Hearing of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Subcommittee on Federal Workforce- Telework: Breaking New Ground?

Interview

Hearing of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Subcommittee on Federal Workforce- Telework: Breaking New Ground?

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REP. ISSA: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm going to concentrate on a couple of areas of questions that I think are in some -- the first couple are going to be sort of government related.

Mr. Wilke?

MR. WILKE: Yes?

REP. ISSA: You're living in Chicago area. You work for an entity that is Washington based. We pay a premium at the PTO for people to work here in Washington. How does that work for you in that you've chosen to live in an area that has a certain cost versus the District of Columbia area?

MR. WILKE: Well, my duty station is still Washington, D.C. I have to --

REP. ISSA: Do you think that's fair to the federal government that you get paid a premium for Washington, D.C. while you could live anywhere in the world at any cost? Or do you think the federal government, if they allow telecommuting, should in fact not pay a premium for where you either choose to live as a high area or choose to live as a low area, that there should be one national rate if we allow telecommuting?

MR. WILKE: Well, I don't know about whether there should be one national rate, but I think it would be fair to let everybody be compensated in accordance with the cost of their location.

REP. ISSA: Why? Why should the federal government subsidize somebody's choice of where they're going to live? If we're going to have telecommuting, if we're going to pay for the cost of wherever you choose to be -- and this is a private sector question to the public -- but shouldn't we essentially say we're not going to pay a premium for where you choose to live? I mean, you could be doing this in Maui; would we pay a little higher because you chose to be in Maui than if you chose to be in Arkansas? Would you think that's fair? I happen to think you have a lovely basement, but should I pay a difference based on where you're basement is?

MR. WILKE: Well, in this case, if I was actually -- my duty station was Chicago, you would be paying a premium because Chicago is slightly a higher cost area than Washington, D.C. I'm fine with leaving it a standard rate like you're suggesting, saying everything's Washington. But it doesn't matter if you want to live in a low-rent district or a high-rent district, you should all be paid the same. That's the way it is right now.

REP. ISSA: I guess I'll go to my comparatively private sector panel.

He was very fair considering it's his paycheck. That's very hard to do in government.

But how would you see that as national policy for the federal government? How should we work with the differentials we pay, when in fact that differential may not exist if someone is allowed to not come in at all? I mean, you know, we're talking about people who are full- time commuters.

We'll go down -- Mr. O'Keeffe?

And I'll accept how people do things in their own company if that's the best reference.

MR. O'KEEFFE: I think PTO talked about this notion of moving to a nationwide work force, and that is coming. And this is one of the issues that has to be addressed as we move to that. But I think looking at the pay differential, clearly it has to be addressed today, but there are other factors that need to be considered as well.

So, for example, if we're looking at -- you know, in many circumstances the agencies don't allow this type of distributed work. And so it -- as those agencies -- those agencies need to -- you know, we talk about continuity of operations. We talk about the challenges of recruiting and what you will. And so I think this needs to be factored -- this is one factor that needs to be considered as we look at a broader remaking of the definition of duty station and the work environment.

REP. ISSA: Yes.

Ms. Bamesberger?

MS. BAMESBERGER: Mr. Issa, what we do at Sun is we have differentials based on geography. And I also happen to do slight searching for the company when we plan expansions or retrenchments.

And part of the exciting move to the countries that are lower cost had a huge wave of interest on the part of the company in order to save money. What we found is that hiring people in India has not necessarily proven to be so beneficial in the long run, although the whole total cost of being somewhere physically and then paying salaries is taken as a composite.

So when someone chooses to go from a high salary location and move to a lower salary, then they actually do get the lower salary, whatever the salary is in the geographic area they move to. If it goes in the other direction, that's up to the manager and the employee.

REP. ISSA: Okay.

Mr. Talcove, how do you do it at Juniper?

MR. TALCOVE: Sure, from our perspective, I think there's two issues. First of all, regardless of where the employee's located, we need to make sure they can actually perform their job. So if we have an employee that's located in Washington, D.C. that may be selling into the federal government, and they decide that they wanted to move to a place where that wouldn't be possible, obviously, that wouldn't be something we could accommodate. The second and -- just like Sun, we too have geographical just -- geographical pay differences. So at the higher-cost areas folks do get paid more than in the lower-cost areas. In my team, I've had people move in and out and we change their salaries accordingly.

REP. ISSA: Mr. Chairman, thank you.

My question was actually because this feeds into what the -- another hearing we had, which was where we found that people would accept a duty station - for example, with the Border Patrol or some other group -- that was more expensive and then TDY to a lower expense. Or in my case, in Southern California if you get a duty station in San Diego you get paid more than in, let's say, Los Angeles, while in fact you and your neighbor with the Border Patrol might both live in Temecula.

And we deal with the fact that we get that complaint all the time in my office that these differentials get gamed. So hopefully as we go through this and write legislation that we write it so we in the government can keep from having it gamed.

And I appreciate the indulgence on my question. Thank you.

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