Telework in PR government: what the law says

It is not a favor from your boss: it is a mandate to the agency

In Puerto Rico's government, telework does not depend on your supervisor liking the idea. There is a statute ordering agencies to do it: **Act 36-2020, the «Puerto Rico Government Remote Work Act»**, with the amendments of Act 125-2020 and **Act 143-2024** already incorporated.

Its **Article 2** establishes as **public policy** the implementation and development of telework **«as an employment option for every qualifying government employee»**. And **Article 3** says who it applies to and how:

**Mandatorily** to every agency or instrumentality attached to the **Central Government**, **including public corporations** or public or public-private instrumentalities operating as private enterprises. **Voluntarily** for **municipalities, the Legislative Branch and the Judicial Branch**, which if they opt in adopt their own regulations using OATRH's as a guide.

And there are dates. **Article 12(a)** gave every agency **two years from effectiveness** to incorporate the Program; **Article 15** gave it **180 days** to establish regulations; and **Article 17** provided that implementation would run **from Fiscal Year 2020-2021**. If your agency still has no program, it is not because the statute does not exist.

The eight things your agency is required to do

**Article 5** lists each agency's duties. Read them as a checklist, because two of them concern you directly:

• **Establish by regulation** the agency's policy for qualifying eligible employees.
• **Determine which employees are eligible** for telework.
• **Notify employees of their eligibility.** This is the first one that concerns you: the agency has a duty to tell you whether you qualify, not to wait for you to ask.
• **Provide eligible employees and their supervisors with interactive training** in the Program. The second one that concerns you, and note it includes **supervisors**.
• **Establish an evaluation plan** for the Program.
• **Establish the criteria** to be used in evaluating the performance of a participating employee.
• **Establish the minimum performance requirements** to be demanded of each employee, per their duties.
• **Establish reasonable measures** to ensure proper use and maintenance of agency equipment used by teleworkers, if any.

The five requirements, and the paper that decides everything: the signed agreement

**Article 6** enumerates what each agency must meet for the Program to be implemented, «without this being a limitation», the statute says:

• **Ensure your participation does not diminish your performance or the agency's.**
• **Mandatory training before** signing the agreement. With one concrete exception: the agency **may waive it** where it determines the employee **already teleworked before the statute took effect** and the programs and systems to be used are the same as or similar to those already in use.
• **An agreement signed by the appointing authority and the authorized employee**, **specifying the duties to be performed**. This is the key document: not an approval email, but an agreement signed by the agency head (or designee) and by you, with the tasks written out.
• **A monitoring system for teleworkers' productivity levels**, to ensure the Program meets the agency's goals and that each position's duties are eligible to be performed remotely.
• **Adequate security control systems** for the physical and electronic information stored or used at the telework location.

Who is excluded by statute (and the surprising cause)

**Article 7** is titled «Prohibitions» and names two groups of employees who **shall not be eligible**.

**The first is by the nature of the work**, and allows an exception **in an emergency with prior authorization**. It covers employees whose daily responsibilities include: **handling material or information the agency has determined is not suitable for telework**; **activities requiring the employee's presence at a given place** that by their nature cannot be done remotely or from an alternate site; or **any other function the appointing authority deems requires presence** or is not suitable or convenient for telework.

**The second is the surprising one, and worth knowing before applying.** Not eligible is an employee **who has been sanctioned or subjected to a disciplinary process for being absent from the workplace, without prior authorization or justification, for more than seven (7) days in the course of a year**.

But that exclusion **is not forever**: the statute itself says it **shall not apply once three (3) years have passed** from that sanction or from the final determination in the disciplinary process. If it happened four years ago, it no longer blocks you.

Your agency has a Telework Officer. Find them.

This is the most practical fact in the whole guide and almost nobody knows it. **Article 11** provides that **each agency's appointing authority shall designate an employee as the Telework Officer**, and that this officer **shall be attached to the agency's Human Resources Office or its equivalent**.

