Its critical that we allow telework to minimize the number of people in federal buildings. With that, mr. Chairman, i yield back and i look forward to hearing from our witnesses today. Thank you. At this time i want to proceed with testimony from our witnesses. Let me do a quick introduction of the four of them. Joining us remotely is Michelle Rosenberg and the Strategic Issues team where she is on capital issues and she served for over 20 years on gaos tenured team. Shes been recognized with Health Care Team awards including two Meritorious Service awards and shell be testifying first and joining us remotely. Mr. Keith waington is with the u. S. Department of troilgz. Has been with the Department Since 1991 and in hiscurrent position he provides leadership and oversight in the areas of Human Resources, security, audit relations, acquitions and gras and transportation and facilities and space management. Maybe you can lead nasa for us next since we need a new director for nasa since youre doing magement. What do you think . Okay. Well talk about that. Prior to this role, he was the director of the department was resource management. Sydney rose is also here. Shes the chief Human Capital officer which we affectionately call in d. C. The chico. She has been in federal service and all of them in Human Resources occupations. She is responsible forhe Human Capital approximately see programs and is key adviser to the department of leadership on employment and engagement efforts and she joined the u. S. Department of labor and has previously served with the bureau o labor statistics and the office of personalel management. Thank you for being here. Also joining us remotely is mr. Jim boreland andhe Deputy Commissioner and the Information Officer for i. T. Operations in the Social Security administration. He leads the aging computer infrastructure and acted as puty commissioner,or Social Securitys office of disability and adjudication and view. Prior to joining the Social Security administration h served in analytical, technical and leadership positions or 15 years with the u. S. Departments of agriculture and education here in washington, c. I want to thank all four of you for your preparation of being here and it is the custom of the Sub Committee to swear in all witnesses that appear before us. So if i can ask you to please stand and raise your right hand. Yes, even remotely. Sorry about that. Ill get a good shot of your tie there, jim. Thats all right. Do you swear that the testimony you will give before this subcommittee will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing, but the truth so help you god . I do. Let the record reflect that all witnesses answered in the affirmative. We are using a timing system even with the folks joining us remotely and they should be able to see the timer, as well as we go through the process and well stick as close to that to make sure we give as much time as possible for questions and conversations as we go through this in the process. With that, i would recognize ms. Rosenberg for your opening statement. Chairm lang fod and members of the subcommittee, i am here to discuss tework. It offers benefits to the federal agencies and federal woforce. It can help with recruitment and retention ofemployees and reduce the need for costly fice space and as the Ranking Member mentioned providehe opportunity to better balance work and family demands. Telework is a tl that agencies can and have used to accomplish their mission during periods of disruption. As you know, during the current covid19 pandemic, use of telework has allowed federal employees to work remotely in order to sustain Agency Operations and serve the American Public. Gaoad key practices in telework, literature and guidelines and the federal agencies should implement as part of a successful Telework Program. Regur attention to the key practices can help to Foster Program growth and remove barriers to telework participation. My written statement was all of the key practices we identified and this afternoon will highlight three. First, telework agreements. To facilitate telework, agencies should have telework agreements that outline the agreed upon work aangements between Agency Managers and teleworking employees. The telework enhancementct of 2010 requires agencies to have such writt agreements. However, in 2017 weeported that selected agenciesid not reire regular reviews or document the reviews of the telework agreements. Given the likihood of changes and work responsibilities and employees schedules over time its important for agenciesto regularly review their telework agreements to ensure that they reflect and support their rrent business sneads in addition, if telework agreements are notuptodate, agencies may be using inaccurate telework data when making decisions such as Space Planning and technology invesents. The second key practice i will highlight is training. Somethng senator langford mentioned. Telework involves a different way of working as well as supervising employees. As such, agencies are required to provide training to eligible employees and to managers of teleworkers. Such training shou cover agencies lework policies and provide an orientation to telework and focus on telewk Program Activities including the i. T. Applications used while teleworking andperformance manement. Our 2017 review of selected agencys Telework Programs found that managers weenerally not required to complete telework training before approving the telework agreements. As a result, managers may have been approving or nying requests to telework before they fully understood the agencys telework policies and goals. E third key practice i wl mention is Program Evaluation. Its important for agencies to develop Program Evaluation tools. This should include a tracking system that can help to accurately determine the status of telework implementation at the agencies. Agencies should use the evaluation tools to establish the program and the progress in achieving program goals. Agencies should th develop an action plan to guide ny needed changes. Assessments of the costs and benefits including cost savings of agencys Telework Programs can help Decision Makers in determining the overall effects and value of telewk. However, our pastwork found that selected agency his little data to support the benefits or costs associated with their Telework Programs. Opmas indicated that agencs have improved in their ability to track cost savings, but not all agencies are reporting cost savgs information in respse to the opm annual dat work. In con clushgs the key practices geo hasdentified several of whicare required by statute provide a road m for federal agencies to successlly implement their telewo programs. However, weve previsly found that agencies face challenges related to implemenng telework rograms that align with the key practices. The challenges agencs face provide a valuable learning oortunity as you look to expand and modify federal Telework Programs. Improving the mechanicsf Telework Programs can have benefits to agency, federal employees and the public. This concludes my prepared remarks. I am happy to answer any questions you may have. Thank you. Mr. Washington . Chairman langford, members of the subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to discuss federal telework during the covid19 Public Health emergency on behalf of the u. S. Department of transportation. I am keeg washingtith washingto been with the department for 29 years. The departments longstanding support and encouragement for telework across the widespread operations proved its value and stability when we quickly and seamlessly converted headquarters and Field Operations in midmarch to maximum telework to meet the covid19 Public Health emergency. Telework has been a critical flexibility that enables d. O. T. Employees to ensure america has the safest, most efficient and modern Transportation System in the world. It boosts our economic productivity and Global Competitiveness and enhances the quality of life in both rural and urban communities. Telework allows the department to achieve important performance goals and improve the departments capability to support homeland and National Security requirements while supplying the Work Life Balance outcomes. In 2013, well before the onset of covid19 d. O. T. Implemented an agency wide policy in accordance, and the policy encourages the use of telework and includes noting the eligibility status. That approximately so remains in effect today. G. G. And consistent operations. To