John Edwards, managing director, Telework Coaltion, is a member of the Alliance for Clean Air and Transportation’s (ACAT) Executive Committee. ACAT brings together an extremely diverse group of public (federal, state, and local) and private transportation and air quality organizations—many with different and even competing interests—to develop and distribute messages about reducing congestion and air pollution in order to improve quality of life for all Americans.

Q: Why do you recommend telecommuting as an alternative to traditional commuting?

A. Telecommuting has bottom-line benefits for employers, employees and the community, namely:
Employer Benefits

Q. What is the Telework Coalition doing to promote telecommuting?

A. We are promoting telecommuting at a number of events throughout the country this year. We have planned a learning track about telecommuting for the Annual Call Center Demo and Conference in Dallas, Texas from February 1-2, 2005. The six-session track focuses on telecommuting in the call center environment. Over two days attendees will examine the benefits and discuss the challenges of employing home-based call center agents, and learn how to effectively manage a virtual call center. For the detailed agenda, visit: http://www.telcoa.org/id192.htm.

We also will be presenting at the Western Telework Conference, which will take place in Dallas on January 31, 2005, just before the Annual Call-Center Demo and Conference. The conference will provide executives, managers, and their teams with in-depth information, techniques, and processes to better protect and more fully enable their organizations to deal with the adverse effects of terrorism and weather-related events. For the detailed agenda, visit: http://www.telcoa.org/id198.htm.

Additional conferences and events at which we will promote the employee, employer, and community benefits of telecommuting are:

• Federal Telework Conference, Spring, 2005 (exact date TBA)
• Teleworker/Telecommuter Appreciation Week, April 17 – 23, 2005
• Teleworker/Telecommuter Appreciation Day/EARTH DAY Event, April 22, 2005
• Telecommute America Day, October 24, 2005

Q. What challenges do you face in promoting telecommuting and how are you overcoming them?

Getting people to make such a significant change to their daily routine is a challenge. We work to motivate them to break their routine and to make the change less intimidating. We do this through education, legislation, and persistence.

Q. What steps can employees take to motivate their employers to implement a telecommute program?

Employees need to frame a request to telecommute or to telework from a location closer to home as a business proposal that benefits the employer, not just as a benefit for them. An employee should identify the operational challenges she/he is facing and how the adoption of telecommuting will help resolve or improve operational problems. For example, if the building manager wants to increase rent, the employee could explain how having 20 percent of employees working outside the office will reduce space needs, and hence, costs.

Or, if unexcused absenteeism is very high within the company, the employee could explain that increased time flexibility has been found to reduce “sick” days. Also, adopting telecommuting is a no-cost way for an employer to give employees more cash in their pockets.

Employees could also suggest that telecommuting be treated as another work option along with flextime, job sharing, and compressed workweeks. It’s important that employees emphasize that telecommuting is not a fad. It is a sound business strategy that benefits the employer, employees, and society at large.

Q. How do you address the argument that employees are less efficient when they telecommute?

This is generally untrue. When a telecommuting program is started, after a short settling-in period (maybe 2-3 weeks) productivity improvements range from 7 percent to over 20 percent according to surveys by Washington, DC Council of Governments (1997-1999 Telework Demonstration Project, Final Report, 7.1999. p. 46.) However, for some employees, telecommuting is a bad idea—those with poor work habits at the office will have poor work habits while telecommuting. This is why regular, candid work evaluations are vital to an equitable employee selection process. Besides helping make sure that you have the right people working from home, this documentation helps protect you against charges of discrimination.

Q. What steps must an employer take to implement a telecommute program in his/her office?

To implement the most effective and efficient telecommute program, employers should take the following steps:

1. Hold an awareness briefing for company supervisors and executives. Use the It All Adds Up winter flash animation and print ads to creatively spread the word.
2. Select an implementation team and project manager.
3. Determine which job functions/activities are appropriate for telecommuting. Supervisors, or in some cases unions, are in the best position to identify these.
4. Establish criteria for program participant selection.
5. Establish and/or review telecommute/telework policies and procedures.
6. Conduct an Information Technology audit/gap analysis to determine the availability of technology to meet the desired remote access functionality and security level.
7. Revisit health and safety training to include setting up a healthy and safe home office.
8. If necessary, train program participants (managers and staff) on results-oriented management techniques.
9. Carry out a baseline, pre-program assessment of operations to be used as part of a program review and evaluation.
10. Install and test technology.
11. Start program.
12. Evaluate program (usually after six months) and modify policies and procedures, as needed.