rose? >> senator langford, members for arc louing me to testify today. covid-19 was declared a pandemic by the world health organization. op march 20, 2020, the united states declared the covid outbreak a national emergency and by mid-march 2020 the u.s. department of labor earned a maximum telework posture due to the global pandemic health emergency. as it became clear to us that covid-19's impact would require significant modifications to the department's operations, the office of human resources had support the department for the telework posture and modifying internal guidance as necessary and it had hr guidance and increased technical employees and managers and responded to hundreds of inquiries on a full range of human resources issues that included pay, leave, benefits, staffing, telework, work schedules and other workplace flexibilities. additionally, dol rapidly developed guidance with emergency paid sick leave with the coronavirus response act to ensure that our employees who were unable to work or telework due to qualifying covid-19 related re