TRANSCRIPT OF DCO [Deputy Commissioner Operations] CALL 2-7-22
Grace Kim [Deputy Commissioner Operations]
Good morning and good afternoon everyone. Today’s all
manager call is going to be focused on the operations telework program and some
of the Article 41 changes based on the reentry MOU with AFGE.
As I mentioned during last week’s call we will be
conducting a series of calls and other training activities to prepare for
reentry including reopening our FOs to walk in customers which will not occur until
early April in order to give you and our employees a little extra time to
prepare.
Recognizing there is a great deal of info we need to
share in order to assist you as you go through the steps necessary between now
and reentry we plan to spread out the training over the next month or so so
that we can give you what you need as you need it. Last week’s DCO all manager call was the
first step. Going forward, each call or
training activity will build on the prior calls and activities. Like last Tuesday’s call when we talked about
the mgr FAQs, reentry MOU [Memorandum Of Understanding, with employee unions] and telework at a very high level, today’s call will
be another of what I consider foundational calls where we will share background
and info to help you understand key aspects of the reentry plan.
I know you have many questions about the more technical
aspects of how we will implement telework and reopening, some of which you have
already posted on the discussion board last week. We will answer some of those questions today
but others will be covered in future training activities and discussions. So I ask that you be patient and have
confidence that we will provide you with the info you need. Nevertheless, having said that, do not be shy
about asking questions along the way and we will answer them if we are able.
So for today’s call, we will open up the line for
questions a couple times during the call, but we will not open the discussion
board today. So I want to begin by
saying I believe offering telework to you and our employees adds value and I
fully support it, but what I want to make clear is that our current remote
posture tho it bears some similarities to telework, it is not what I consider
to be true telework.
Throughout this pandemic, we took extraordinary measures
to enable our ee’s to work from home. While some procedures and processes we
developed, have been seamless, others have been painful workarounds which
created extra handoffs and ultimately reduced our productivity.
As we move forward with reentry and the implementation of
what I call true telework, it is critical to understand that what we will be
doing upon reentry will be a complete reset of telework. For those of you who
previously managed in a telework environment under the 2012 telework pilot, I
cannot emphasize enough this is not a return to how we operated under that
pilot. I want our telework program to be
seamless and transparent so service and efficiency are the same whether the
employee is working onsite or at their ADS.
I also want something that will grow with us as
technology and enhancements are implemented that change our business processes
to address inefficiencies caused by telework.
After reentry there will be a telework evaluation period from March 30
thru Sept 30. During this 6 mo eval period, we will measure and monitor several
areas, including customer satisfaction, service availability, workloads
management, employee experience, stewardship and environmental
considerations. So based on the results
of this evaluation, we intend to finalize a longer term telework plan to
implement in fy 2023. Again, I want to
stress the importance of us using this eval period as a true test to determine
what works and what doesn’t work.
On today’s call, I want to share some history and context
about how we got here. In Jan 2021, I
chartered a workgroup of executives and senior leaders to outline a plan to
effectively implement telework in operations following the pandemic. Specifically I asked this group to make a
business case for telework, taking into account among other considerations,
what workloads existed in sufficient volumes that an ee could perform
independently with little or no assistance from home as easily as they could from
the office. What workloads could not be
performed from home without significant
handoffs and productivity loss? What
systems did we have in place to monitor these workloads and what kind of
analysis would we need to do across components to figure out what telework
posture was right for each operations component.
I asked Leann Stuever, deputy RC [Regional Commissioner] for Philadelphia to lead
this workgroup and complete a comprehensive review of our telework experiences,
to analyze pandemic productivity data and to reach out to additional front line
managers for input. And based on this
analysis, they created overarching operations telework principles. We took… These guiding principles are
intended to keep us focused on our mission, customer service, and will ensure
uniformity in determining each operations component’s ability to telework. We took this approach to account for the
broad spectrum of work assigned to operations components. We did that consciously, knowing the result
would be--telework would look different in the field, processing centers,
teleservice centers and staff components.
We developed the principles prior to the reentry MOU being signed and while there are some provisions in the MOU that don’t fully
align with the principles, I want to share those principles with you so you
understand what we believe we ultimately need in a telework program
for operations.
