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Feds: talk to me about AWS and working from home in general
how does it work, especially if you don't have a specific day that you work from home (e.g.), you have 40hrs/week of work to get done but only 30hrs in the work week that you are physically in the office, so you finish tasks at home that you didn't get done in the office)?
how do you get approval for working at home? do you have to have your tasks preapproved? do you have a blanket agreement that you can work from home if necessary? or is it on a task by task basis?
if you have an assigned work from home day (this is what AWS does, right?), do you have a list of items you plan to work on from home that you must have preapproved, or do you just continue whatever you were doing from the day before?
if you have to have working from home approved on a task by task basis, what do you do about tasks that are last minute and cannot be approved in advance (e.g., you get a call at 9pm to do something critically time sensitive and can't reach the boss to complete an approval form until too late).
thanks!
Re: Feds: talk to me about AWS and working from home in general
AWS is different than working from home.
AWS = one day off every other week when you work 9/hr days and one 8 hour days every two week period. You are not supposed to work on your AWS.
Telework = working from home with a govt laptop or other other work.
I have one telework day a week Thursday/Friday. I have a work laptop at home that I log onto. I also have a episodic telework agreement. So if OPM grants us unscheduled telework, I can request telework and pull out my laptop.
Feds in general do not work 50 hours a week at least not in my experience.
Every office has a different telework policy. I send a list of things I'm going to work on the day before my telework day. I also will send a list of things I'm going to do if I request unscheduled telework.
I used to do AWS, but once Baby Handy came along I didn't want to deal with the 9 hour days anymore.
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Telwork and AWS are two different things.
AWS - is 9 days, 9 hours a day, tenth work day off.
e.g. Work 8:00 - 5:30 (you have to have 30 mins in there for lunch) Monday through Friday for a week. Then 8:00 - 5:30 Monday through Thursday the next week, Friday off.
Telework REALLY varies by agency. For instance I'm a union steward and we just contributed to the revision of our agency's telework policy to bring it into the 21rst century. However, there is enough wiggle room in there (unfortunately) that if you have a supervisor who is not telework friendly, you have a bit of a battle on your hands.
I telework one day a week, every Wed. My supervisor rocked - then she left. I've recently requested two days a week, but have very little hope that it will actually get approved. There are all sorts of "but if" situations when we telework at our agency though. For instance, my supervisor can request that I come in on certain Wednesdays if there is an important reason for me to be at the office that day.
I still telework ad hoc too - at my agency you just send an email and can get approval right away. No way would I do anything at 9:00 pm at night in my job though, so I don't know what would happen if I wanted to get immediate approval of ad hoc after work hours.
Now that I've said they're two different things, I think they can be combined. Like if you wanted to work your first week Mon - Fri 8:00 - 5:30, but telework that Friday, and then work your second week Mon - Thurs 8:00 - 5:30, Friday off - I *think* you can do that.
thanks ladies. not sure if you remember the ridiculousness i put up with at my corporate PT job.
last spring, i was approved to work a shorter work week and work from home as needed when things arose that i wasn't in the office to attend to. last week i was told i needed to complete a telework agreement. when i put in writing our verbal agreement from 6 months ago, i was told that it was unacceptable and he quoted AWS and OPM standards as the reason.
i thought it was completely ridiculous that i would have to have prepaproval and a brand new telework agreement put on file every single time i have a task (many of which come up last minute, like a client who needs something NOW, even though i'm on vacation, or a proposal budget that needs to be amended NOW, even though it's 10pm). i work hourly, so it's not like i'm a salaried executive who would be expected to do these things anyway. the repurcussions of me not being able to get a telework request approved at the last minute to address issues like the above is that i won't get paid and i'll have to tell my client, sorry.
i found a ton of information on telework.gov that supports my thoughts and justifies my request.
le sigh. not sure how to approach this with him, since every conversation we have becomes an emotional battle.
We also have to get approval in writing for every single, little occasion of telework. It can be an email, but it has to be in writing.
What our agency does is everyone who ever plans on teleworking - ever - has a telework agreement on file. You have to get approved to telework, and have the approval on file. These agreements last one year, so you have to renew every 12 months.