Their duties, per the statute: **develop and implement the agency's minimum Program guidelines**; **serve as advisor and resource to the agency and its employees** on the Program's operation; **serve as OATRH's contact within the agency**; and any other task the agency delegates.

The statute also clarifies that nothing prevents **a person already holding another position in the agency** from being named Telework Officer, meaning there is probably no sign on a door, but the person exists.

If you are going to ask about telework at your agency, that is the person to ask, and they are in Human Resources. Asking for them by job title changes the conversation.

The day-to-day rules, including one that surprises visitors

**Article 12** carries the general rules, four concrete things worth being clear on before signing the agreement:

• **The same rules and the same disciplinary actions.** The agency must ensure teleworkers are subject to the same rules and disciplinary actions as those working in regular offices. Teleworking does not create a separate regime.
• **You cannot summon citizens to your home.** A teleworker **may not, under any circumstance, convene, summon or hold meetings so that a citizen comes to the telework location**. The prohibition **does not apply** where telework is done from a **satellite office serving the public**, as the agency provides.
• **You can be disqualified.** If after signing the agreement you fail to comply with what is stipulated or with the rules and regulations, the employee **may be disqualified** from telework.
• **It does not clash with your collective agreement or with seniority.** Implementing the Program **shall not constitute a violation of existing collective bargaining agreements, nor an unfair practice, nor anything contrary to the seniority principle**. That subsection is there precisely because the question comes up in bargaining units.

Information security, and the numbers the law orders published

**Article 9** gave OATRH, coordinating with **PRITS** (the Puerto Rico Innovation and Technology Service), **120 days from effectiveness** to issue **guidelines of minimum information protection measures**. Those guidelines must cover, among others: access controls to information and systems; protection of agency information **including personnel information**; protection of systems not under the agency's scrutiny used in the Program; prevention of improper use of time and equipment; identification of vulnerabilities; and safeguarding agency equipment.

And then the transparency part, which is what helps an employee arguing their case. **Article 10** requires **PRITS to maintain a Program website** with, at minimum: OATRH's minimum guidelines, the telework guidelines of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, announcements, links to legislation and regulations, and **the reports filed**.

Which reports? Those of **Article 13**. OATRH, with PRITS, must render to the Legislative Assembly a report **on or before March 1 of each year** including, by agency: **the degree of participation**, the **total number of participants**, the **number and percentage of eligible employees**, the **number and percentage enrolled with the detail of how many days per month they telework**, the method used to obtain the information, **the reasons for positive or negative changes** in participation, and implementation status with **the savings, if any**.

That means there exists, by statutory mandate, a public document saying how many employees at your agency telework and how many days a month. It is the best available argument in a conversation about how «that is not done here».

What to ask, and in what order

With the statute in hand, the conversation at your agency stops being a request and becomes an inquiry about a program that should already exist. Ask in writing, in this order:

• **Who is the agency's Telework Officer?** (Article 11, attached to Human Resources.)
• **What is the agency's Program regulation?** Article 15 required adopting it.
• **Is my position determined to be eligible?** Article 5(b) and (c) require the agency to determine it and notify you.
• **If I am not eligible, under which subsection of Article 7?** Have them say whether it is by the nature of the duties or by the disciplinary cause, and if the latter, when the three years are up.
• **When is the training** of Article 6(b), and does the exception for prior teleworkers apply?
• **What is the agreement** signed under Article 6(c) and what duties does it specify?
• **What does the latest Article 13 report say** about my agency?

What this guide did not verify

Everything above comes from the official text of Act 36-2020 compiled by the Office of Management and Budget, in its **August 23, 2024** revision, which already incorporates the amendments of Act 125-2020 and Act 143-2024.

What we could **not** verify and therefore does not appear here: **each agency's regulation**, **the OATRH and PRITS minimum guidelines** of Article 9, the **address of the website** of Article 10, and **the content of the annual reports** of Article 13. All of that exists by statutory mandate; what each document says must be requested from the agency, from OATRH or from PRITS.

Put another way: here you have what the law requires of your employer. The documents that law ordered produced are the next question, and now you know by exact name which ones to ask for.