Democrats and Republicans on the House Oversight and Reform Committee showed deep divisions of opinion on the value of telework for Federal government agencies, and whether increased telework since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic has helped or harmed the ability of agencies to deliver services to citizens.
The committee hearing came just days before President-elect Donald Trump – who has warned that Federal workers who don’t return to in-office work will be fired – is set to take office.
“We understand that there are always going to be certain employees who telework,” said committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky. “But the majority of workers, the overwhelming majority of workers, have to work from the office. There’s no reason why we can’t go back to pre-pandemic levels.”
Rep. Comer announced during the hearing that he is reintroducing the Stopping Home Office Work’s Unproductive Problems (SHOW UP) Act in the 119th Congress. The congressman first introduced the legislation in January 2023, and it passed the House in February 2023.
The SHOW UP Act would roll back Federal agency telework policies to their year-end 2019 levels, and require agencies to justify any future changes in telework policies through reporting to Congress.
However, Ranking Member Gerry Connolly, D-Va., argued that telework is a tool that should be leveraged in the Federal government to retain the workforce of the future.
“Telework has long been a powerful tool for the Federal government to hire, recruit, and retain the best employees, and that’s going to be increasingly true with the younger generation of workers,” Rep. Connolly said.
“We know that one-size-fits-all approaches to telework, like the other ones that have advanced, simply aren’t sustainable. If we want a Federal workforce operating at its best, we’ve got to be flexible,” he added.
Rep. Connolly also pointed to findings from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) showing that telework is a vital tool for agencies to fill high-need positions. Notably, the GAO report found that telework availability “significantly increased applicant interest in positions,” while limited telework availability contributed to recruitment and retention challenges.
Martin O’Malley, former commissioner of the Social Security Administration, told the committee that productivity at SSA increased while the agency was in a telework posture.
“Last year, we drove up productivity by 6.2 percent – the largest single-year increase since 2012. The dramatic turnaround achieved last year is important. People’s lives depend on this agency,” O’Malley said.
O’Malley’s comments also come at a crucial time, as President-elect Trump has pledged to challenge a deal reached between SSA and its union that would allow employees to continue teleworking into 2029.
“I am deeply concerned that some would like to break this fragile agency,” O’Malley stressed. “And that would be really, really bad for the 72 million Americans – seniors, people with disabilities, people with [Supplemental Security Income].”
Finally, Rep. Melanie Stansbury, D-N.M., called out committee Republicans for attacking telework policies as a way to help President-elect Trump and his proposed Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) advisory group gut the Federal workforce.
“The co-chairs of the DOGE task force, Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, have been very open about telework ending as a way to get thousands of Federal employees to leave,” Rep. Stansbury said.
“We are going to fight to protect our Federal workforce every step of the way to reveal the nefarious plans that our friends across the aisle have in dismantling the Federal workforce and to protect Social Security,” she said.
