Bipartisan Agreement on Remote Working - Well, It's a Start
Lest you despair that the government is so polarized between Democrats and Republicans that nothing will ever get done there's a glimmer of hope. The US House has finally passed The Telework Enhancement Act. This is expected to save over $15 billion in office space, expenses and enhanced productivity.
The interesting part isn't that it was co-sponsored by both Republicans and Democrats, or even that it radically expands the jobs that can be done remotely. What I found fascinating were the reasons people found to vote for and against the act.
The vote was 254 to 152, which isn't bad given the current political climate, but hardly the landslide you might have expected for something like this. Further, the likely head of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Darrell Issa has some interesting concerns that make me wonder if he gets the point.
Issa's very concerned that there are not enough explicit oversights to make sure people don't take advantage of not being supervised. Further, goes on to worry that the whole process will simply be more bureaucracy. "We are talking about a new bureaucratic mandate within the federal regime."
In these comments are several assumptions that are at odds with the way many people are already working quite productively out in the "real world":
- If the boss isn't standing over them all day, those darned government workers won't actually work. At best, this is mildly insulting to the millions of people who work very hard at their jobs and just happen to be federal employees. At worst, it assumes that the way government workers are managed now is as good as it's going to get. Now THAT'S a terrifying thought.
- Working from home will create more havoc than allowing people to be productive no matter where they are. Anyone who has ever tried to get anything done in Washington DC when there is even the threat of snow will scoff at this one. Think of all the productive time lost to traffic congestion, visiting dignitaries and the stress of getting back and forth to work.
- Government IT projects are a mess, and this will only add to the confusion. Yes, government projects, like IT projects in the rest of the known universe, are notorious for overruns and scope (and cost) creep. They need to be properly managed and costs and quality maintained. It's a huge procurement issue. That being said, the alternative- not moving ahead on anything until you know for sure exactly what will happen- means that people will start working from home sometime around 2057 assuming we still all have homes to work from.
- Congress knows enough about the matter to supervise every step. Issa has already said that his number one priority is to watch every penny the Obama administration spends and is quoted as saying he wants to hold their feet to the fire. "I want seven hearings a week, times 40 weeks," Issa says. Hands up all those who believe that will speed up quality implementation of the plan. Yeah, that's what I thought.
The ultimate irony is that for telecommuting and similar programs to work, there has to be a change in the way people are managed and the assumptions about what a manager can and can't do to supervise performance. A high level of trust is necessary or it will fail spectacularly, and that's not the vibe I'm getting.
So it's nice to know that the two parties can scrape together enough votes to actually pass anything without rallies and threats of social unrest. Now we have to see if they're capable of executing.
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