Anyone approved then writes up a request to either telework ad hoc or telework every week or both.
telework.gov has all sorts of great info on telework - but it has nothing to do with AWS, so that's where your guy has it all wrong. I would ask him - what does he mean by agreement? Because what OPM means - and trust me, I know this like the back of my hand since I researched it for the union negotiation - is that a year long agreement is on file - there is not a formal agreement every time you telework!! There may be "approval" every time, but not a new agreement.
he often does not know what he is talking about. he used AWS and telework interchangeably, and i now understand that they are completely different.
he also claims that, per OPM, an employee cannot have an adhoc agreement to telework, that there MUST be written approval of every single task. it sounds like, from my research on telework.gov, that that is the discretion of the agency.
he pretty much said that what you do is not allowed by OPM. i don't think he's actually read the OPM guidance. and frankly, i'm insulted that he would think i'm stupid enough not to read it after he so grossly misquoted it.
At my agency, we're supposed to have a telework plan in place if we regularly work from home 1 day a week. But it's generally understood that emergencies come up after hours. If we know in advance that we're planning to work after hours, we're supposed to get pre-approval. But if we get an unexpected email at 8 pm that we need to respond to asap, we can email our managers later and let them know how much work we did and what it was related to.
no, i'm not. federal contractor. and he 100% believes that federal guidelines apply to everything we do b/c we have some staff who are stationed (contracted) at federal agencies.
my part time schedule is set (m, t, f in the office 9-3:30), but sometimes there are more things going on than i can complete in that time in the office. and, sometimes things come up at the last minute, so our agreement last spring was that when those things occurred, i could work from home to complete them. that accounts for about 10% of my monthly hours. this nonsense right now is because he asked me to put the agreement in writing in our telework agreement, which he then rejected b/c he didn't know what i would be doing ahead of time (and no one does, that's the nature of last minute assignments).
i offered to email him with my tasks as they came up, send in a document showing what i had done after the fact, whatever, he just seems hell bent on rejecting my request and misquoting OPM telework guidance as his reasoning.
i thought i'd do a little fact checking and boy have i found out what a big fib he told.
For my telework agreement (which allows me my one day a week and also ad hoc) I write up all my tasks - he is correct on that. But my tasks are basically my job description, written out in detail "respond to applicant requests, give notes to grantees by phone" etc. Basically in the yearly agreement, I'm predicting what my tasks will be when I telework.
When I get my approval for ad hoc, say I want to telework on a Friday in addition to my regular Wed., I do get more detailed if I know at the time of the request what the tasks will be.
I still think he's mixing up "agreement" and "approval."
He's correct in that you do have to try - the best you can - to in advance tell your supervisor what tasks you'll be doing. But like Wines said, if something comes up that you can't possibly predict, that's covered in the yearly agreement. But in general, yes, you are supposed to tell your supervisor what tasks you will be performing - ahead of time.
Hope that makes sense. He/you could read this document, and go by what it says, but he may be misinformed by some of the people who work for agencies because each agency still does things differently. He's going to have to make an executive decision about he is going to do it in your company - and then hold everyone to it: http://www.telework.gov/guidance_and_legislation/telework_guide/telework_guide.pdf
everything you said makes perfect sense, to me. only he's asking me to tell him, in the agreement, today, every single thing i'll be doing for the entire fiscal year. i listed out my potential client requirements and business development work (basically, the tasks in my job description) and he said he needed specific tasks, specific proposals, etc. and that it couldn't be done on an ad hoc basis. he needed to know now, before he signed the agreement.
i think he doesn't want me to telework and he knows that i can't answer that question, so this is how he's going to back into not approving my agreement.
and you are also correct that he's confusing approval and agreement.
i would have absolutely no problem if he made an executive decision and held everyone to it. he just won't. he likes to BS and sometimes just lie and always assumes i won't call him on it.
what burns me up the most is that there is a man in my office who "teleworks" every day from 2-5 so that he can be home when his kids get home from school. totally not hating on him for that, i'm thrilled that he can do that for his family. but none of the women are allowed to do that. he doens't have to report on what he's going to be doing ahead of time and the majority of the time he's not working (i know this b/c he told me).
thanks for the link!
As pp stated, AWS and working from home are two separate things. AWS is where you work 9-hour days and then get every other Friday off (or whichever day you choose).
If you want to work a 40-hour week but only be in the office 30 hours a week, you might be talking about "maxi-flex," which basically says that you'll get 40 hours of work done a week even if you're not doing them all during business hours. You would need to get that approved by your supervisor.