With that background, let me outline our operations
telework principles which we will share in writing with you in the coming
weeks.
First, telework will not delay or disrupt the ability of
a component to meet customer needs and demands.
That means we will not… We will need to have sufficient personnel onsite
to address non portable workloads such as mail and in office visitors. We will also need to have sufficient
personnel available during core business hours to provide appropriate
operational staff support.
The workloads suitable for telework will utilize existing
technology including hardware and software.
Management’s oversight while employees telework will not
require special activity or preparations beyond those normally used on site.
We will assess employee’s performance while teleworking
based on component expectations of what would be expected to be accomplished in
the course of the span of time and not only measured on telework days.
Telework testing will be used to balance customer service
across geographic areas and components.
There are a few things to consider related to workload
completed when teleworking:
- We will not require advance preparation to be able to
process the work remotely.
- Work will be available in sufficient quantities to
maintain productivity while offsite.
- The workload can be assigned with no change to onsite
processes.
- It can be done independently with no more assistance than
would routinely be needed when working onsite.
- Work can be measured using existing technology or MI
systems. For example we would not build new systems to monitor work done while
teleworking.
- And productivity will be consistent whether teleworking
or in the office.
In summary, these principles are meant to make telework
seamless. During the last couple of
years, we learned there is plenty of work on management teams that employees
can do from home including work that does not require inefficient workarounds
to make it portable and work that does not require someone to be onsite to
support the teleworker and that really is the key.
For telework to be successful, we must be able to
maintain quality customer service and productivity at home just as we would
working in the office. I want to thank
you then, and you know this is going to be a theme for your calm and steady
leadership throughout this process.
You’ve demonstrated a can do attitude and flexibility throughout this
pandemic and I have no doubt that will continue as we begin the process of
planning for and going through reentry. So now I’m going to turn it over to
Leann Stuever, the deputy regional commissioner in Philadelphia to discuss
eligibility and frequency of telework.
Leann?
[Leann Stuever, Deputy Regional Commissioner, Philadelphia Region]
Thanks, Grace.
Good morning and afternoon everyone.
I am sure so many of you, your heads have been spinning on where to
begin with all this information. We
recognize there’s a lot coming at you and a tremendous amount for you to
work. As Grace said, what we are trying
to do is choke out the info and share it with you as we can. While that may not be a strategy that works
for everyone, part of the reason we have to use this approach because there are many areas where the guidance
is not final yet.
So one of the things we all need to get comfortable with
saying is I don’t know. I think I will
model that for you today because there are many things we don’t yet know. However I can assure you as decisions are
made and our approach is solidified, we will get that info to you. But for my discussion today, I’m going to
follow the manager talking points for reentry found on page 50 in question #130
of the updated manager FAQs that you received last week.
Give you a few minutes to pull that up, I want to expand
on what Grace shared, talk a little bit about how we used our telework
principles to build our operations telework program.
This info is foundational for your background and context
and not information you would normally share during your meetings. Using the telework principles as our
guidepost, we assessed all the workloads to determine if the work could be done
at an ADS without introducing inefficiencies to our business processes. This approach allowed us to keep our mission
and customer focus at the forefront.
Based on that assessment we determined that each component has a
substantial number and amount of work that is portable and telework ready. However, there’s also a fair amount of non-portable
work which can be broken down into three primary categories.
- Visitors.
Obviously customers who visit a field office for service cannot yet be
served in a portable manner and therefore sufficient staff are required to be
onsite to serve FO [Field Office] visitors.
- Paper based workloads.
These are not portable and often be processed more quickly when handled
directly rather than being delayed thru our scanning operations and therefore will generally no be suitable
for telework. Examples of paper workloads include mail that would not
normally be scanned into a processing system, as well as print traffic
generated by employees when serving customers.
Each component has varying degrees and volume of paper based workloads
that must be processed in the office and as we revert to post pandemic normal
processes, technicians will begin handling much of this on their own.
- And, third, facility support functions. This is the work to maintain building
operations that is not portable and therefore not eligible for telework.
