Employer Telework Focus Group Report...implementation of the program, monitoring, benefits to the...

Employer Telework Focus Group Report

Prepared For:

Valley Metro October 2008

2008 Employer Telework Focus Group Report Page i

Table of Contents Section: Page #: Executive Summary ................................................................................................... ii I. Introduction .........................................................................................................1 A. Background and Methodology.................................................................................1 B. Participant Demographics........................................................................................1 II. Knowledge of Telework Terms...................................................................3 III. Telework Program Perceptions: Non-Telework Organizations....6 A. General Impressions of Telework ...........................................................................6 B. Flexible Work Options ............................................................................................8 C. Consideration of Telework within the Organization ...............................................9 D. Employee Requests................................................................................................10 IV. Telework Program Perceptions: Telework Organizations............12 A. Setting up the Program ..........................................................................................12 B. Selecting Teleworkers ...........................................................................................14 C. Perceived Success of Program...............................................................................17 V. Program Logistics ..........................................................................................19 A. Program Elements: Telework Organizations ........................................................19 B. Employee Performance Evaluation........................................................................20 C. Technology ............................................................................................................22 VI. Management Issues .....................................................................................25 A. Management Concerns...........................................................................................25 B. Positive Impacts of Allowing Telework ................................................................28 C. Negative Impacts of Allowing Telework...............................................................30 VII. Potential Areas of Assistance and Future of Telecommuting.....34 A. Potential Areas of Assistance: Non-telework Organizations.................................34 B. Future of Telework ................................................................................................35 Moderator’s Guide .............................................................................................Appendix A

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Executive Summary Valley Metro, as part of its telework research plan, commissioned WestGroup Research of Phoenix to conduct two focus groups. The groups were conducted with representatives from the various businesses across the Valley. The first group was comprised of seven representatives from organizations that currently do not allow employees to telework, but were considering it for the future. Seven representatives from Valley employers that currently allow telework participated in the second discussion. Kathryn DeBoer of WestGroup conducted both groups. The objective of the group discussions was to gain insights into the types of assistance that may be helpful in expanding or developing telework programs. The groups were held on October 23rd, 2008 at WestGroup Research. PERCEPTION OF TELEWORK TERMS In general, most participants describe “telecommuting” as working from home or at a

location “other than a standard office.” Participants were less familiar with the term “teleworking.” Some participants indicated they

thought it was similar to telecommuting. Other participants associated the term “teleworking” with technology and being able to work “anywhere.”

Twelve of the fourteen participants indicated they were most familiar with the term

“telecommuting,” and the other two participants reported they were equally familiar with both of the terms.

PROGRAM PERCEPTIONS Non-Telework Organizations Overall, participants indicated there were some positions suitable for telework at their

organization. Positions most suitable for telework are in the following areas: marketing, information technology, human resources, sales, graphic design and management.

Some participants mention that telework would be ideal for their organization because their

employees conduct business in other time zones. Four out of seven participants from non-telework organizations indicated they have

personally teleworked in the past. The majority of these participants do not telework on a regular basis; however, occasionally there are out-of-ordinary events or projects that lead them to work from home.

Very few participants from non-telework organizations indicated they offer flexible work

schedules. A few indicated their organization offered compressed workweeks to save money.

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All participants revealed that employees at their office and/or themselves take work home after hours. For most of the organizations this occurs on a regular basis and becomes part of their “normal protocol.”

Some participants indicated their organizations started to explore the option of allowing employees to telework on a more regular basis for economic reasons (wanting to cut office costs, help employees save gas money) or to expand the hours they are available to customers. In most of the cases, the human resource employees are advocating telework for the organization; however, they are receiving pushback from upper management.

Some participants felt their organization might not be able to implement a formal telework policy because they had so few employees that would be eligible due to the nature of their business (i.e. some were production/service firms where people need to be on-site).

Overall, participants feel that telework organizations have a bigger advantage when recruiting employees compared to non-telework organizations.

For some employers, increased gas prices and economic concerns cause a heightened level of interest in telework and flexible work options among their current employees.

Telework Organizations Participants from telework organizations indicated there were a wide variety of factors that

prompted their organization to begin allowing their employees to telework. These factors focused on: employee retention, absenteeism, trip reduction program, employee interest, employees commuting long distances, increased accessibility, the need for quiet time or they evolved from hiring on outside consultants who were used to working remotely.

The majority of participants indicated they did not take a formal approach to setting up their

telework program. The programs usually evolved as organizations allow one or two employees to work from home and, with their success, organizations would allow more employees to telework.

