Limites e possibilidades do teletrabalho na Receita Federal do Brasil

Abstract

This research investigates the use of telework in the Federal Revenue of Brazil with the purpose of developing a Guide of Best Practices for the agency, which can also contribute to other organizations. Telework is a modality of work that had been growing in the world and that, due to the pandemic of Covid-19, had a widespread expansion, including in the Brazilian public service. Good telework management can improve the employees’ quality of life, increase productivity, save public resources and improve the provision of public services to society. This research started from the identification of the most relevant aspects for telework management from the perspective of managers, employees and experts of the RFB, through a questionnaire applied to 32 employees of a given unit and six interviews with managers and experts of the agency. Once it was identified what would be researched, this research investigated the issue from two aspects: to make a bibliographic survey of the practices recommended by the literature of the area of administration in the identified aspects and to make a comparison of the telework norm in the RFB with the norms of other public agencies. Regarding the first strand, 12 themes were identified in the literature, and as a result 41 practical recommendations were found for the management of remote work in the agency. In addition, answers were found for some questions, such as that part-time telework should be implemented, and the differences between remote management and face-to-face management were presented. With regard to the second strand, the teleworking standards reveal the conception that each body has of this type of work. The standards of 39 government agencies were analyzed and compared, in 16 parameters or criteria contained in the respective telework standards, whose definition was up to the leaders of the agencies. As a result, a profile of these standards was obtained, which reveals a marked convergence of the leaders' choices. In nine parameters there was a marked convergence, in two there was divergence, in two there was dispersion in the parameters and in three it was not possible to obtain a response based only on the standards. It was found that the RFB is aligned with most government agencies in its conception of work. Based on the results of the previous two steps, the Guide to best practices for telework in the RFB was elaborated, which provides a synthesis of what was investigated, with recommendations for the management of telework and suggestions for normative changes.