ensure the vitality of d. O. T. s Telework Program, d. O. T. Conducts telework exercises to give employees and managers opportunities to practice working remotely and to test the Information Technology capacity to support telework. Those efforts resulted in additional investments in emerging technologies and innovation including Virtual Private Networks and Virtual Desktop infrastructure. D. O. T. s transition to maximum telework was virtually seamless following the onset of the covid19 Public Health emergency because of advanced preparations across d. O. T. , monthly teleworkers increased from 14,000 in february to 30,000 in march without disruption to the agencys mission on network. Under normal circumstances and typically under half of the d. O. T. Total workforce is telework eligible and about a total on average. Since the onset of the covid19 Health Emergency, upwards of 60 of the total workforce, teleworks monthly. The remaining positions are in positions that require the physical presence to perform their core responsibilities such as air Traffic Controllers in the federal aviation administration, line handlers in the st. Lawence seaway in the maritime administration. Perhaps, one of the most viable Lessons Learned was to use a considerable degree of flexibility when leveraging the telework policy, work scheduling procedures and the flexibilities and authorities. As a result, some offices are reviewing plans to reduce their Office Footprint by eliminating lease space and maximizing work and telework once the covid19 Public Health emergency ends. The maximum telework environment has provided d. O. T. With the opportunity to test and implement relatively new and various methods of communicating with both large and small groups. Maximum telework also presented ongoing challenges including adjusting to new Team Dynamics and limited access to Office Supplies and equipments and connectivity issues for some. Several months into this new reality thousands of our employees are now teleworking full time and managers are experiencing how their organizations can function successfully under these conditions providing Vital Information for future decisions about our operations. The department has been successful at implementing maximum telework. D. O. T. Has a wide array of workforce missions and has maintained a consistent level of productivity during the Health Emergency. Thank you again for the opportunity to appear before you today to discuss federal telework during the covid Public Health emergency on behalf of the department of transportation i am happy to answer any questions you may have. Thank you. Chairman rose . Senator langford, members for arc louing me to testify today. Covid19 was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization. Op march 20, 2020, the United States declared the covid outbreak a National Emergency and by midmarch 2020 the u. S. Department of labor earned a maximum telework posture due to the Global Pandemic Health Emergency. As it became clear to us that covid19s impact would require significant modifications to the departments operations, the office of Human Resources had support the department for the telework posture and modifying internal guidance as necessary and it had hr guidance and increased technical employees and managers and responded to hundreds of inquiries on a full range of Human Resources issues that included pay, leave, benefits, staffing, telework, Work Schedules and other workplace flexibilities. Additionally, dol rapidly developed guidance with Emergency Paid Sick leave with the Coronavirus Response act to ensure that our employees who were unable to work or telework due to qualifying covid19 related reasons as outlined in the regulations are aware of their entitlements under the law. In accordance to opm pandemic guidance, the department allowed eligible employees to telework to the maximum extent possible in order to maintain operations as close to normal as possible while ensuring our employee safety. Prior toen during the pandemic, telework eligibility at the Department Requires that an employees duties be suitable in whole or in part for performance at a telework site and that individual employees meet the additional criteria required by the telework enhancement act, departmental policy and our applicable collective bargaining agreements. Further, individual participation is subject to supervisory approval based on factors such as the Business Needs of the office, the cost of an arrangement and the availability of technology and equipment required to support the duties of the position. Dols recent implementation of enterprise Wide Shared Services for Human Resources and Information Technology supported and facilitated the departments ability to quickly adapt to a posture of more remote work in response to the pandemic. More centralized hr allowed dol to decisively expand the use of telework during the declared pandemic and implement any necessary hr policy changes to support those shifts and work arrangements. Similarly, dols implementation of a more centralized i. T. Service delivery model allowed the department to make the necessary policy changes and resource investments to ensure that dol was able to adequately support the shift to more remote work. Telework participation of dol requires telework training available through the departments internal learning development system. Additionally, the department provides employees with supplemental telework Resources Available on our internet as part of a helpful repository of coronavirus guidance and resources. The department is presently continuing to use telework to ensure its continuity of essential functions and to perform the bulk of its day to day operations. Dol is very proud of its work to implement a robust telework policy in response to the pandemic. We believe our efforts have helped the federal workforce to achieve and maintain productivity and to serve the departments mission and the American Public. Thank you again for e opportunity to address the subcommittee about the departments work and i look forward to answering your questions. Thank you. Mr. Moreland. Good afternoon. Chairman langford, Ranking Member sinema, and subcommittee. Im jim borland and the chief Information Officer for i. T. Operations. Social Security First began to offer remote work options around 20 years ago when technology was much different and the solutions we had today were not widely available. Our Online Services were limited and our work was heavily paper based. Since then, weve made significant progress with modernizing our workloads and we implemented Technology Solutions and allowed us to be more agile by replacing Desktop Computers with laptops and building a Virtual Private Network to improve the business continuity. We expanded our Online Presence to make it easier for customers to do business with us without having to come into our offices. For our employee, we implemented electron being solutions that facilitated virtual and Telephone Service environments. For example, it allows employees to answer their Office Phones through their laptops. These decisions were practical and made Good Business sense for from a Customer Service standpoint. When the unprecedented covid19 pandemic hit earlier this year, those decisions supported our ability to keep Service Going remotely. While we closed our offices to the public, we never stopped providing service with over 90 of our employees with telework and also the public we serve and many of whom by definition of the work we do meet the cdcs highrisk categories. Still, we can do better and our goal is to serve the public at least as well as we serve them in person and right now thats not possible because not all of our work is portable. For example, we need employees on site to handle sensitive workloads require face to face interviews and to scale male documents into our systems so that telework can process them. Weve been able to find workarou workarounds for our inPerson Services and weve been flexible with policy, for example, in some cases we are allowing the telephone as an alternative way to sign documents. At ssa, telework is not one size fits all. Some work does not inherently lend itself to telework and in nonemergency times they want different amounts of telework or in some cases no telework at all. We also have confirmed that a successful continuity of Operations Plan requires a Telework Program built on modernized i. T. Infrastructure and weve been reminded that we have more work to do to establish