Most participants stated that they have an informal process when selecting which employees

are allowed to telecommute. They do not have written policies describing which employees are eligible; rather, it is on a case-by-case basis and is at the discretion of the supervisor or manager.

When participants were asked if they felt their organizations allowed telework because

employees were asking for it or because management saw it as good work practice and pushed it down, there were mixed responses. Some participants felt it was employee driven, some felt it was pushed from the top; others thought it was a mixture of both.

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Five out of seven participants rated their telework program a “7” or higher when asked to rate the perceived “success” of their program. Although the telework programs are unstructured, participants felt that overall their programs have been successful with few or no problems.

One participant rated their program a “5” because, although the program was successful

overall, not all employees were eligible to participate. Another participant rated their program a “4” or “5” because they believe their telework program should be more structured since they employ more than 1,400 people.

Although most participants indicated their telework programs were not structured, some

participants indicated they have some formal program elements such as written policies and agreements.

PERFORMANCE EVALUATION Non-telework Organizations As expected, performance evaluation varies on the size of the organization and also within

each organization. It is very informal for those that work in smaller organizations or in administrative positions. Evaluation tends to be based on the completion of projects and tasks. Employees will be noticed if a project does not get completed on time or if someone “drops the ball.”

Employee evaluation is very formal for other positions; for example, one organization

monitors employees working in customer service on the phone. Another participant mentioned they have a database system that helps monitor warehouse inventory functions and sales transactions.

Telework Organizations Some participants thought teleworkers were scrutinized more than employees working in the

office because of their personal experiences while teleworking. They felt their organization kept closer watch on their production levels and the actual amount of time they worked.

Other participants felt teleworkers were less scrutinized and were not monitored as much as employees in the office because they would not have been allowed to telework if they were not trustworthy.

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TECHNOLOGY Non-Telework Organizations For most participants, technology would not impede the process of allowing employees to

telework. Most employees eligible to telework already have personal computers or laptops they could use; other participants mention their organization would provide all of the equipment.

All participants indicated their organizations currently allow employees to access the

organization’s computer network from home. Two concerns about teleworking in general, but related to technology, were security issues

and loss of connectivity (i.e., no cell phone signal) with employees living in remote areas. Telework Organizations Similar to participants from non-telework organizations, all participants from telework

organizations indicated employees have both email and network file access from home. The majority of participants from telework organizations indicated their company provides

the hardware (laptop, desktop) to their employees so that they have the ability to telework. MANAGEMENT ISSUES Non-telework Organizations Overall, participants from non-telework organizations would like to integrate a telework

program into their organization; however, they are unable to convince upper level management.

Some managers are not very familiar with the concept and have “fear of the unknown”; they

do not want to lose control of their employees and like to have the physical ability to see them.

Other managers have allowed some of their employees to telework, but because of a bad

experience, they will no longer allow it. Other participants mention that their managers work out of the office most of the time, so the

managers want to know that their employees are at the office working, even if they are not. If money gets tight, managers might be more open to allowing employees to telework if they

see a cost savings to the organization.

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Telework Organizations Overall, participants from telework organizations felt their management was supportive when

their organization initially allowed employees to telework. Only a couple of participants mentioned some apprehensions from management. One concern was that employees would abuse the system. Another participant mentioned that employers had higher expectations in regards to job performance of teleworkers.

Participants from organizations allowing telework were asked what advice they could give to

employees that are trying to initiate a telework program into their organization. Most of the participants advise employees to “highlight” the employer benefits; although employee benefits are important, management is very interested in how telework programs can “actually help the company.”

All participants assert that management needs researched information, facts, examples and a

structured plan. IMPACT OF TELECOMMUTING Participants in both groups brainstormed the positive impacts for allowing employees to

telework. These impacts included: increased productivity, increased retention, lower costs, higher employee morale, recruiting benefits, better employee performance, less absenteeism, help meeting TRP requirements, increased public perception and increased working hours of employees.

Participants in both groups also brainstormed possible negative impacts for allowing

employees to telework. These impacts focus on: loss of employee control, lack of accountability, perceived unfairness by non-teleworking co-workers, lack of communication, technology issues, lack of security, and possible increased costs.

Most participants from telework organizations indicated they had encountered issues relating

to communication: making sure employees are receiving the right communication, making sure employees are accessible (answering emails and phone calls promptly) and trying to coordinate meetings with employees working different days/hours.

Participants for telework organizations also mentioned a few ways that helped improve

communication for them: hiring an employee specifically responsible for remote employees, utilizing conference calls and webinars and making sure employees are aware of the organization’s expectations (even if this involves getting them to sign an agreement).

