Telework in the Government: Not Just for Businesses

            A few weeks ago, you’ll remember we spoke about the relatively new phenomenon that has hit North America, teleworking. If this is your first time reading, telework is the practice of working remotely from home, as opposed to from a corporate office or cubical. The benefits of this are quite astounding, ranging from more raising employee motivation and increasing productivity to saving the company millions in expenses. You can read more about it in our previous post here.

Jumping on the Telework Bandwagon

Teleworking like the best of us

            You would have expected other companies to have been the first to embrace this new method of work. Maybe one here and one there, first testing the waters to see how well it would work in the general system. But believe it or not, it wasn’t businesses who took to it: it was the government. Already passed by the US Senate, the US House of Representatives accepted and passed it with a vote of 254 to 152, allowing a much greater number of government employees to telework. The legislation creates a policy framework and set of procedures in order to begin teleworking, as opposed to prior, where teleworking was something difficult and near impossible to achieve, causing less than 10% of the employees to participate. Yet just from these low numbers, the Office of Personnel Management estimated it saved roughly $30 million a day on expenses. Not only that, but the Parent and Trademark office estimated they too were able to save $1.5 million a year through avoided rent expenses.

How Does It Work?

            What the bill does is have government agencies decide which employees are eligible for telework. Those who are eligible would be required to complete training programs before signing telework agreements with the agency. As well, much like a company, not all government employees would be eligible for telework, for obvious reasons. The restrictions that limit those who can participate in teleworking are comprised of 3 simple rules: those who have been officially disciplined for “being absent without permission for more than 5 days in any calendar year”, those who have been officially disciplined for “viewing, downloading, or exchanging pornography…on a Federal Government computer”, and, for obvious reasons, those whose job requires an on-site presence to accomplish, such as law enforcement officers, park rangers, air traffic controllers, etc.

Only a Matter of Time

            When the government has acted before the companies, you know somebody is behind. Companies are still slowly getting into the business of having their employees telework for fears of loss of productivity, despite the numbers to prove otherwise. Still remaining in an old train of thought, they believe that the best work is office work and work from home is simply unproductive work. So they turn to software such as WorkMeter, that allows them to monitor their employee's productivity and gives them a chance to see with their own eyes just how effective teleworking is.

Telework: The Next Stage in Work-Home Lifestyle

What is Teleworking / Workshifting?

            Working shifting, or moving your work from the company office to the comforts of your home, isn’t a new concept. Numerous careers allow employees to work shift and complete their tasks from home. Yet it was never a largely accepted practice. Most of these were cases tied to specific fields, whereas others allowed it in only specific cases, such as illness or overtime. This is no longer the stance. According to Randstad Canada’s latest global Workmonitor survey, "Telework", or the concept of working from home, has begun to take root as more efficient than its counterpart.

What will Teleworking Do For Me?

The effect of telework is in the numbers
Cited: Telework Research Network

            In the everyday world, the demands of life are often competing with the demands of work. This hurts productivity as people find themselves bouncing from one obligation to another. Employee motivation takes a hit when the stress becomes too great and the limited to non-existent leisure web access, such as social sites or online shopping, doesn’t help either. Employee productivity follows suit not long after. According to Stacy Parker, Executive Vice President of Marketing at Randstad Canada, this makes a good work life balance one of the premium qualities employees look for in their employers. Telework provides this solution and eliminates the problem by allowing them to easily manage both variants of tasks and maintain a healthier work-life balance. Beginning in Canada and rapidly moving to and from Southern California, telework is being utilized to give employees the ability to control their lives and stay motivated.

How Can I Make Sure It's Working?

Not just the employees will benefit from work shifting
Cited: Telework Research Network

Some employers might wonder “Well if they are working from home, how can I make sure they’re being productive?” This is easily solved with SaaS (Software as a Service) tools such as WorkMeter that become cruxes in the telework community by allowing both the employer and the employee themselves to see their productivity levels. By workshifting and teleworking from the company’s computer, employees get the benefit of managing both lives in a healthy manner, employers get the benefit of a productivity increase, and both benefit by seeing an increase in company success.

There’s a reason teleworking is becoming a trend.

Relevant articles

http://workmeter-en.blogspot.com.es/2012/04/internet-freedom-of-new-generation.html

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/work-life-balance-dynamics-change-global-survey-says-the-line-between-work-home-is-blurring-2012-04-12-7000