The positions with functions solely comprised of paper
based workloads or facility support functions will not be eligible to
telework. Across all of operations,
hundreds of positions in our more than 43K employees, we have identified 60
positions with approximately 125 employees that are not eligible for telework
as those positions have no or very minimal portable work. All other operations positions are eligible
for telework so long as an employee is not ineligible as outlined in article
41, the AFGE [American Federation of Government Employees] reentry MOU, or by law, which we will discuss in more detail
shortly.
Within those positions eligible for telework, there are
some with a wide range of duties and workload assignments that may not have
sufficient portable work to be able to telework at the frequency prescribed for
their components. Examples of positions in this category include claims
assistants, claims clerks, remittance clerks, central intake clerks, disability
assistants and admin assistants.
For the most part, throughout the pandemic, employees in
these positions that I’m referencing have been either coming on site or been on
WSL. In some instances, management has
been creating portable work for these employees. But for these “in between” positions,
operations has determined that all will be telework eligible and local
management will determine telework frequency based upon the individual employee’s
assigned duties.
Those local determinations will be based on the
operations telework principles and utilize the provisions of article 41 to
limit telework when non-portable work is not available.
While there will be local flexibility, we should be
looking to maximize the telework frequency for employees in these positions if
their workload assignments support it.
The list of positions that are both not eligible for telework and those
that may have insufficient portable work to telework at the component frequency
will be shared with you thru your management line. I want to note that in the Agency reentry
plan shared with you earlier today, there is a list of operations positions not
eligible for telework. We have recently
done a review and that list has changed so you need to use the one you get from
your management line.
Now, let's begin moving thru the manager talking points
for reentry and I will share the information that you need to hold your staff
meetings.
So page 1 is introductory information and outlines that
we will have another meeting before
March 30 to review our safety protocols as well as that we will continue to
engage with our labor partners about component specific issues including
business processes, that we will share more about those topics prior to March
30.
Page 2 discusses that upon reentry, the evacuation order
requiring employees to work from home will end and we will reenter on March 30.
The second bullet references potential delays in
employees getting around the building to start their day or returning from
breaks and lunch and allowing a grace period if that occurs. This is mainly for
our large facilities and FO’s [Field Offices] in multi-tenant space that may have limited
elevator capacity.
The next bullet begins to outline specifics about
telework. While I have already outlined
is a high level positions that will be eligible, let’s move a little further
down page 2 and talk thru employee eligibility.
So article 41 section 3 outlines ee eligibility for
telework. In addition to completing
agency telework training, agreeing to sign and abide by conditions in the
telework agreement, and having sufficient portable work, employees must also
meet the following conditions:
- Not currently be on an OPS
- Not be excluded from participation by law or by
government rule or regulation. Two
situations that apply here are employee who were disciplined for AWOL of more
than 5 days in any calendar year, or were disciplined for viewing or
downloading pornography on government computers while on duty time. These two situations are permanent bars from
telework. We are gathering the list of
ee’s that are barred from telework and it will be shared thru your component
line.
Bullet 6 on page 2 outlines the exceptions to article 41
during the 6 mo evaluation period where we have expanded telework
eligibility. The first is that if
training can be successfully completed remotely, probationary employees or
those in a formal training period can telework.
We are working on a framework to address formal training and we will
have more to share in the coming weeks.
The second bullet is for employees that have been
disciplined. Art 41 of the contract
indicates that employees cannot have
been disciplined under art 23 in the 12 months preceding the date of the
request to telework or while on an approved telework agreement. However, during the 6 mo evaluation period,
which is the life of the MOU, only an adverse action, such as a demotion or a
suspension of 15 days or greater, taken within the last 12 months for
discipline under section 7 or article 23 will render an employee ineligible for
telework. Employees that have been
reprimanded or received short term suspensions are eligible to telework.
And finally the fourth bullet explains that employees
with a sick leave restriction or sick leave counselling memo may
participate. Please note that art 41
also outlines that if an employee has been on an OPS in the 12 mo preceding the
date of the request to telework that they would be ineligible. And also that employees need to maintain at
least an acceptable level of performance or not be under review. Based upon the MOU with AFGE, during the
reentry and evaluation period, those situations will not preclude telework.
