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codifies the Office of Personnel Management’s administratively determined definitions of telework and remote work—including the requirement that teleworkers commute to their traditional worksite at least twice per pay period
Not exactly remote, is it?
Telework isn't remote work. Remote work is remote work.
What exactly is the difference?
Like I looked up Telework and the first definition is exactly what I'd assume remote work is.
For federal work, it's all about the duty station. For telework, the duty station is a federal building.
For remote work, the duty station is your home.
Thanks for the clarification!
That's because the difference has only just been defined and codified in this new bill. It would seem that remote work is fully remote, while telework would require you to come into the office occasionally.
Telework is the ability to temporarily work at a different location. Remote work is permanent working from a different location.
I would love for someone to give me a good reason to add this part (semantics arguments about "telework" vs. "remote work” aside).
If a position does not require this, why do we need the federal government telling employees they need to unnecessarily come into the office? What if an employer is literally closing all of their physical offices to save on overhead because everyone is telework now? Where are those people supposed to report to twice a pay period, and why?
And, I guess if you get paid weekly, you're S.O.L.? So employers continuing to push back on all forms of telework can switch from biweekly to weekly pay so their employees need to come in 8+ times a month rather than 4.
More stupid, pointless bullshit holding back progress.
I don't like that they're making you justify your remote work every year, but I do like that they're increasing hiring of spouses of military and federal law enforcement for remote positions. At first it sounds like nepotism, but this explains it pretty well:
The spouse of a Border Patrol agent working in the small town of Eagle Pass, Texas, might not be able to find a job that fits their education or training, but remote work for a federal agency may be a great opportunity.
Hopefully it'll increase the number of remote positions, and adding another good-paying government job to those remote communities will really help them out.
They can perform useful work remotely like reviewing IRS records so we can start cracking down on these millionaire tax cheats.
Heck yeah. Or help review and approve firearm background checks for NICS.
I don’t understand how that makes it sound any better. That hypothetical spouse could, right now, apply for a competitive remote position, compete against the other candidates, and, if they are the best-qualified for the position, obtain it.
All this seems to do is reduce the ability for people who don’t want to marry a service member or a cop to obtain remote work, since they’ll have no opportunity to compete for the job.
The idea is that military and federal law enforcement are required to move for the needs of the organization. As such, their spouses tend to get their careers uprooted frequently.
I'm not saying it's right or wrong, but it is the government trying to minimize the damage to these families.
It’s hard for me to see how this difficulty they have, which plenty of non-military and non-law enforcement families also have, makes them a special class uniquely qualified for remote positions based on who they decided to shack up with.
I think it's the idea that military families have the issue at higher rates, not that no one else does.
I guess this is where I sound like an asshole, but…so what?
No one is drafted into the military. You volunteer for a term and they pay you (like shit, but I digress). Most of them never leave the US and most don’t see combat over corporate interests, so it’s basically like any other shitty job apart from being able to be put in jail if you try to quit before your term is up.
Why do we have this fascination with treating this one shitty employer’s employees better than we treat everyone else?
I'll be the first one to criticize militaries and the interests that control them (and I'm not even American)... but I do acknowledge the fact that not having a good army can fuck your life up big time. Well, just look at the three conflicts around us and how each one of those countries is surviving.
Yes, most soldiers might never see a war, but is it possible to measure how many countries would've tried to invade your country, or your allies, if you didn't have that large army to act as a deterrent? That's why this one shitty employer gets special treatment.
Rules that make joining the army attractive/mandatory to people who have other options is obviously good for the nation at large. This is just a move in that direction, and I totally get it.
As you’re not American, I’ll assume you’re unaware of all the attractive benefits this employer already gets. Here’s a few:
*if you rack up 100% of disability, this does not necessarily mean you can’t do anything, it just means you’ve hit a combination of government disability math that thinks you can’t
And those benefits? I’m all for them. I wish everyone got them, since there are far more useful things a person can do instead of joining the military-industrial complex, but whatever, at least someone gets them.
What bothers me about this one is that it’s at the expense of the competitive service, and thus at the expense of the public — Americans will get poorer service from their public servants because they didn’t have to compete against the best-qualified to get their jobs. They just got plonked in there because of who they decided to shack up with.
Fair enough, and I do agree that everyone should have free (or reasonably cheap) access to healthcare, education and shelter. (I'm "commie" as fuck, depending on whom you ask)
That said, if all the existing benefits aren't enough to attract good people into the army, I see why the government would want to keep increasing benefits till they get their fill of soldiers -- all in the name of national security.
Also, these things tend to have knock on effects, no? If private sector starts losing out on his employees because they'd rather work for the government as long as it's a remote job, then the private sector is welcome to change rules to attract employees too! It's a "free market" of labour after all.
I really like your last point, and I hope that’s the effect of this. I just also hope that it’s not to the detriment of the competitive service.
We’re already seeing a decrease in quality hires due to direct-hire authority — without checks on the hiring authority, they have a tendency to just hire fast without actually determining if someone is qualified for a role.
~~It's a point preference, not absolute deference.~~
Don't think of it as a benefit for the spouse, anyway. It is a benefit for the federal employee because their family will encounter less hardship when they are asked to relocate. The federal government tries to hire the best people for each position in the most fair way it can. If a candidate has to choose between a career and a well-supported family, you will get less quality candidates.
It’s not a point preference. It says that they can be appointed non-competitively if the head of the Executive agency thinks they’re qualified.
We saw the same thing with direct-hire authority — people abandon the competitive hiring practices because direct-hire is faster.
Ah, my mistake. I made an assumption, and I only skimmed the article. Thanks for the correction.
I'm still not sure this is a bad thing, surely it doesn't apply to every job? Obviously you wouldn't want this to apply to a job that requires a great deal of expertise, but that's not every federal job.
It’s totally possible that it’ll be an amazing thing, but past practices don’t give me a lot of faith in that. The competitive process exists to weed out one or two people being able to hire who they want to without checks and balances. Removal of that for certain classes of people just makes it easier to skirt those checks as long as someone is in a special class.
The problem we run into is what the government considers jobs that require expertise — for example, the people who write rating decisions for disabled veterans have an immensely important job that requires substantial training and skills, but much of the aptitude for learning these is tested for in the panel and interviewing process. They aren’t specific degrees or certifications. Under this rule, those tests would never happen for these people. They’d just be hired, plonked into a training class they might have no ability to pass, and start creating financial obligations for the government in as little as six weeks.
...for federal workers.
What starts in the government traditionally trickles down through corporations.
Whens that minimum wage increase coming
When we elect less conservatives to Congress.
I don't think we have to worry about this too much, I doubt this will ever pass or be enforced. The fed has already had a terrible time recruiting/retaining valuable employees.
My dad is retiring at the end of the year from the FAA, and they're basically begging him to stay longer. They're still doing remote work because a lot of the employees have simply refused to come back to the office. A lot of his co-workers are physicians who could easily find new better paying jobs, but work for the FAA for convenience and the ease of work.
If they start putting the screws to federal employees, they're just going to quit to make more money in the private sector.
Which is a shit ton of workers
Really the rule should be "why do you need people to come in?" With acceptable answers being literal job duties that can't be done remotely in any way.
Yeah, great. Give me my damn home office deduction back.
"authorize the noncompetitive hiring of military and law enforcement spouses into remote work positions."
This should be a big take away. Oh you're married to a cop? Here's a job!
First, they get beaten at home, Now they have to work from home!
This just sounds like it’s adding more of a headache and more work to something that isn’t necessary. It will turn management off to the idea.
Fucking assholes