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POTENTIAL AREAS OF ASSISTANCE AND FUTURE OF TELECOMMUTING Non-telework Organizations

Overall, most participants were very interested in receiving assistance from an “education

standpoint.” They are too busy to research and find the information that would help them in convincing their managers to implement a telework program.

Participants brainstormed a list of topics they would like to gain more information on:

implementation of the program, monitoring, benefits to the bottom line, costs, suitable telework positions, legal ramifications, morale issues and technology issues.

Most participants were hopeful and thought there was a good possibility that their

organization would allow employees to telework in the near future, especially with recent economic events. However, participants see their telework program as being very selective, mentioning that telework would probably be available on a case-by-case basis and only for employees in certain types of positions.

Telework Organizations Three out of seven participants feel their telework program will expand in the near future; the

other four participants feel their organization will remain the same. Participants feel that their programs will expand because the future of the workforce is moving towards more telework and, due to economic times, it is a way to decrease costs.

Conclusions

1. “Telecommuting” is a much more familiar word within the business community than “teleworking.” It also appears, however, that the word “teleworking” more accurately conveyed the concept of working outside of the office, regardless of the location. Most participants seemed to think “telecommuting” referred primarily to working from home. If there is a desire to use the word “telework” in communications with businesses, it will be important to educate the business community on the usage of this term vs. “telecommuting.”

2. All participants in the non-telework group indicated that some form of teleworking does occur within the organization – employees taking things home in the evenings, working early hours to connect with East Coast businesses, working at home when sick, etc. Most of these participants also indicated that telework and/or compressed workweeks has been considered at some point within their organization. They realize there are potential cost savings and they understand it is an important business practice for recruiting and retaining employees. However, they are faced with resistance from upper management on several levels and are looking for sources to

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help them persuade management to allow this as a work option for their employees.

3. Non-telework companies, as noted above, would welcome assistance in convincing management to start a telework program. However, they are looking for assistance in the form of information and education – documentation, studies, ROI information, etc. that will allow them to effectively talk about the benefits of telework from the management perspective. They are not interested in paying for any services. This not only was the request of participants from the non-telework organizations, but also the recommendation of those at companies allowing telework.

4. Participants from organizations that do allow teleworking indicated their programs

were quite informal. Only a few have agreements that participants need to sign, and others indicated that employees go through a formal request and review process before being allowed to telework. The value of a more formal approach was not clear to most participants and shows the need for continued education about the value and benefit of a formal program.

5. Barriers to a telework program continue to be similar to barriers described in similar

focus groups more than five years ago. The primary difference, however, is that technology is not a significant issue. Employees that are most likely to be able to telework already have access to and the equipment needed for teleworking because many of them already work from home after hours or in special circumstances. However, the issues of perceived fairness, keeping an “eye” on employees, accountability, potential for “disconnect” between the employee and company, problems with “one bad apple” spoiling the opportunities for others and management’s preference to have all employees on site. It is interesting, however, that current telework companies are using technology, such as increased teleconferencing, web-casts, automated programs to track production, and a dedicated staff to make sure communications are forwarded to all remote workers to help address many of these barriers.

6. All participants agree that telework is going to continue to be an important part of the

business environment in the future. They sense that companies not offering telework for employees will be seen as “old fashioned” and “out of touch.” However, there still are many common misperceptions about telework and even those who allow it are not maximizing the benefits from it. So although telework has grown tremendously in the last 10 years as a business practice, there still is a lot of education needed, not only to make existing telework programs more effective, but also to assist organizations in developing successful telework programs.

2008 Employer Telework Focus Group Report Page 1

I. Introduction A. Background and Methodology Valley Metro, as part of its telework research plan, commissioned WestGroup Research of Phoenix to conduct two focus groups. The groups were conducted with representatives from the various businesses across the Valley. The first group was comprised of seven representatives from organizations that currently do not allow employees to telework but were considering it for the future. Seven representatives from Valley employers that currently allow telework participated in the second discussion. Kathryn DeBoer of WestGroup conducted both groups. The objective of the group discussions was to gain insights into the types of assistance that may be helpful in expanding or developing telework programs. The groups were held on October 23rd, 2008 at WestGroup Research. It is important to keep in mind the relatively small sample size; verbatim comments are provided for reference and to give insight into the “flavor” of the attitudes and opinions of the participants and should be used for insights, but not as conclusive or statistically meaningful findings. Complete transcripts of the groups as they occurred are provided in Appendix B at the end of this report. B. Participant Demographics Table 1 on the following page shows the overall demographic attributes of participants broken down by employers with telework programs and employers without.