The last bullet on the page, based on portable work,
customer service needs, and available technology, during the reentry and
evaluation period, operations employees and managers can telework at the
following frequency:
- Up to 2 days a week: field offices
- Up to 4 days per week: PCs, TSC, WSU, DPB, and DPU
employees Up to 5 days a week: DCO HQ components, Regional offices and ADO
employees
I use the term “up to” to take into account those
positions that may not have sufficient portable work to telework at the
frequency outlined and additional employees may not want to telework 2, 4, or 5
days a week. As a reminder, employee
participation in telework is their choice.
Employees are not required to telework and may work fewer days than
outlined for your component.
A few items that may come up in your staff meeting that
you may want to have a back pocket information is related to the ability to
have a replacement or in lieu of telework day.
Employees will not receive a replacement or in lieu of telework days for
holidays, leave, or being recalled due to operational needs in the office.
Conversely, management’s job duties often require them to
be onsite varying days to ensure management coverage and/or to address facility
matters so managers will have the flexibility to adjust their telework
day. We expect managers will be
transparent and communicate effectively so staff will know when management will
be onsite, teleworking, or on leave.
We’re through the first 2 pages and I’ve shared a lot of
information with you. Why don’t we pause and open up the lines for some
questions on what we’ve covered so far?
(23:00--Questions—these are summarized and not
transcribed exactly)
Clarification of remittance clerks not getting 2 days/wk
telework.
- It’s not the FO remittance clerks
Locality pay clarification
Clarification of no in lieu of telework day (gave an
example) Nexus between frequency of telework and shift closing at 3:30. Are we thinking about offices closing at
3:30?
- In another session, we’ll get into the mechanics of
scheduling telework for your office.
Grace jumps in to say it is something they can look at but haven’t been
talking about it. More info to come and
in writing.
Can an employee decide to work in the office on their scheduled
telework day?
- Yes, but they don’t get a replacement day. Grace jumped in to say that it depends on
whether or not we go to physical distancing requirements and whether or not we
can satisfy all the h&s protocols by adding additional staff on site.
(End of questions)
Were going to jump back into the mgr talking points.
Moving on to page 3, the first 2 bullets
discuss the considerations you will make when you establish the telework
schedule and also the potential for suspending or recalling employees for
coverage needs. So Johnny this goes to
your question. We’re not going to go
into detail on those topics today. We will do so, go in greater detail in the
future.
The 3rd bullet outlines details regarding credit, OT,
alternate and part time work schedules.
Let’s talk about these a little
bit.
In operations, ee’s may work weekday CH and OT on their
telework day.
Weekend or holiday OT or credit will be based on the
workload assignment.
So if the assigned workload is conducive to telework,
weekend or holiday OT or credit can be worked from the ADS. If the work assigned is not conducive to
telework, it would need to be done onsite.
For employees that work an alternate work schedule or a part
time schedule, the number of telework days per week for those that do not work
a 5 day telework schedule will be decreased by the number of non tour days
resulting from the alternate or part time schedule. So just for your background
and info on this, this policy is to prevent someone not authorized full time
telework from creating a full time telework schedule via an alternate work
schedule or part time tour. So for example, if a PSC ee works a 4/10 alternate
work schedule, they would be eligible to telework
3 days/wk as their weekly non tour day would be the
fourth day not on site. You would still
have them onsite one day a week. Another
example for a FO would be if an ee worked the 5/4/9 alternate work
schedule. They have 1 non tour day in
the pp. the week of their non tour day,
they would telework 1 day and the week they work 5 days, they would telework 2
days that week.
Moving along, we understand there are several questions
related to the 5th and 6th bullets on page 3 which outline info regrading
episodic telework for COVID related school closures and the temporary
compassionate assignment provisions. We
will provide more info on those situations in the future.
Moving on to the next bullet. We will not have core days related to
telework. Additionally we will not
suspend telework during holiday weeks as was done during the prior telework
pilot.
The next bullet outlines the steps ee’s need to
take. EE’s requesting to telework must
submit a telework program request and agreement via the
SSA-164 to their supervisor by 2/25/22. All employees requesting to telework will
complete the agency telework training even if it was previously completed. This is to level set everyone that we are moving to telework and no longer
under and evacuation order.
