The Office of Personnel Management Inspector General (IG) recently released a report in which it examined the use of telework and remote work at OPM. It found that there were some problems at the agency regarding its compliance with telework agreements but that its recommendation to the agency to address the problems has been implemented.
The investigation was based on telework and remote work data from fiscal year 2024. The IG report found the following:
- 11 of the 37 (29.7%) teleworkers sampled had lapsed telework agreements;
- 6 of the 39 (15.4%) remote workers sampled did not have an approved agreement on file;
- 19 of 90 (21.1%) discrepancies related to telework agreements identified by OPM HR and sent to program offices were unresolved by the end of a 4-month period; and
- 3 of the 37 (8.1%) employee timesheets sampled were not compliant with OPM’s in-office telework policy, while the badging data did not support the minimum number of in-office days reported on timesheets for 18 of the 31 (58.1%) teleworkers sampled that reported in-office days.
The IG recommended that OPM HR develop written procedures for telework and remote work programs, including review frequency, discrepancy resolution timeframe, and data methodology.
OPM agreed with the recommendation and has already implemented it, so the IG report said that it considers the matter closed.
“Under the previous administration, OPMʼs telework and remote work policies were
mismanaged and oversight was virtually nonexistent,” Acting Director Chuck Ezell said in a statement. “That era of telework abuse is over. At President Trumpʼs direction, OPM has restored in-person operations to ensure federal employees are working for the taxpayers.”
OPM’s statement about the report also noted that all of its employees have been required to report to their official duty stations full time as of March 3, 2025.
Purpose of the Investigation
The IG’s investigation was done in response to a 2023 request from Senator Joni Ernst (R-IA). She called for the investigations at various agencies because she was concerned about telework creating negative impacts to the services the federal government provides as well as whether federal employees were using telework to get paid at higher locality pay rates even though they were not living in those areas.
Some of Ernst’s investigations into telework did uncover instances of improper locality pay at some agencies that were being enabled by telework.
For instance, the IG at the Department of Commerce found that nearly 23% of teleworking federal employees sampled across 10 bureaus were being overpaid and that the agency could not verify if its employees were showing up to the office as required.
At the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), one GS-13 employee lived in Florida for the duration of her employment but used an office supply store in Virginia for work-related correspondences in order to collect Washington, D.C. locality pay.
That agency has been under intense scrutiny by the Trump administration which has included budget cuts and restructuring.
On his first day in office, President Trump issued a memo that called for federal employees to return to in-person work on a full-time basis. OPM subsequently issued guidance to agencies for complying with the president’s directive which included instructing agency heads to revise telework policies to require full-time in-person work unless excused.