a fully robust Telework Program based on accountability and objective measures and makes sense for the public we serve and for our employees. Its delivered a realtime pressure test and its helping us focus on where we can improve. I would like to thank the public, our employees and you for being patient and supportive of us during this National Emergency. I look forward to answering any questions you may have. Thank you. Jim, thank you very much. Senator sinema and i have a hant in our hearings that we hold our questions to the end and we defer to other members to be able to add questions in. This would be an interesting dynamic for the four witnesses to participate in this. You have some senators that will call you by name or title. I would encourage those who join us remotely to just unmute and jump in if you want to be able to answer a question and feel like you are in the room with us as well and with that, i recognize senator carper for questions. Can you recognize me with my mask on . I can. Here we go. Hi, everybody. Thanks so much for joining us today. I want to start off with a question to mr. Boreland and this was a question that was suggested to us by a member of our constituent Services Team and it goes Something Like this. As you know the Social Security administration requires physical inspection of personal identification documents and theyre in order to process certain questions that come us to. Due the pandemic and the current adin instation are asking people to send in these original documents by mail so they can undergo physical inspection. Ive heard from a number of court constituents in delaware that are concerned about mailing their original documents specifically about the security of those documents and the timeliness for which they will return. Mr. Morland, hes my question, can you share with us how the social Securty Administration is working to addre the concer . Thank you. Thank you, senator carper. Let me first say that we recognize that the pandemic has reduced service challenges for us. Youre correct. One othe requirements of our regulaons is that for a new Social Security card or aocial Security Card that reflects changes and name,or instance, we do ruire documentation and the original documentation. We take protecting the integrity of the Social Security card and number very serioly. We do have in some cases a limited ability to set appoinents for individuals and ose opportunities are limited. We are forced on a Public Health direction to limit the number of employees that we have in our offices andto limit the number of members of he public that we provide Person Service to. Appointments are available for what we callire need cases and we are fulfilling that reirement. We dont as i mentioned in my testimony, we dont have a workaround fo all of our inPerson Services, and unfortunately e Social Security card is one of those, but i also want to say that most americans who need a replacement card can use my Social Security service. They an go online at Social Security. Gov, set up a my Social Security account and request a nochange replacement card fully online. Thank you, jim. Ms. Washington. How many years have you worked at d. O. . Senator, ive worked at the department of transportation for 29 year okay. Have you testified before hearings where i previously attended . Sir, this is my first opportunity to testify. How is it going . So far so good. [ laughter ] yeah. When i was govern i used to love testifying before house and senate hearings. I hope you will enjoy it as much as i did when i was sitting in your seat. I was encouraged to learn that the department of transportation had successfully moved the program to a fully virtual format and it allows leaders to participate. In the next couple of months well have a new administration and the federal government. Can you explain how the department of transportations and they will need what they need to be successful during this time and the second half of my question is do you have any recommendations with another agency with regard to the employees. Thank you. Thank you, senator, for that question. So at the onset of the pandemic, we reached out right away to the Human Capital office to our stakeholders in Information Technology and we came up with a virtual onboarding experience and as you stated that has allowed very senior levels of the department to participate. In fact we successfully onboarded department of transportation employees across the country and theyve been able to hear from the chief of staff. He actually personally participates in that virtual onboarding experience every other monday. So that has worked very well. Another thing that we have done, recognizing the need that many of our employees are working in a remote environment and we have assigned a sponsor for all of our new employees so they can feel part of the team and they can get best practices from long serving employees. So i think the collaboration with the Information Technology has been integral to the process so our employees across the country would be our experience. That would be my recoendation with other agencies and the collaboratn in partnership with the various elements of the organization. All right. Great. Thank you. Ne last question if i can with mr. Rose, and mr. Washington. The Cybersecurity Infrastructure is [ indiscernible ] over the years, a number of my colleagues and i worked together at the Homeland Security Department Resources to carry out a number of years ago. One agency they am most proud of their mission is the cybersecurity and infrastructure. It is the department of Homeland Security. I often say if you want to go fast or if y want to go forward, go togetr. I do not see much at all which i prume would be incredibly valuable as you provide a cybersecurity tool and assessment capabilities to safeguard the networks. Can i ask each ofyou, sarting with mr. Rose, briefly describe your relationship andell us what more needs to be done for the partnership in the cybersecurity space. Lets start with mr. Morland, if we run out of time. Lets be brief. Oh, im sorry, senator. You wanted to start with me . Ms. Rose . Yes. Information technology is not in my portfolio, however, i do work very, very closely with our chief Information Officer to make sure that as we onboard new employees and as we equip employees to work in a telework environment we are meeng all federal cybersecurity environments. Lets turn to mr. Washington, same question. Describe your relationship with the partnership. Thank you, senator, for that question. At the department of transportation we take sir cybersecurity very seriously and we believe the centralization of a lot of our commodity i. T. Sort of centralizing and getting rid of dupe lilicative systems and have had Security Awareness training and we also give weekly messages, just reminders of employees to how to operate from a cybersecurity perspective in a remote environment. We also have issued laptops. D. O. T. Issued laptops to all of our remote employees and they have security Monitoring Software on them that alerts the user and d. O. T. Cyber officials in a threat is detected. And we really havent noticed an increase in attacks ring the pandemic. I think my time has expired and thank you very much for letting me go over time. Mr. Moreland, please continue. Thank you, sir. Ill go to senator sinema for questions. Thank you so much, mr. Chairman. Firs i just want to thank our panelists again for their presentations today. I did note, mr. Washington and ms. Ros in your testimony you highlighted a number of successes that your agencies have had in expanding telewk during the pandemic which i very much appreciated heari about. I do find it slightly strange, though, that your agencies then insisted on you appearing before th committee in person which im not sure is quite the message you want to send during this time of rising covid cases. Just a thought for you to have before. My first question is for mr. Borland. Before the pandemic, your agency reported it was moving away from telework because because it cou evaluate the impa of telework on Public Services and didnt have the metrics in place to ensure accountability. Today your agency is working to put these controls and metrics in plac and there are media reports that employees are successfully decreasing the backlog of claims in this situation. So could you tell me, what has ssa learned about telework in recent months to cause it to change direction dramatically and how do these learnings inform your