Related to completing the telework agreement, to utilize
the completion and signature functions, the form needs to be opened in Adobe
reader. If that is not the default way
for the document to be opened, ee’s should save the file to their computer and then
open in Adobe reader. If you have
questions on how to open in Adobe reader, pls reach out to your sysco’s or
asc’s.
The week of 2/21, each regional and associate
commissioner will conduct training with you to discuss the mechanics of
creating your telework schedule so that you will be prepared to act on the
request and be able to notify ee’s of their telework schedule by 3/8.
The last bullet on page 3 and the first 2 at the top of
page 4 are related to equipment. So ee’s
who do not participate in telework will need to return any equipment they have
at home to the office. Employees that
will telework the majority of the time may not need to return equipment. So that covers all components except the
FO’s. For our FO’s we are still
discussing whether employees will need to return equipment. Expect those decisions and guidance will be
made closer to when we reenter.
For employees with equipment at their ADS as part of a
RA, if they continue to telework, they will be permitted to keep that equipment
at the ADS.
We’ve received some questions related to obtaining
equipment for the ODS from employees with a RA.
Pls review questions number 96 and 97 on pages 26 and 27 of the manager FAQs as well as the attachment
that is included with question number 96 for both the steps you need to take
and when you should take them.
Continuing on page 4, the 3rd bullet outlines telework
policies. These get to the heart of what
Grace referenced as a reset. During the
evacuation order, we did not recall employees or require them to report if
there were disruptions at the ADS. With
moving to telework, they will be required to follow the telework policies
outlined in these sub bullets.
The next main bullet addresses locality pay. We know there are some questions out there
about how this works. Essentially
employees need to be scheduled to report to the ODS at least twice per pp to
retain the locality pay at their ODS. If
they do not, the locality pay will be determined based on the locality pay rate
for the ADS. If the ADS is the same
locality pay area, there will be no change.
But if the locality pay of the ADS is a different locality, the ee’s
locality pay will change, even if it is a higher locality. And so to go back to Curtis’ question about
if the ee is on leave would they need to cancel their telework day? Not
necessarily Curtis. My understanding of
this provision is that they need to be regularly scheduled to work at least
twice per pp. now if there were a long
term situation where they were not, you may need to make a locality
change. But I would recommend consulting
with CHR and reviewing the PPM section about that specific situation you
referenced.
Moving on to page 5, you will share info about the
evaluation period and transit subsidies before moving into your closing where
you will reiterate the due date for submitting telework requests, continuing on
to page 6, that you will continue to update employees.
We ask that following your meeting that you report the
list of questions you are not able to answer thru your management line and
regional LR teams after the meetings so that we can address those.
So while that wraps up the info you need for your staff
meetings, there are just a few more taskwork items, specific to operations that
we want to share. For BUE’s, we will not
require a telework log for work performed while teleworking. So again, BUE’s, we will not require a
telework log on their telework days.
However, non BU components will have the discretion to require a
telework log if they desire.
And to the extent possible, FO employees will be
responsible for their own print traffic and will use available automation tools
to hold their print traffic until they return to the office where they will
print and prepare their items to be mailed.
For customer service purposes, mailing print traffic should not be
delayed by more than a few business days because an employee has
teleworked. Additionally if an
employee’s telework day abuts scheduled leave, they should work with local
management in advance to make arrangements for print traffic to be handled
timely. We should try to minimize these
instances but do recognize that they will occur and during this evaluation
period, we will need to assess how that works.
You can expect several additional national and regional
level calls over the coming weeks as we work toward our march 30 reentry
date. Your main takeaway from today’s
call, I hope you have enough info to comfortably hold your staff meetings using
the mgr talking points in combination with the manager FAQ’s. if you have not already done so, you should
schedule a formal meeting and notify the union.
This formal meeting is to review these talking points with your staff
and should occur either Feb 8th, 9th, or 10th.
42:00--Questions again--these are summarized and not
transcribed exactly
Clarification about teleworking on an ee’s over tour?
- Same as OT and CH explained earlier
For “in between” positions, if local determinations will
be made, does that mean we can increase ee’s to 5 days a week if their work is
100% portable or does that just mean local decisions on can they work up to 4
days/wk?
