Long before the U.S. Office of Personnel Management started surveying Federal employees to gauge how happy they were with their jobs, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) was determined to find ways to help its employees successfully balance their work/life responsibilities and ensure overall job satisfaction.

The bureau – which was created not quite 20 years ago within the Department of the Treasury to investigate and prosecute financial crimes – decided that telework would be an anchor benefit to support high levels of employee contentment while maximizing productivity.

Bureau officials initiated the telework program in January 2003. Currently, 38 percent of the agency's 300-employee workforce telework, mainly on an "episodic" basis though more increasingly telework on a regular basis. Teleworkers include Budget Analysts, Intelligence Research Specialists, IT Specialists, Compliance Specialists, Human Resources Specialists, and at least one Attorney.

The program is seen as critical not only for productivity and employee job satisfaction, but also as a key component of FinCEN's Continuity of Operations (COOP) planning and pandemic response plans.

Patti Jean Warren, Worklife Coordinator for FinCEN, says that managers and employees have become strong telework advocates. "One employee commented recently that on her first two telework days, she completed a project that previously took most of a workweek to complete in the office," Warren notes. "She could not believe how much more productive she was at home."

Warren herself was able to telework for a full two weeks while caring for her husband, who was convalescing at home after foot surgery. Ironically, one of the first e-mails she opened on her first telework day was from an employee who also was scheduled to have foot surgery and wanted permission to telework during his recuperation.

While some bureau officials were enthusiastic about telework, they also were careful to take a deliberate, pragmatic approach to implementing the work arrangement, Warren says. Before launching the program, FinCEN ran a three-month pilot program to test the feasibility of telework, and the agency's telework policy provides employees the opportunity to telework only "where practical and consistent in meeting mission objectives."

FinCEN hosts mandatory training for employees and their managers before a formal Telework Agreement can be completed and approved, and employees also must complete a Remote Access Agreement and a Home Office Safety Checklist.

The mandatory training covers four topics: human resources issues, home office safety, remote access, and physical and information security. The initial training courses were done in a lecture series, but videotaped versions recently were uploaded to the Treasury Learning Management System (TLMS), Warren explains. "Now an employee can go into TLMS and complete the training when they have time. This approach allows me as the Telework Coordinator to track training completion as well," she says.

Warren credits the initial pilot, the mandatory training, and completion of necessary forms as critical best practices to FinCEN's overall telework success. "We have a solid program that is increasing in numbers, and managers are getting on board," she states. "Most managers are willing to give it a try and are working to accommodate employees by approving Telework Agreements when practical and consistent in fulfilling the bureau's mission and meeting its objectives."

The goal now is to get 100 percent of the FinCEN workforce approved for telework. "This does not mean that everyone will telework, but that they could," notes Warren. "Since I can retire in less than two years, I probably will not see it, but I want the policy and procedures in place so that it can happen."