DHS mandates department-wide telework, COOP review this week

The news headlines have chronicled the spread of the H1N1 swine flu virus on many large, local college campuses. And medical professionals continue to predict that the swine flu could return to pandemic levels in the next few months.

As Federal News Radio first reported last week, the Department of Homeland Security has sent a memo to all its agency officials asking them to review "continuity of operations" plans and telework agreements beginning today. They are also to have as many employees telework at least one day this week where possible.

The memo came from Elaine Duke, DHS Undersecretary for Management, who talked about it exclusively with Federal News Radio.

We have some specific concerns about the potential of H1N1 to make its next surge in the United States, potentially next month, and this Fall. One of the things we want to be ready for is potential absenteeism among our federal workforce. And with the telework week, we are asking that each employee who is on a telework agreement, who is on a telework agreement as part of our continuity of operations planning, or COOP planning, to telework, to test it, to make sure they have the right connectivity, the right equipment, to make sure they can work from home as part of the COOP plan.

Duke says the memo will affect approximately 40,000 DHS workers who have telework agreements with their agencies. She says she is confident that telework will be an important tool for government to mitigate the effects of an outbreak of swine flu, and notes that the Office of Personnel Management has been tasked with making sure that the most important factor in successful teleworking - ready access to network connectivity - will be sufficient to allow large numbers of feds to telework as needed.

"I think it will be successful," she said, but added, "I think there will be a high probability that some employees will encounter some technical, or personal education they need, in terms of knowing how to use their laptop, that it's synched up with the DHS network, that they have the programs that they need. So this is really an attention-to-detail exercise."

In other federal agencies, staff have cited the outright opposition and intransigence of mid-level managers to teleworking, even though it has the support of cabinet-level department heads.

Duke says that a successful trial this week could help change the minds of some managers, "who fear change", and adds that for supervisors who "may be nervous about it, proving it will work, proving that productivity stays high, I think it will help in that group."

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Program note: Federal News Radio will air the complete exit interview with DHS Undersecretary Elaine Duke, who is expected to leave federal service within the next month, this Thursday afternoon (9/24), 1-3pm Eastern on "In Depth With Francis Rose", on 1500 and 820 AM, and online at FederalNewsRadio.com.

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