- You don’t have the authority to allow an ee to telework
more days than prescribed for their component
Relative to telework being suspended, we won’t suspend
during holidays, depending on ee’s approved leave surrounding federal holidays,
if mgt determines they’ll need to recall staff around those periods of time,
will this have to be perpetually bargained at the local level every time we get
around a federal holiday?
- No. It will not
need to be bargained, but the process that will be followed will be the process
of advanced planning of suspending telework to ensure you have sufficient staff
on site. We will cover those types of
situations during the next training session the week of 2/21.
Clarification of ee’s may request up to 2 days/wk for FO
and if you can indicate reference to find the ineligible for telework
positions.
- Yes FO telework 2 days/wk. ineligible positions, you will get from mgt
line to tell you which are ineligible or that you may want to consider may not
be able to telework at the frequency for your component
Asked when they will get that.
If ee has a pending recon on a RA request and has been
disciplined due to conduct w/in the last 12 mo, is she eligible for telework?
- That’s very specific, talk to LR team. Grace jumped in
and agreed and said to include NRAC. Leann said you don’t have to make that
decision before your staff meeting.
Confirm if part time ee would be eligible for up to 2
days of telework or 1 b/c of PT?
- Depends on number of non tour days resulting from PT
tour. This goes back to we need the
number of people onsite. We normally
look at how many people can I leave off but this is really about the number of
people we need to have onsite every day. We
need our people onsite 3 days/wk.
Question about inclement weather and reverting to
telework on inclement weather days.
- When we need to invoke telework due to weather, ee’s who
have telework agreements are expected to telework and does not affect their
other telework days that week. EE’s who
do not telework would be on WSL.
If OT offered in office for non-portable workloads, does
Mgt have to offer CH to ee’s on telework?
- Why would we not do that? I believe we would offer the
CH to teleworking ee’s under the Contract but we’ll check on that.
Is the 2 days/wk entirely the ee choice or can small
offices choose not to offer 2 days of telework so we can serve the walk in
public?
- If you have situations based on actual visitor traffic
that affect your ability to offer 2 days/wk, you’re going to talk to your AD so
we can look at the options available to you but we won’t be routinely modifying
the number of days. We would expect you
to recall or suspend telework to meet the needs of the public and we’ll talk
about that in future training sessions.
Asked
about if they have someone on military leave and someone on PPL, can they
reduce telework days from 2 to less than 2?
- Yes, those are perfect examples of when you can have a conversation
about suspending telework.
If TSC teleworks 4 days/wk, who mails their print
traffic?
- Some people will be onsite every day and they have some
clerical staff who can do their mail. FO should not continue to get requests to
mail TSC print traffic.
Grace Kim
I really appreciate the questions. As I said at the
beginning, we will answer your questions if we have the answers to them but for
those of you who asked questions that we need to circle back with you on , we
will definitely do that.
This is how we’re going to build comprehensive guidance
for you as you go forward. So I hope that today’s call provided you with at
least an overarching framework of how we will approach telework in
operations. And as I said at the
beginning I think it’s really important for you to have that foundation and
context as we move forward as you prepare to conduct your staff meetings this
week, I hope the info that Leann and I shared with you helped to put things
into perspective to ensure that we are consistent in our messaging and I know
that that is a concern that I think many of you have.
I am asking that you cover the talking points verbatim
but I hope that the info that we shared today at least helps you frame the
discussion with your employees in a more comprehensive way.
So last week you should have gotten an email with the
tentative timeline for the various training activities that we have planned
leading up to reentry. The next two
activities that I want to call you attention to are
We will be releasing a VOD for mandatory soft skills
training for all employees who serve the public face to face or by phone and
In approximately two weeks your RCs or ACs will be
holding Teams meetings to cover the technical aspects of implementing telework
in your office of component to make sure you’re ready to make decisions on
employee telework requests no later than 3/8 so some of these nitty gritty
questions that you have bene asking will hopefully be addressed during those
smaller meetings.
So again in closing I just want to thank you again for
your attention and your leadership as we navigate thru preparing for reentry.
More than ever, our employees and public are going to need clear direction from
us and the only way we can do that is if we go through this transition period
as smoothly and seamlessly as possible.
So thank you very much and have a great rest of your day and I look
forward to talking with you at the next call.
