wave of voluntary terminations that we welcome: If federal employees don’t want to show up, American taxpayers shouldn’t pay them for the Covid-era privilege of staying home,” the pair wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed.
The telework report was the first in a series from GAO. Up next, the agency plans to study how telework is impacting the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Social Security Administration, and the Department of State.