decisions moving forward . Thank you for that questio senator sinema. Tework is not one si fits all. We obviously have a core Public Service function, but that manifests self in many, many different kinds of work. So prior to the pandec we did reevaluate our tework program to focus on accountability and to ensure that we could address our Public Service challenges. I think that we a recognize thathe Social Security administration is serving the 10,000 baby boomers that retire every day. So thats claims for medire, claims for rtirement benefits and Public Service has always been so very fundamental to our mission. So in thereevaluation of our Telework Program, becausewe did not have a historically adequate metric and as my colleague said, adequate Program Evaluation, e succumb opponent determined telework eligibility based on Public Service needs and the ability to ensure account ability. Thank you. I have a followup questionor you as well. One of the challenges this pandemic has been recognizing that some jobs cant be done fully or even partially through telework. Earlyn the pandemic, my arizona Case Work Team was fielding calls from constituents who were having a hard time getting Social Security cards replaced at their local field offices and access to onlineonly services can be difficult in rural areas or areas where access to a computer is limited. How are you collecting and considering feedback from beneficiaries as you review the shift to maximum telework and assess these practices moving forward . Thank you. Its a Perfect Question to pose to me because im a technology guy. And we are looking at new ways to use technology. I mentioned our nonpartable work. Our nonportable work is not portable because theres not technology to support that. But thats not its one of the Lessons Learned of trying to serve the American Public remotely. And specifically with regard to Social Security cards, we are looking at the use of technology, Video Technology and the ability to rather than inspect a physical, for example, drivers license, confirm a drivers license features for a day exchange, realtime so that we could use a combination of Data Exchange and Video Technology to handle Social Security workloads, the technology is there. But we, until the pandemic, we werent looking at it. We are looking at it now very, very seriously. Thank you. I appreciate that. My next question is for mrs. Rose. Inspectors have to be on site to perform inspections, but some portion of their jobs can be done remotely. Employees have shared with our committee that theyre not being granted permission for partial telework and even more concerning, some employees are not asking their supervisors for telework over fears of retaliation. How is d. O. L. Working to overcome longstanding prejudice against telework so all employees who are eligible and able can do so for a portion of their job and what mechanisms is d. O. L. Using to deny telework without fear of retaliation. Thank you so much for that question. 99 of dol employees at this time are eligible for telework and up to 98 of our employees are teleworking almost every day and th does including our safety inspectors and other employees who work in the field performing enforcement and inspection duties. We have encouraged our safety expert t experters and other employees to telework as much as feasible. Other portions of their job require them to continue to remain in the field. We make sure that they have ppe and they are properly equipped and trained when they have to go into public areas to perform inspection and enforcement duties. But were also working very hard to make sure that those portions of their job that dont require them to be on site are done remotely, safely and with social distancing. We meet on a regular, reoccurring basis with their Union Representatives to discuss their concerns and issues, our assistant secretary for administration and management is meeting on a weekly basis with leadersp and representatives of our three bargaining units to address the kinds of concerns that ure sharing today and to make sure that we have solutions and we work collaboratively with the union to craft those solutions. I appreciate that. And we may follow up with some of the concerns weve heard from employees as well. Thank you. My timeis soon to expire. But i have one last question for mr. Washington. In may, transportations chief Information Officer was quoted in a federal times article that noted your agency is, quote, absolutely seeing an increase in productivity, end quote, across the workforce. How are you measuring these increases in productivity and to what do you tribute those increases to . Thank you so much for that question, senator. We do believe that productivity has increased at the department of transportation and were proud that the department of transportation employees have risen to the occasion. One example, we wanted metrics for assessing productivity, so we did do a survey to survey our managers and were proud to report that 55 of them felt that their work unit was even more effective during the covid19 pandemic. So that is one metric that we use, the survey. Also when Congress Approved the c. A. R. E. S. Act, the federal transit administration, they were able to obligate all of the funding to the stakeholders over 24 billion ahead of the statutory deadline. There are numerous examples of the productivity enhancements as a result of the remote environment at the department of transportation. Thank you so much, mr. Washington. I yield back. Would you like to do a second round . Yes, i will. Well make sure we reserve that as well. I know we have senator rosen is joining us in just a moment. Let me ask a few questions until senator rosen is able to join us remotely as well. I want to zero in on some of the things that gao has established. Gao has looked at this issue of telework for a long time. Theres one statement that stuck out to me on it. The statement from gao, you said this about Performance Management, agencies should establish guidelines to minimize adverse impacts that telework can have on nonteleworker providelarity fo us. Whadid you mean by that thank you, senator. We dont want to crea disagreements between those who can telework and those who cannot by forcing those o are in the office to take up responsibilities of those th are telerking. Whether that means physically moving documents or doing work that cant be done remotely. And so you want to make sure that if there are times that someone who is not teleworking needs to stand in for someone who is, that there isquity in that and so that responsibilities are shared aoss both those who telework and those who dont. Let me provide a little color to this and how ill ask you this question. Severalears ago, i was visiting one of our agencies, and ill leave the agency out as i do th. I was visiting one of our encies and it happened to be on a friday, Walking Around through the cubical farm in that particular entity and talking to different employees ere, how is it going . How is the morale . And in the dialogue, i heard repetitively, its friday, so half of our people arent here. Theyre, quote unquote, teleworking. But i know theyre just not working today. And they were angry. Im working hard, they took the day off, but they say, quote unquote, teleworkg. When i read that statement from gao, i thought, i personally heard that where individls felt like they were carrying the burden. Just about everybody has been teleworking. Theres not been an option here back and forth. In the days ahead, we look forward to the time we have a vaccine and we have that option again. What would you recommend to your because what i was picking up from people that were not teleworking was a sense that the people that were teleworking were not being held to account, that the same metrics werent being used for them for productivity as it was for those who were in the office for productivity. Thank you for that. One of the key practices that we emphasize is that the performance appraisal system and Performance Management needs to treat teleworkers and nontell workers the same. They need to be rated on the same competencies and judged accordingly. I think one of the issues is that telework requires a different way of managing staff. As opposed to managing by observation, you need to manage by results. We would also suggest that someone that you have a performance issue with, you are likely to have that performance issue with them regardless whether theyre teleworking or in the office, and