More federal employees than ever are teleworking — but most give their agencies mediocre grades on supporting telework, according to a new study.

The study found: More than 80 percent of federal employees spend at least some time working outside the office, whether they're teleworking from home or checking their e-mail on a business trip; 42 percent participate in a formal telework program; and more than 25 percent spend more work time outside the office than they did last year.

But just 19 percent give their employers an A for mobile support — providing laptops and smartphones, encouraging managers to adopt telework and offering technical support — according to the survey of 446 employees conducted by the Telework Exchange, a public-private partnership that advocates for expanded federal telework.

"The biggest barrier to telework [according to a separate survey] is lots of management resistance," said Cindy Auten, general manager of the Telework Exchange. "They're concerned about not seeing employees face to face."

"The managers with the least favorable impression of telework were those who were not involved with it themselves," Auten said. "So the biggest thing managers can do is try it themselves. … It teaches managers to focus on work output. How do you know what [employees] are doing, in or out of the office?"

The new report found a big productivity gap for midlevel managers in the GS-7 through GS-11 pay grades. While 72 percent of those employees work outside the office, just 9 percent have smartphones, such as BlackBerrys, to keep in touch with the office. That means many managers have trouble staying in touch when they're out of the office.

Telework pilot programs at many federal agencies have been beneficial. One success story is at the General Services Administration, where 52 percent of employees gave the agency an A in the Telework Exchange survey. The agency wants at least half of its work force to telework for at least one day each week by 2010.

GSA's Office of Emergency Response and Recovery is well ahead of that benchmark; all of its employees can telework.

"It made sense because we had people working in our [emergency response and recovery] office two blocks from the White House. Not a real good idea" because of the threat of terrorism, said Josh Sawislak, senior adviser to the GSA administrator.

Some of the office's employees who live outside the Washington area telework full time.

GSA managers were initially skeptical of such a broad telework policy, but Sawislak said they've grown to accept it.

"Management tools are the key. Managers need to give clearer goals, create performance metrics, have conversations with employees," Sawislak said. "But if [employees and managers] work in the same office, you need to do this as well."

Some unexpected agencies have employees working remotely.

"We've been hearing more and more that our people demand flexibility," said Capt. Kenneth Barrett, program manager for the Navy's work-life task force. "So we have a pilot called Virtual Command, where employees that once had to relocate can … [stay] in our fleet concentration areas, Norfolk [Va.] and San Diego."

Telework could eventually help the Navy retain younger sailors who enjoy military service but don't want to constantly relocate to new posts, Barrett said.

But the growth of telework also presents challenges for agencies, which are deploying increasingly high-tech — and high-bandwidth — telework solutions.

"If we don't get the infrastructure in place, we won't be able to use any of these apps," said Peter Tseronis, senior technical adviser to the Energy Department.

Tseronis pointed to his previous job as director of network services at the Education Department, which was reluctant to spend money to upgrade its dated infrastructure with the bandwidth to support features like videoconferencing.

"The money needs to be treated as an investment," Tseronis said. "Right now it's a paradox. … We're [asked] to push the envelope of technology but we're not investing in what supports that technology."

According to the Telework Exchange study, if the government improved its telework support and provided smartphones to employees who work outside the office, it could gain $37 million in productivity each day.

Tell us what you think. E-mail GREGG CARLSTROM.