WASHINGTON, June 15 (UPI) -- The Defense Information Systems agency has dramatically expanded its telework program.
The number of employees who qualify for DISA's telework program has increased by more than 1,000 since a policy change last December, GovExec.com reported Tuesday.
Senior officials hope the expanded telework program will help with retention and recruitment as the agency moves from Northern Virginia to a military base south of Baltimore -- a transition scheduled to be completed in 2010, the report said.
Jack Penkoske, DISA's manpower, personnel and security director, said last week that the agency's work away from the office program is "beginning to flourish."
The number of employees now eligible is more than 1,400 out of the agency's total workforce of about 5,000. Before the new policies were announced, about 400 employees qualified, the report said.
Since the program was expanded in December, the highest number of employees actually teleworking in a given pay period was 356 in early May, a DISA spokesman said.
Under the new policy, approved employees can work out of the office four days during each two-week-long pay period. The agency's policy is to provide 90 percent of all of its employees with a laptop and docking station. DISA will cover half of teleworkers' home broadband Internet costs, Penkoske said.
Aaron Glover, special assistant to director of manpower, personnel, and security at DISA, said that once the agency's director, Lt. Gen. Charlie Croom, put his support behind the new telework policy, managers were instructed to review their workforce and determine which positions were telework-eligible.
"The three-star general that leads the place says the only person that can't telework is his driver," Penkoske said at a panel discussion on telework and continuity of operations planning hosted by the Reston, Va.-based market research firm INPUT, GovExec.com said.