finally if somebody you cannot observe is not working, thats not a telework issue but that is a trust issue. Again, that goes backo that holding staff accountable for the results a the time frames and theork oducts that theyre supposed to produce regardless of where theyr worki. Thank you. At the department of labor, e your managers able to hold teleworkers to account to be able to check in on them, evaluate, to be able to have metrics performances, this is not new to the department of labor. Youve done telework for a long ti and you have a log t t of workers that telework. What authorities does your management have or what boundaries do they have in their management capabilities in the Office Versus in telework situation . Thank you, senator. Weve worked hard with your managers and supervisors to make sure they feel equipped and supporteto manage in a virtual environment. As youve acknowledged, its different to supervise someone remotely than it is someone that you can see physically throughout the workday and check in on periodically. Weve been able to Leverage Technology to replicate as much of a reallife experience as possible just as were doing today with a partially virtual hearing. We find that works very well. Our Performance Management system for years at d. O. L. Has been metricsbased and we really work hard to make sure that all employees performance plans are linked to departmental and agency operating plans and contain quantifiable measures. Im delighted to report that weve just completed our 2020 performance year and have noticed no appreciable decrease productivity or achievement against those operating plan metrics the whole time weve been teleworking. Its interesting to note not a day goes that i dont have managers tell me that they cant believe how well telework is expects. And they say, i dont know what i expected, but im surprised and happy that it is going so well. So the training, the support and the performance elements that were holding employees to seem to be working. I want to loop you into this conversation. Both of you deal with a lot of privacy information. More so than many other enties do, obviously, every agency ds some. B you deal with a lot for bot of your entities. Not onlywith your own employees dealing with that, but theres also as weve mentioned ready there are individuals trying to get access to you. I had the same calls into my constituent services and caseworkers, those callsould come i saying im trying to g a Social Securityard replaced d i cant get anyone there and we have an extra hule in oklahoma that were trng to get all of our real i. D. Stuff all worked out and its made it much more complicated d physically putting documents in the mail and iling them to you has been a challenge for deptment of labor, ive had individuals that have contacted me that said love the flexibility that we have because we have employees that weve hired remotely and were not having to physically handle their documents this year. Were given authority to bable to virtually look at their license, virtlly look at their birth ceificate for an i9 and theyre wondering how do we keep that. Theres twsides of this, the dialogue for our customers, our taxpayers to say, how can they get that flexibility and for the agency how can they continue to maintain private information as private and secure . Your i. T. Genius in this conversation. Im going to let you take off on this first. Thank yo thank you, senator. We hold some very, very private information of the American Public and very valuable information. And while telework is not new for us, technology does give us opportunities to ensure the continued protection of that information. First, i think we were one of the first agencies to implement a twofactor authentication for our employees and contractors so that we have logical and physical access through our personal Identity Verification cards. Our Network Monitoring is similar to but not the same as prepandemic. And when i say that, when you take a workforce that is connected to the wall and immediately swing it to connect to the internet, there are some specific challenges there. We were able to pivot and change the way we do things like scanning for vulnerabilities and remediating them. We also look at from an integrity standpoint, we have a longstanding process for monitoring transactions that take place within our systems to make sure that no one, employees or the public, are misusing the access to the systems that they have. Our employees, again our Information Security policy is very clear. We do not allow bring your own device. Employees are not allowed to print at home. Weve done extensive telework training in cybersecurity training for our Remote Workforce and we think that th has probably improved our security posture, at we have some unique changes im sorry, some unique challees in being remote. Any thoughts that you have for the end user, for the taxpayer themselves and their use of digital items to be able to submit, are there statutory limitations of that, or is it Just Technology limitations . There are some limitations. Some statutory, some regulatory, but technology can overcome some of those challenges. As i mentioned in response to my other question, we are looking at how we can use Data Exchanges to verify identity documents so they do not have to be physically produced. Ms. Rose, do you want to make a comment on this, as far as protecting private information and giving the flexibility to individuals to be able to submit their information . Yes, thank you, senator. We have implemented many of these same security protocols that the Social Security administration has in place. Were using multifactor authentication, we do not permit Sensitive Data to be accessed on anything but governmentprovided d. O. L. Computers. So we feel that we have an environment and weve worked closely with our colleagues in the Information Technology office to make sure that environment stays safe and secure. We have on boarded over 1,000 people now virtually since the pandemic started. And we have gotten extremely positive feedback from all of the users, the people who are being on boarded, the supervisors and managers who are welcoming new employees in, a lot of people have commented on the ease of the on boarding process because we have converted all of those paperbased forms to the computer. Weve done away with wet signature everywhere we can. Were using digital signatures now. We provide the oathof office virtually and we will probably continue that process with Lessons Learned beyond the pandemic. It has been so successful and it has made facetoface contact with people who are remotely duty stations much more effective and vibrant. Were going to come back to that as well. I want to recognize senator sinema. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Ms. Rose, one thing i noticed is that the policies vary based across agencies and even sometimes within offices inside agencies. So it makes it pretty confusing for federal employees and challenging for congress to track. Are there recommendations that you would make to congress to better standardize Agency Policies and the tracking of those policies as we look at telework in a postpandemic world . Thank you, senator. Thats a very good question. So one of our key practices is that eligibility be based on be approved on an equitable basis is that the criteria be things such as the suitability of tests to a remote environment and employee performance. So i think the key is to ensure that agencies have concrete Eligibility Criteria that are based on those types of things and that are applied consistently across the agency. I would say that i would make sense that there would be some variation among agencies since their missions differ and the type of work differs and, of course, some positions are less suitable for remote or telework than others. Thank you. Ms. Rose, given the broad success of telework during the pandemic, how are you approaching plans to move employees back on site once this Public Health emergency is over and what data are you examining to ensure that on site work is safe and essential . We have worked very hard and long, senator, on our reopening plans as it were. We will take a phased approach. We will follow state and local guidelines in doing that and follow the governmentprescribed criteria to bring people back. We have put safety procedures and protocols in place in all of our Government Office space, things that include the wearing of masks in public and common spaces. Weve