Teleworking, I learned recently, is actually not a "right" as a fed--whether you can do it is based on office policy, your particular position, and other factors.
If you are allowed to telework, you have to sign an agreement with your supervisor outlining when and where. You can either do it regularly (like I do, every Wednesday) or as-needed, like if you're home due to weather or waiting for a repairman or something.
When I telework, I am required to send an e-mail to my supervisors in the morning outlining all the tasks I will accomplish that day, and then another signing off with a list of what I finished. These aren't approved ahead of time, but 99% of my job can be done electronically so my tasks are fluid.
Hope that helps!
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maxi-flex, new term. off to research. thanks!
That would burn me up too. My radar goes off when I see men getting benefits the women don't get. It sucks that there is no policy everyone has to follow.
What if you propose in the agreement, in writing, that every day you telework, you'll send a morning email with the tasks you'll do that day? That is, don't give specific tasks now, but promise to communicate them in the future (to the best of your ability) in writing?
Also, you could play dumb and ask about that other guy's arrangement... act like you don't really know the details of what he does, and can you just do what he does? See what the boss man says to that.
Definitely should look at http://www.telework.gov/
You can even take the training session that's on there (it takes about 20 minutes).
AWS is any "alternative work schedule." This is typically the 9 hour days/1 day off every pay period. But, technically also includes any work schedule outside of the agency's "core" hours. For example, my 8:15-5:00 PM schedule is technically an "AWS" schedule, even though I don't get a day off... because it's outside of the core 9-5:30 hours (I think those are the hours, I'm not sure...)
Telework can either be situational or recurring. My agreement is both situational AND recurring. In the instance of situational telework, I need to get the work sessions pre-approved. For my recurring every-week telework times, I don't.
Also, in reading further responses, it seems that what you're describing actually somewhat falls into the comp-time bucket. If you're working outside of your set schedule (because something is not able to be done within that schedule), and then expecting to either get paid more or have the ability to bank it for use later (even if it's the next day) - that's comp time, regardless of whether the work is occuring in the office or at home.
We have to get the time and the specific tasks approved for comp time.
If the guy in this scenario works a full-time schedule, this actually is telework, because his hours are 9-5 or whatever.
Let's say your set hours are 9-2:30....
If you want to work 9-2:30 from home once in a while, that's situational telework. If you want to work 9-2:30 from home every week, or one set day a month, or whatever - that's recurring telework.
If you want to work 3-5 when you get home (in addition to the 9-2:30), that's not telework - that's comp time.
If you want to work 9-2:30 from home, plus 3-5, that's telework + comp time.
i'm hourly, so no comp time. i get paid for the hours i actually work. which is why this is important. i have set hours for being int he office, but i'm frequently here longer or have to come in on my "day off". i include those hours on my timesheet and they are never questioned. the hours in question are the random times i need to complete something from home.
curious on your thoughts on this scenario:
my situation doesn't fall into any of the above.
i work 9-3:30 three times a week. most weeks, i finish everything i need to get done during those hours. because of the nature of my work, some weeks there is just much more to do than others (peak client deliverable times, proposals that require a massive effort to complete in a short period of time, etc.). some weeks one of my days is consumed by an all day staff meeting, so those weeks i usually spend a few hours at home working.
the time i spend at home working is sometimes within and sometimes not within the standard work day. i frequently work late after the kids have gone to bed or on weekends.
so what is this situation and how is it classified?
Based on experiences of a few part-time colleagues, they have set hours they work "part time" and their time is prorated (along with their payment towards benefits), and they have to get anything above and beyond their agreed upon number of hours worked approved.
Note that your "standard work day" would not necessarily be the "core hours" or standard working hours... but, whatever you've set up in your part time work agreement.
In my opinion (FWIW!) I think your situation would still fall into more of a comp-time type scenario than a telework scenario, since the main issue is that you're working more hours than the agreed upon part-time hours, based on workload, etc. The fact that you're doing it from home is not the *real* core issue here.
It sounds like you and your boss need to sit down to discuss a more detailed agreement and set up better expectations.... for example, if I'm teleworking, my boss expects return phone calls within 30 minutes. If I'm doing something on comp time, I e-mail him requesting comp time. Even with unexpected deadlines, I get approval ahead of time (usually, if a deadline is upcoming, I ask preemptively...). If something unexected crops up on the weekend, I just do it and sort it all out later. Sometimes, I get the time - sometimes, I don't.