Sponsors (2)
The bill standardizes and increases oversight of federal remote work while expanding targeted noncompetitive hiring to support veterans and military families — trading broader consistency and potential efficiency gains for increased administrative costs, reduced competition for some hires, privacy concerns, and limits on remote-work predictability for employees.
All federal employees and taxpayers: establishes standardized federal definitions and rules for telework/remote work, requires manager training, agency tracking, and public reporting — improving consistency, oversight, and enabling agencies to identify productivity and cost efficiencies.
Veterans who meet covered-veteran criteria: allows noncompetitive appointment to permanent remote federal jobs, improving hiring prospects and access to federal employment.
Spouses of active-duty service members and spouses of law enforcement officers: creates authority/pilot to fill permanent remote jobs noncompetitively, easing employment disruption from frequent relocations and helping household economic stability/retention.
Job seekers and current federal employees: expands noncompetitive hiring for veterans, military spouses, and certain law-enforcement spouses, which reduces open competition and can limit fair hiring opportunities and career advancement for others.
Federal agencies and taxpayers: extensive recurring reporting and implementation requirements (monthly OMB reports for years, surveys, rulemaking, evaluation reports) impose substantial administrative burden and costs on agencies.
Federal employees seeking remote work: authority for agencies to require periodic in-person reporting, discretionary approvals, and to limit written remote agreements to one year (with possible restrictions for discipline/performance) reduces predictability and long-term flexibility.
Based on analysis of 3 sections of legislative text.
Introduced January 13, 2025 by James Lankford · Last progress January 13, 2025
Creates a single federal framework that defines telework and a new category called "remote work" (full‑time work from an approved offsite location), sets national rules for telework/remote agreements and reviews, limits certain compensation or reimbursement when an approved alternative worksite is within 75 miles of the agency worksite, requires annual manager training and systems to confirm employees work only at approved worksites, and establishes expanded reporting, security guidance, and OPM/OMB roles. It also authorizes limited noncompetitive hiring for qualified covered veterans and certain spouses into agency-designated remote work positions and creates a 7-year pilot to allow noncompetitive appointment of spouses of law enforcement officers into remote positions, with periodic reporting requirements. Implements multiple compliance deadlines (180 days, 1 year, 2 years in places), protections for preexisting collective bargaining agreements up to specified dates, increased monitoring and public reporting (including monthly OMB reports for five years), and regulatory tasks for OPM, OMB, DHS, and NIST; does not specify dedicated appropriations in the text provided.