put in plexiglass barriers and shields so that people who face the public in the office are protected and the public is protected. And weve set up seating ska met ticks so people are not working on top of each other or directly next to each other. Well continue to leverage telework with an onsite presence in order to maximize social distancing in what have been fairly traditionally close working spaces in cubicles and the movement away from fourwall offices. So we have gotten a lot of information about safety and security out to our workforce already. Everything is posted on our internet and we will continue to work with our labor unions and our employees as we move back to a traditional work posture to make sure people feel safe, secure and protected and are safe, secure and protected. Your agency is unique in not only were you transitioning your own employees to telework, but you were releasing guidance to the Broader Workforce to best practices. I realize that private sector guidance is not your area of expertise but i would like to follow up with your agency on this topic. Yes. Guidance on telework external to the federal government has been provided. It is my understanding by our wage and Hour Division and we would be happy to get you that information. I appreciate that. Focusi on the department of labors rkforce, can you share any instances where work you initially thought had to be done in an office space ended up being compatible with telework . And are any of these instances relate to changing labors view of determining telework eligibility . We had a higher percentage of people whose jobs were not considered telework eligible under the telework enhancement act prior to the pandemic and our managers and supervisors have worked to see how those positions can be refmatted, how duties and responsibilities can be reallocate asked how technology can be leveraged using data on forms that have now been converted to digital so we could send more of our employees home to work during the pandemic. We have very few jobs that require an inoffice, onsite presence, jobs like receptionist, jobs like mail clerk, jobs like building engineer and even with those positions, weve tried to find duties and responsibilities that are discreet and unique and compatible to moving into a remote work environment, even if its parttime. Thank you. Mr. Washington, inyour testimony, you noted that your agency was considering a new remote work policy before the pandemic. Looking ahead, i think as we all are, to a nonpandemic situation, what advantage wills a robust remote work policy bringto your agency and what barriers do you foresee in implementing such a policy. Thank you, senator, for that question. We were considering a remote policy prior to the pandemic and were continuing to assess that. But one of the rational for it was to help us with the ability to recruit and retain talent. And what we found in the National Capital area where we compete for hr specialists and acquisition specialists among each other, i see my colleague in labor nodding her head, that has been a challenge. So were hoping that if we can broaden the applicant pol nationwide, that we can really recruit and retain employees at a better rate so that it will really improve our attrition. So that our rational. Weve learned a lot over the last few months. So were trying to make that Business Case before Going Forward with our remote policy. Were benchmarking with the private sector and our stakeholders at other federal agencies as well. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, that concludes my round of questioning. And thank you for holding this hearing again. Thank you for your participation in the hearing as well. Mr. Washington, i want to continue to press this and i want to talk to all four of you on this one issue, its about hiring. It is a shift in perspective because many of the telework individuals are people that are connected to the office and they telework one day a week, two days a week, three days a week, but theyre in the office or maybe theyre in the office once a month or whatever it maybe, but theres a physical connection here. Theres a paradigm shift in the conversation to say weve now learned that we can not only telework five days a week, but we can do that month after month after month and it begs the basic question, why couldnt you hire someone in oklahoma to be able to do a task for an agency thats based in washington, d. C. . Whats the difference between washington, d. C. , Northern Virginia, oklahoma and arizona for actually bringing people on board . And the practical question is, theres not one. It also opens up a significant job opportunity to, lets say, spouses of our military which often are working in very remote areas by definition, a base or a post is very far from another area and there are very few Jobs Available, but they could work at department of transportation in a telework situation even if theyre in beautiful, fabulous oklahoma where there arent as many Jobs Available in that area because its a remote training area. So thats whether youre Border Patrol and youre assign today the northern border in north dakota in a remote area and youre a spouse and you dont have many options or youre a military spouse, this opens up a lot of options for the spouses to help the other federal families, not to mention a lot of other people who want to work in other areas. I wants to drill down, what would prohibit you in the regulatory space or the statutory requirements or just in practical engagement from not hiring people that you literally never plan to meet or if you do plan to meet, it may be an annual meeting at some point in the future, but youre talking about on boarding, supervising, working at a distance, with no intention that theyll drive in once a week to be able to ever connect with the office on that. What would prohibit that . Mr. Washington, you first. Thank you so much for your comments and thats so interesting that you mention military spouses because i just hathat conversation with a colleague a couple weeks ago because, you know, with a lot of military spouses, you bring the person on board, you train them, theyre an excellent employee and then the veteran is deployed somewhere and you dont want to lose your investment. Weve been flexible prepandemic at the didnt of transportation with allowing employees to, you know, transition and work remotely. Were hoping as a result of a lot of our Lessons Learned from the Health Emergency that managers would be more receptive. I think its more of a culture change and were compiling a lot of the data to build that Business Case to have a more rigorous remote work policy. But i think a lot of it is culture cnge. Theres not anything regulatory right now that you couldnt do that today or that you couldnt do that in a decision you want to make . Im not aware of regulatory barriers. In fact, there could be cost savings if the employee is working in oklahoma or a rural area where the cost of living and the locality pay is cheaper, there could be cost savings associated with that. I would think the exact same thing. Im grateful to say that oklahoma has a much lower cost of living than Northern Virginia. And so hiring people out of Northern Virginia rather than hiring people out of oklahoma or so many other great states scattered around the country, theres a cost savings there and theres a ready workforce that may be interested to take that on in another group of people you could recruit from. Talk to me about this on the hiring side of this, why wouldnt that work and what are the barrier that is you see. It absolutely would work and it does work. We had already started making that shift at the Labor Department just as the Transportation Department has. It was a paradigm shift for some of our managers and supervisors who have now had their you are ree ka moment, i have an employee pool that is the entire United States not just the d. C. Metro area. Were announcing jobs at this time for all locations. No longer just a washington, d. C. Duty station or a chicago, illinois, duty station. In the office of Human Resources itself, about a third of my staff is 100 remote telework and that will continue permanently beyond the pandemic because of where theyre located and where theyre working. I just had an employee in my office whose husband was posted to germany and shie was going t accompanying him to frankfurt and shes still working for us and will continue to work for me full time for his entire assign in germany. Its the best and we have found that employees outside the washington, d. C. , area stay longer. They are happy to see working with the agency that recruited them and hired them. Employment and washington tends to be a revolving door and it goes around and around and around. Im delighted that we can now access a much bigger applicant pool of very qualified people. