OPM Telework Training: Courses, Certificates, and 2025 Mandate

OPM telework training is a pair of free, interactive online courses — one for employees, one for managers — that federal law requires eligible employees and their supervisors to finish before signing a written telework agreement. Both courses live on OPM’s telework website, take you through five self-paced modules in a browser, and end with a printable completion certificate.¹

The requirement itself comes from the Telework Enhancement Act of 2010, which directs every executive agency to provide interactive telework training and to make sure employees complete it before entering into a telework agreement. Agency heads may waive the requirement only for employees who were already teleworking under arrangements that predated the law.²

The Two Courses

OPM hosts two modules on its telework website: “Telework Fundamentals – Employee Training” and “Telework Fundamentals – Manager Training.”¹

The employee course helps you assess whether telework fits your role and covers working efficiently from an alternative location, staying connected with the office, and managing interactions with coworkers and customers. Because the Telework Enhancement Act requires the training to include information security guidelines, the course also addresses your responsibilities for protecting government data outside the office. In practice that means using only authorized equipment and VPN connections, keeping sensitive information from unauthorized viewing or theft, avoiding downloads to personal devices, and reporting any suspected security compromise to designated officials.³

The manager course is broader. It covers building a telework program, selecting employees for telework, and managing effectively in a telework environment. Managers also have access to two recorded webcasts titled “Managing in a Virtual Environment”: Part 1 on developing a telework strategy, and Part 2 on how performance management contributes to success in virtual settings.¹⁴ Completing the manager training also satisfies the employee training requirement, because the content overlaps.⁵

How To Take the Training

You access the courses directly on OPM’s telework website. There is no government-wide login. You navigate to the course and begin. OPM recommends using Google Chrome for the best experience.⁵

Each course has five modules. Completion certificates are generated based on finishing the modules, not on answering questions correctly. You have two options:

Complete all five modules in a single session and receive one overall certificate.
Complete the modules individually and collect five separate section certificates.

Your agency decides which approach counts as proof of completion, so confirm before you start.⁶

Some agencies host the OPM training inside their own learning management system rather than sending employees to opm.gov. OPM makes downloadable SCORM 1.2 packages available so agencies can load the courses into their LMS and track individual completions.⁵ Check with your agency first: if training is delivered through your internal LMS, that is the version you need to complete.

Save Your Certificate Immediately

OPM does not store user profiles or certificates. Once you exit the training window, there is no way to retrieve a lost certificate; if you lose it, you have to retake the course. OPM’s guidance is to save a copy as soon as it appears by selecting “Print Certificate” and choosing “Adobe PDF” as the printer destination. OPM also recommends testing the “Course Review” module first to confirm certificate generation works on your browser before you commit to the full course.⁵

OPM does not require agencies to submit copies of individual completion certificates. Each agency runs its own compliance tracking, so send your certificate to whoever your agency designates — usually your supervisor, your telework coordinator, or an LMS upload.⁶

How Often You Have To Retake It

The Telework Enhancement Act does not specify a refresher interval. That decision is left to each agency.⁵ Requirements vary in practice. The Department of Defense, for instance, requires employees and supervisors to complete telework training at least every two years, identifies OPM’s courses as the minimum standard, and requires training to be finished before signing the DD Form 2946 telework agreement. DoD components may impose additional supplemental training.⁷

Ask your agency what its cycle is. The safe assumption is that your agency has one.

Who To Ask at Your Agency

The Telework Enhancement Act requires each agency to designate a Telework Managing Officer within the Office of the Chief Human Capital Officer or a comparable office. The TMO is the senior advisor to agency leadership on telework and the primary point of contact with OPM, and is responsible for policy, implementation, and reporting.⁸ Some agencies also maintain Telework Coordinators for day-to-day questions. Route questions about which course to take, how completion is tracked, and how often you need to refresh to your TMO or coordinator.

What the 2025 Return-to-Office Mandate Changed

The training requirement itself has not been repealed. The Telework Enhancement Act is still law, and OPM’s 2025 guide reaffirms that agencies must provide interactive telework training to eligible employees and managers under 5 U.S.C. § 6503(a).⁹ The “Telework Fundamentals” courses remain on OPM’s website.¹⁰

What has changed is who is signing telework agreements in the first place. On January 20, 2025, President Trump signed a Presidential Memorandum titled “Return to In-Person Work,” directing executive branch agencies to terminate remote work and require employees back at their duty stations full-time.¹¹ OPM followed with a revised “Guide to Telework and Remote Work in the Federal Government” on December 31, 2025, stating that telework and remote work “should generally not be used in a manner that would permit Federal employees to avoid working full-time, in-person from an agency worksite.” Prior telework guidance inconsistent with the memorandum was rescinded.¹²

Exceptions under the revised framework are narrow. Agencies can continue telework for employees with disabilities, qualifying medical conditions, or other compelling reasons certified by the agency head. Military spouses and Foreign Service spouses working overseas are specifically exempted. “Situational” telework, defined as temporary, case-by-case authorization, is permitted only for compelling agency need such as inclement weather, short-term illness, or religious observations, and is not part of a regular schedule.¹³

If you fall into one of those categories and are signing a telework agreement, the statutory prerequisite still applies: finish the interactive training first. OPM has said it is revising the content on its telework website to align with the presidential memorandum, so the course you take today may not read the same as the pre-2025 version.¹⁰

One boundary worth flagging: if you are requesting telework as a reasonable accommodation for a disability, that request is analyzed under the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and your agency’s reasonable-accommodation procedures, not under the standard telework policy. The EEOC has stated that agencies should not use a blanket approach to rescind or deny telework accommodations under the 2025 return-to-office mandate and must go through an individualized, interactive process.¹⁴ Route accommodation requests through your agency’s reasonable-accommodation coordinator rather than treating them as ordinary telework requests.

1
U.S. Office of Personnel Management. Telework Training
2
GovInfo. Telework Enhancement Act of 2010, Enrolled Bill
3
U.S. Naval Academy. Telework Training for DON Employees
4
U.S. Office of Personnel Management. Telework and Performance Management Recorded Webcasts Available
5
U.S. Office of Personnel Management. Virtual Telework Training Tip Sheet
6
U.S. Office of Personnel Management. Telework Training FAQ
7
U.S. Department of Defense. DoD Instruction 1035.01, Telework Policy
8
U.S. Office of Personnel Management. Telework Managing Officer and Telework Coordinator FAQ
9
U.S. Office of Personnel Management. 2025 Guide to Telework and Remote Work
10
U.S. Office of Personnel Management. Telework
11
The White House. Return to In-Person Work
12
U.S. Office of Personnel Management. 2025 Guide to Telework and Remote Work in the Federal Government
13
Federal News Network. New Federal Telework Guidance Reaffirms Trump’s In-Office Orders
14
U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. FAQ on Federal Sector Telework Accommodations for Disabilities