As Congress pushes to bring federal workers back to the workplace, the government's human resources chief this week made the case for one agency's group of employees to continue working remotely.
During a House Oversight and Accountability Committee hearing on Wednesday, Office of Personnel Management Director Rob Schriver responded to concerns, mostly from Republicans, about the federal government's telework policy by stating that telework practices help cybersecurity talent advance agency missions.
“You're not going to be able to recruit the talent you need if you require cybersecurity professionals to come into the office five days a week,” Schreiber said. “I think agencies need to continue to work to make sure they're doing it right and that these arrangements are leading to good business results.”
Shriver's comments come weeks after Sens. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) and Joe Manchin (D-Va.) introduced legislation that would require federal employees to spend 60% of their time in the office. And legislation introduced last month by Sens. Gary Peters (D-Mich.) and Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) would require agencies to collect teleworking data and better monitor the impact of teleworking practices on performance metrics.
In his testimony, Schreiber noted that OPM assists and supports agencies working to retain and attract cyber talent across the federal government. He also said the agency supports the Tech to Gov initiative, which “connects aspiring tech talent with federal job opportunities and helps strengthen agencies' cyber and emerging technology programs.”
These efforts follow White House moves to relax education requirements for some cybersecurity contracting jobs, move toward skills-based hiring, and diversify the cybersecurity workforce.
Matt Bracken contributed to this story.