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, senator. I think looking at across government. The patent and Trademark Office has been doing this for years and so i dont believe there are any regulatory or statutory barriers to permanently outstationing or having, you know, kind of a work from anywhere situation. And i think that we have learned in Social Security that whether it be provisioning security credentials or laptops or cell phones, providing training, that work can be done remotely. The workforce can be remote. We have been addressing challenges, Public Service challenges on our 800 number and we have new 800 number agency that received all of their equipment, their security credentials, their on boding, their orientation and their training remotely. And theyre wrking from home. Let me rine this question, not only just for your agency as well, but washington, d. C. , is one of the most expensive real estate areas in the country. Is there a potential that this could be a costsavings issue that agencies could, if they worked through the process, determine, i dont need as big of a footprint here in washington, d. C. , to be able to hire people knowing i going to assume im going to have 25 or 20 or 40 , whatever the could be hired anywhere in the wod for any american citizen. That would be a change in shift in how we manage things. So i am asking you first. Potential for cost savings in two ways. Individual salaries based on where officials are stationed anif the official duty station is tir home or a telework location less expensive area salaries could be reduced and could mean savings for agencies in terms of that. Gao moves to expand telework, enabled us to reduce our footprint in regional offices and reduce the amount of lse space as well as our headquarters, to other agencies since we needed physical space in the building. I see that you are there. I would love you to join the conversation and open up for questions. Thank you. The second hearing on telework, the federal workforce how you are coping with the stresses of pandemics that Everyone Needs in the way that i am glad we are coming to gather in a bipartisan way, cybersecurity, and the transition of Office Environment maintaining cybersecure ready. Small organizations face challenges like resource constrained, increasingly sophisticated cyberthreats, we know how destructive ran somewhere can be for agencies so to address this vulnerability i introduced along with Bipartisan Legislation with senator moran requiring coordination to publish a network of telework related cybersecurity best practices for Small Organization including Small Businesses and governmental jurisdictions, we had issues with ran somewhere attacks in my state and across the country. But large federal agencies facing unprecedented cybersecurity challenges so can you tell us what you access to be the most significant and prevalent challenges federal agencies are facing when implementing Cyber Security practices and that put out guidelines and a lot of work on that, those best practices reach our federal workforce. What i could say to you is we have ongoing work, information and Cyber Security looking at selective federal agencies experiences have been in implementing Telework Solutions in response to the pandemic and to what extent the agencies inject federal information implementing those solutions, the initial phases expects to issue somhing this summer. Anye else want to talk about cybersecurity practices or how to help them to overcome those cybersecurity challenges protecting personal information paicularly Social Security administration. Thank you for that queson. Something senator carper said earlier, the agency have a close anproductive working relationship, we need to, cybersecurity is of critical importance when it comes to protecting personal information and Social Security and that information. We have found the concept to be so incredibly helpful because they have the ability to do threat assessmt and intelligence gathering that even as a Large Federal Agency take many resources to appoint is so when we get binding operational directive we know it has been fairly researched. It ia real threat. They give us advice what to do and our goal is to get it done and so in that regard the advice, the direction really hasnt major overflight in improving and sustaining strong cybersecurity posture. If anyone else wants to respond, one other question in my remaining time, the general public are deep pending on our services for Social Security checks, va benefits, so many things that will benefit all of us in the long run, maintenance of public land. At a time when reliable in formation is so important we have to have the public trust our federal agencies to offer services and accurate response so if anyone would like to address this can you talk about how you met the pandemic challenges in terms of Public Services, Customer Service especially that aspect you are missing out on. What kind of adaptations do you have to make and i know there are benefits but what are we missing and what can we help you do better . Some things get lost in translation. Would be happy to. When the pandec was declared by the World Health Organization we quickly swung to maximize telework but we also made the decision to close our offices. As i mentioned in my opening remarks the population is particularly vulnerable to covid19 a because of the nature of the work you need to protect employees and the public. We made the decision to close our offices but swung immediately to a Public Information campaign to make sure local community is know that buildings were closed at our employees were working, they could be reached at the phone number for local Social Security office and if you have claims to reach the claims route, the number of services past different challenges, ones that we were able to overcome pretty quickly, a situation with a telephone platform and only 25 of our employees workedn that office, to reengineer a solution that would allow the 800 number employees to use the system that is used in our field offices so we can quickly telework enable all of our agents. I am happy to say we just ended our fiscal year, met our average speed, our 800 number as low as we wanted to be and we will keep working hard to provide Better Service to the public. Speaking from my own experience when you try to do something with Customer Service, it is nice to get to a person and if you call back, some things, the ability of continuity with the same person important to resolving a case without having to revisit it and satisfaction for every one so i appreciate it yields back my time. Thank you. I want to ask a couple more questions. You talked about Lessons Learned, one of the challenges we have all discussed is a different dynamic on boarding someone you have never met, not interacting with on a daily basis and the challenges you have typically when you land in the middle of a cubicle farm and dont know how to fill out a certain form or a certain price as you turn to the person next to you. You dont have that at this point when working remotely, you dont know the people you work around or who else to call in the team that is doing the same job to help you in the process. You dont know your manager and your manager doesnt know you. What lessons have you learned at this point and i would be interested in the three of you if you have specific ideas about onboarding, mentoring, helping people in the earliest days to be of protective value, what lessons youve learned because if we are going to start hiring people no matter where they live we have to take what we learned in this time period and accelerate that in the broader perspective so anyone can answer the question and if you have additional insight, miss rose, go first. That is an important deck at a vital lesson learned. We knew very early on we would have to stay engaged with our employees if we are not going to be physically cold located with some. Weve provided training to managers and supervisors how to manage and supervise in a virtual environment and we have leveraged Information Technology to every extent possible to try to replicate a realtime