Report urges government to focus on flexible workplace
WASHINGTON • A report by a public policy group calls on the Obama administration and Congress to make the federal government "a model employer" by increasing its support for flexible work arrangements such as compressed workweeks and telecommuting.
The call to "create a flexible fed" comes from Workplace Flexibility 2010, an initiative of Georgetown University Law Center.
The group describes its report as the culmination of five years of discussions with employers, employees and consumer representatives.
The report urges the federal government, the nation's largest employer with about 1.9 million workers, to lead by example by including flexible work arrangements as a key component of its personnel policies and by providing training, technical assistance and resources to support such arrangements.
"I can't tell you the number of times we've heard employers say, ‘Well, what is the federal government doing?'" Chai Feldblum, a Georgetown law professor who is co-director of Workplace Flexibility 2010, said at a news conference last week at the National Press Club to release the report.
The federal government was an early leader on flexible work arrangements in the 1970s and 1980s, according to the report, which adds that the government needs to approach such arrangements with "renewed vigor."
The group recommends that the Office of Personnel Management and the Government Accountability Office each perform annual assessments of flexible work arrangements across the federal government.
