AUSTIN — Legislation creating rules to govern how state agencies could allow employees to work remotely is on its way to becoming law after it cleared its final hurdle in the Senate just before a critical deadline late Wednesday.
Inspired by a March order from Gov. Greg Abbott that agencies start bringing back employees who had been working remotely since the pandemic, House Bill 5196 by state Rep. Giovanni Capriglione, R-Southlake, goes into effect Sept. 1.
The bill had near-unanimous approval in both the House and Senate, which protects it from veto. Employees from all agencies across the state testified in writing and in person about how job flexibility allowed them to be more productive and satisfied at work.
The bill establishes a framework for telework policies within state agencies, which currently have myriad approaches. Some require workers to be in the office every workday, while others let large numbers — if not the majority — work remotely, either full- or part-time.
The bill “provides a practical, structured solution for our state agencies to offer telework arrangements with clear expectations,” Capriglione said in early May when he presented the bill to the Texas House, where it ed 138-6.
Nearly 150,000 people work for the state’s more than 100 agencies, and most of them work in the office, according to state officials.
When some of those employees filtered into their homes for the workday during social distancing protocols of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, many agencies found they were able to raise productivity, save money on office utility bills and leases and retain employees by offering broad work-from-home flexibility.
Although telework is nothing new in state government, the practice came under fire in recent months after President Donald Trump ordered federal workers to return to their offices — largely vacant in the years after the pandemic. Capriglione the legislation erases gray areas in the law.
Employees were working remotely without updated policies covering those arrangements. Abbott’s directive sought to return to prepandemic conditions without much clarity on how to for office space and parking challenges, among other concerns, Capriglione said.
The bill will create rules for telework policies within the section of the Texas Government Code that covers state employees.
Agency directors can continue to design telework policies and let employees work remotely, but they will now be required to review those arrangements annually and submit them to the state.
They will need to show the telework arrangements “address a lack of office space” or “provide reasonable flexibilities that enhance the agency’s ability to achieve its mission,” according to the bill.
The bill stipulates that agencies cannot use a guarantee of telework as a condition of hiring — only the possibility of it as an agency policy — and allows agencies to revoke a telework arrangement at any time for any reason without notice.