FOCUS THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | SEPTEMBER 2023 33 MAKING OVERSEAS Telework BETTER Amelia Shaw is a Foreign Service officer in public diplomacy who joined the State Department in 2014. She has served in Mexico, Laos, and Ecuador, and she recently completed a DETO (domestic employee teleworking overseas) assignment from Malawi. In 2015, she was the recipient of AFSA’s W. Averell Harriman Award for Constructive Dissent. Prior to joining the Department of State, she was a foreign correspondent for National Public Radio, the BBC, and CNN. The views and opinions expressed in this article are solely the author’s and do not reflect those of the U.S. Department of State. Spurred by employees and aware of the benefits, officials at the State Department are working to remove roadblocks to remote work assignments. BY AMELIA SHAW T he past year has seen positive changes for federal employees who are serving on domestic employee teleworking overseas assignments (known as DETOs). Since the pandemic proved the efficacy of remote work arrangements, the significant increase in demand for DETOs has put a spotlight on the program. Early in the year, a couple hundred Civil Service (CS) employees serving on DETOs in the State Department and interagency got a massive boost, thanks in part to the work of a committed group of CS employees, human resources personnel—and last December’s passage of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). The NDAA brought a welcome change because it included a provision for the Civil Service Federal Employee Serving Overseas Pay Equity Act, which enables Civil Service employees on DETOs to receive either the same overseas comparability pay that Foreign Service employees do, or their home office locality pay. Prior to passage of the NDAA, Civil Service employees on DETO assignments had been taking whopping pay cuts (32 percent in 2021, up from 24 percent in 2015) because there is no overseas locality consideration in the General Services pay scale. When CS employees moved overseas, their salaries automatically defaulted down to base pay without Washington, D.C., locality pay or comparability pay of any kind. More broadly, the change in pay equity is encouraging news for all federal workers and their spouses, whether Civil Service, ON FS FAMILIES AT WORK
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