facetoface experience for our employees and supervisors so we are using programs like teams and skype so that people can have conversations in person, digitally, and see one another because that makes a difference in getting to know someone. We tried to replicate some of our morale boosting experiences in a virtual environment. We will launch our secretarys honor Award Ceremony tomorrow and it will be conducted virtually but it will be streamed so that all of our employees can participate and send congratulations to their colleagues just as they would if we were having the ceremony in our auditorium. It takes a lot of effort and you have to rethink the way you do things but technology has given us the ability to be almost as good as being there if we try and we use it. Of followup question. As you gather this information and have new training modules, are they sharing that with each other or is every agency developing their own idea because they were ramping up through this time period how much collaboration is there agency to agency to say this is good for onboarding or this metric to be good for mentoring performance and evaluating this in a remote setting so is collaboration happening at what level, i dont expect us to be perfect at this and what does it look like . We have collaborative calls, we have not done as much sharing of Lessons Learned as i think we will coming out of this. We are still in the thick of it. We talk to each other on casebycase individual basis. It is a small community, collaboration vehicle as we gain more experiences. We want to help in that process and we are engaged in this. I dont want to have a contractor put together a good training module and sell it to you and sell it to you and filter you and to you and suddenly the taxpayers not getting good bang for the buck because one contractor created something really good and now selling at all over the place when we could buy that license once and use it government wide if we use to. Anything to add . We have identified a sponsor for any new staff before they come aboard so they have it as a resource they could reach out to, the practices have been in trickle to the department of transportation all over the country so when the pandemic hit, with the hr directors able to raise challenges and talk about best practices so that has been very integral to our success. Anything you want to add . It was particularly helpful but rudimentary and persistence, giving folks, the water core place to check in during the day, ask questions, touch base and we found it to be very effective in keeping those connections that we are used to from our physical workspace and perpetuate and make widespread use of video, video teleconference for meetings, many have forgotten how to use their telephones because they are used to clicking and calling them. Lots of Great Technology out there but the important part of the use of technology is the Human Connection that is why we are moving towards video as well as audio to make that Human Connection. Weve been isolated a long time and it is good to see my colleagues from time to time. I cant tell you how many times ive heard in the last few months when iran into someone in person their first responses it is nice to see a person. Anything you want to add as well . I would echo the sentents, maintaining that social nnectedness and being creative in the way youo it is important. One thing i would add is as part of the continui communication employees need to change over time and you need adapt as employees need are changing, we learned that as the pandemic has lasted longer than any of us had hoped, we had to adjust the resources we provide to staff and outreach to them and they are facing change. This is lasted longer than any of us had thought or hoped. I remember conversations in early march saying by easter and fill in the blank, didnt realize it was easter 2021 but the reality of where we are today. I have 9 hours of questions for each of you but you will be glad a vote has been called so wont be able to do 9 hours of questions with you but appreciate your insight. Let me ask one favor of all of you. As you work through this process you are going to bump into regulations and statutory prohibitions of the things you think need to be done. This is the committee that will work on those things. When you run into statutory problems or regulatory issues share them with us and dont assume congress doesnt care to hear this, we are just not doing the same thing you are doing all day every day. We are not going to see it at the same level you are. When you see statutory barriers or a regulatory issue that needs to be addressed share it with our committee. We will continue to work on this because this is a paradigm shift for how we work as a federal government opening a larger pool of individuals that work with us and with greater flexibility on the tasks we have. We always have in person and in washington dc with agency heads and all those things to interact with those face to face meetings that need to occur but we have millions of people around the country that would love to serve their country by serving in one of these agencies and i would love them to have the opportunity to do that as well and compete to end up on someones list as well candidate well qualified candidate who lives in oklahoma and be able to compete for those taxes as well so i look forward to ongoing dialogue about these issues and continue to keep that communication going as we pulled together different ideas. Senator sinema and i have started the conversation, we are helpful in this process as well but as the legislative team has ideas make sure those are being shared with us on a timely basis. That concludes the heang. I look im grateful forhe witnesses that are here in the time you have shared with us. The hearing record will remain open for 15 days and will close of business on december 3rd, 15 days from now, for the submission statement and questions for the record. Thank you for your continued service, look forward to getting a chance to Work Together on this, series is adjourned. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] thank you so much. Thanks for your preparation on it. Really is a good one. At the end, the synergy goes back to the february work. Anything we can do to accelerate this we have other opportunities that are here, a dialogue for years how to do it and figure out how to do it. Ironic it takes Something Like the pandemic to force the issue but when i saw your number, increasing the number of people who telework from last year to this year and organize that cell everybody most of your telework was one or 2 days. And expand the applicants it is just amazing. We get a fight on that and longterm there will be a battle and do that as well but i predict that a bunch of folks in april or may will get into a traffic jam and drive into the office. I could have done my job without getting into this traffic jam. They are either going to go to another place, if we dont lose good people are figure out a way to handle it so thanks for thinking ahead on that on collaboration, sharing Trading Tools and modules. That was a good point too. They will try to tell each one of us. Each department in the agency. All they will do is replace the logo. Resale the thing over again. This is helpful with circumstances. Okay. Thank you so much. Good to see you. You too. Thanks. [inaudible conversations] with coronavirus cases increasing across the country use our website, cspan. Org coronavirus to follow the trends to track the spread with interactive maps and watch updates on demand any time, cspan. Org coronavirus. Tuesday treasury secretary Steve Mnuchin and Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell on capitol hill for a Senate Banking hearing on the Coronavirus Response live at 10 am eastern on cspan. 3 00 pm a discussion on Economic Policy under the Incoming Biden Administration for the brookings institution. On cspan2 the senate returned at 10 am eastern to consider judicial nominations at 12 30 a. M. President elect joe biden introduces an economic personal which includes the nominations of janet yellen as treasury secretary and white house budget director. Next a discussion on the role of the latino electorate in the 2020 election. Ucla and the Aspen Institute hosted this panel looking at the impact of arizona in texas. This is just over an hour. Todays event promises to be an engaging and informing postelection analysis
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