Federal Govt Telework

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have one day per week, but I work at a small independent agency. Not going to name which.

That makes me hopeful for my agency. Morale is down and stress is high and workload is astronomical. One day a week of telework would make a huge difference, as would a rational policy allowing for ad hoc telework for normal things (like being a little sick but not too sick to work, or a kid dr appointment or a sick kid).

Here's the problem with this, IMO.

All Feds get the same amount of sick leave. The policy is to use it if you (or your dependents) are sick or have medical appointments.

At my agency TW was thoroughly abused. One employee claimed she needed full time telework to "care" for her adult son (a veteran) due to PTSD and his myriad medical appointments. Of course it was granted because NO ONE wants to question any kind of support for a veteran.

Then we looked on-line and discovered her son was working full time, lived in his own home with a girlfriend, and did lots of traveling and socializing with friends. This didn't exactly go over well with the other vets in the office, including one with a prosthetic leg who showed up every day. The TW person kept this going for more than a year and shirked a LOT of their duties due to it.

Same for people with kids and every time one of them was ill or needed medical attention. TW wound up being approved for several days-long episodes every month. Others had to pick up in-person tasks because the TW person couldn't do those duties from home.

But if those same people who were picking up the slack were sick, had medical appointments, or needed to take an elderly parent to an appointment they had to take sick leave.

You shouldn't have one policy for those with kids and those who don't.

This isn't the reason there is no federal government telework. The reason is because the administration wants people to quit working for the government. The easiest solution would be to offer VERA to all employees and see how many take it. I bet the government would shrink way beyond Vought's dreams immediately.

I quit, in part, because of telework, so I guess it's working. And it's been so great for me. I tripled my salary, I can trade any stock I want, I don't have to ask permission to leave the country or report any time I spend more than 10k (clearance requirements), I don't have to publicly report my husband's stock compensation, and if I feel really wild I can try CBD oil on sore muscles. My agency is hemorrhaging people and the industry and administration are starting to worry, so I know things would have gotten better on the telegram front eventually. But being a high level, highly cleared employee is basically like having a full cavity search every day just to work an underpaid job.

[Anonymous]

The push for RTO and the push to downsize office space isn't necessarily vibing...go figure, right? When we move to our new smaller space, we'll be forced to have some sort of telework in place with hoteling.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have one day per week, but I work at a small independent agency. Not going to name which.

That makes me hopeful for my agency. Morale is down and stress is high and workload is astronomical. One day a week of telework would make a huge difference, as would a rational policy allowing for ad hoc telework for normal things (like being a little sick but not too sick to work, or a kid dr appointment or a sick kid).

Here's the problem with this, IMO.

All Feds get the same amount of sick leave. The policy is to use it if you (or your dependents) are sick or have medical appointments.

At my agency TW was thoroughly abused. One employee claimed she needed full time telework to "care" for her adult son (a veteran) due to PTSD and his myriad medical appointments. Of course it was granted because NO ONE wants to question any kind of support for a veteran.

Then we looked on-line and discovered her son was working full time, lived in his own home with a girlfriend, and did lots of traveling and socializing with friends. This didn't exactly go over well with the other vets in the office, including one with a prosthetic leg who showed up every day. The TW person kept this going for more than a year and shirked a LOT of their duties due to it.

Same for people with kids and every time one of them was ill or needed medical attention. TW wound up being approved for several days-long episodes every month. Others had to pick up in-person tasks because the TW person couldn't do those duties from home.

But if those same people who were picking up the slack were sick, had medical appointments, or needed to take an elderly parent to an appointment they had to take sick leave.

You shouldn't have one policy for those with kids and those who don't.

This isn't the reason there is no federal government telework. The reason is because the administration wants people to quit working for the government. The easiest solution would be to offer VERA to all employees and see how many take it. I bet the government would shrink way beyond Vought's dreams immediately.

I quit, in part, because of telework, so I guess it's working. And it's been so great for me. I tripled my salary, I can trade any stock I want, I don't have to ask permission to leave the country or report any time I spend more than 10k (clearance requirements), I don't have to publicly report my husband's stock compensation, and if I feel really wild I can try CBD oil on sore muscles. My agency is hemorrhaging people and the industry and administration are starting to worry, so I know things would have gotten better on the telegram front eventually. But being a high level, highly cleared employee is basically like having a full cavity search every day just to work an underpaid job.

My first weekend out I tried CBD. It's the federally legal, hemp-derived kind, it's not even remotely illegal, but I never would have done it before because you still pop and then have to explain it. I also had to do financial disclosures and reporting foreign contacts and travel. I'm sad about how it ended, but not sad to be gone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The push for RTO and the push to downsize office space isn't necessarily vibing...go figure, right? When we move to our new smaller space, we'll be forced to have some sort of telework in place with hoteling.

That’s what you think. We had people sitting on the floor in hallways until enough people quit to put them in offices. People tripled up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We have Reasonable Accommodation telework

We allow employees to do ad-hoc TW adjacent to doctors appts, taking care of sick kids, and other emergencies. The unspoken rule is that you should do less than 10% of pay period as ad-hoc TW.

As a member of senior management, I can grant up to 90 days of medical TW without having to get it approved by HR.

Finally, my agency is allowing us to do full TW for the weeks of Thanksgiving, Xmas, and New Year’s.

Very generous.
They just announced new TW rules for us and it is 80 hrs of ad hoc TW a year, if you take partial TW and partial AL/SL it will count a full day of TW against the balance. Which is basically 10 days a year of ad-hoc TW. Also, we work a whole week of TW during Thanksgiving and Xmas, but not NY.
Anything over that will go to HR, administrator, something- something for approvals and justifications. Basically no.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No telework here - not even situational to accommodate a doctor's appointment.

Same. It's awful. A lot of people in my office have burned through their leave. Everyone is really sick.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The push for RTO and the push to downsize office space isn't necessarily vibing...go figure, right? When we move to our new smaller space, we'll be forced to have some sort of telework in place with hoteling.

That’s what you think. We had people sitting on the floor in hallways until enough people quit to put them in offices. People tripled up.

My agency isn't forcing people to sit in hallways.

[Anonymous]

We had people sharing cubicles. Enough have left now to fix this, I would guess. But the political appointee has priorities that are not happening because he lost too many people, so that's not going great.