TVA’s Response to COVID-19

In March 2020, the World Health Organization declared the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak a global pandemic. The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) began taking steps to keep employees and their families’ safe, while also ensuring the agency could fulfill its mission of service. Due to the ongoing pandemic and its impact on TVA’s workforce related to mandatory telework and staffing, we initiated an evaluation to assess TVA’s response to COVID-19. The objective of our evaluation was to assess TVA’s response to COVID-19. Our scope included actions taken by TVA related to staffing, employee safety, telework, and lessons learned. We determined most actions taken by TVA in response to COVID-19 related to staffing, employee safety, and telework were reasonable. Specifically, (1) TVA’s policies align with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and federal guidelines, (2) TVA took actions to document and communicate lessons learned, (3) feedback from employees and management was positive regarding changes made in response to COVID-19 on employees and their work. However, we identified potentially misleading marketing language used to promote unproven technology to combat COVID-19. In addition, we identified some opportunities for improvement related to extended telework, mask usage at TVA facilities, and information management practices. Additionally, we identified some required elements were not present in the continuity of operations plan for TVA’s River Forecast Center.