Table 1: Participant Demographics

Characteristics

Allow

Telework

Do Not Allow

Telework Gender

Male 2 3 Female 5 4

Company Size Less than 50 3 5 50 or more 4 2

Average Rating of Mgmt Support for Telecommuting

Senior management Avg. “3.7” Avg. “3.4” Middle management Avg. “3.8” Avg. “3.4”

Potential Telecommute Freq. Full time na 4 Part time na 7 As needed na 2

Industry Sales Manufacturing -- 2 Computers 1 1 Wholesale -- 1 Healthcare -- 1 Aeronautics -- 1 Landscaping -- 1 Printing 1 -- Retail 1 -- Non-profit 1 -- Tele-communications 1 -- Government 1 -- Arts 1 --


II. Knowledge of Telework Terms Before the round table discussion, participants from each group were given a short survey with three questions to answer. On the survey they were asked to define the terms “telecommuting” and “teleworking,” then indicate which term they were most familiar with (See Table 2) Twelve of the fourteen participants indicated they were most familiar with the term “telecommuting” and the other two participants reported they were equally familiar with both of the terms. In general, most participants describe “telecommuting” as working from home or at a location “other than your standard office.” Telecommuting to me is performing work duties normally done at an office at your personal

residence. (Non-telework organization)

I pretty much said what he said, the ability to perform your duties outside of the typical work environment so that could be your home. You could be working at another facility, be at a meeting somewhere and you’re still able to work. (Non-telework organization)

That’s pretty close so far, telecommuting, working from a facility other than your standard

office. (Non-telework organization)

I thought telecommuting was essentially working part or full time from home. (Non-telework organization)

Participants were less familiar with the term “teleworking.” Some participants indicated they thought it was similar to telecommuting, but seemed to mean working from more than just home; it was working anywhere using technology. I wasn’t familiar with teleworking. It sounded very much the same. (Non-telework

organization) The term teleworking sounds kind of like the same thing. I’ve never really heard that term

used so I’m not very familiar with it, but I was assuming it was mostly the same thing. (Non-telework organization)

We typically use it somewhat interchangingly. (Telework organization)

Teleworking is not really a term I’m familiar with, but it sounds like the ability to work

anywhere you’re at, whether you’re sitting on a beach sipping margaritas and you’ve got your laptop wirelessly or your car or any other location site - just anywhere. (Non-telework organization)


Teleworking is working using your laptop, your desktop, your telephone, from any environment. (Non-telework organization)

Teleworking is to be able to work electronically whether you’re traveling or if you’re in a

whole other country. You could still work from wherever you are via electronically. (Non-telework organization)

I thought it was where you are linked in at home and you are working, so it’s more like a

monitoring system. When I saw teleworking I thought they were linking all those who were working, sort of like you guys were doing with IT when you were teleworking more in a group setting. (Telework organization)

Teleworking is definitely working from home with all of the beautiful gadgets we have to use,

online, teleconferencing, etc. (Telework organization)


Table 2: Telecommuting/Teleworking Definitions

Telecommuting Teleworking Most familiar term Performing work duties, normally done at an office, at your personal residence

Same as above, not really familiar with the term

Telecommuting

Conduct usual and customary work from home base. Able to communicate with customers-no distraction from co-workers.

Unfamiliar Telecommuting

Working from a facility other than your office

Working using your computer, telephone, etc. without being in your office

Telecommuting

Working from home, or offsite of your business

Telecommuting

Ability to work part or full time from home

Ability to work from where ever you happen to be. Other company locations, other sites, home, in the car, etc.

Telecommuting

The ability to perform your duties/work outside of the typical work environment

Able to work via electronically from various satellite locations

Telecommuting

Getting to work (driving, riding, etc.)

Working from home (by P.C., online meetings)

Equally familiar with both

Work from home via computer/internet to reduce time/trips to physical work location

Anytime working away from the office

Telecommuting

Means of connecting to work in order to increase productivity and effectiveness in one’s job by allowing “creature comforts”

Working from remote locations to accomplish same work output as if working in the office

Telecommuting

Telecommuting is doing work in a home based setting (no traveling)

A home based business Telecommuting

Working from home using the internet, remote access, and phone lines

Performing job duties while telecommuting

Telecommuting

Opportunity to work from home with all necessary tools (phone, computer, etc.)

To be linked into work via computer

Telecommuting

Working from home rather than driving into the office. I see this as a “once in a while” thing-one day per week or month.

I think this is working at a location that is closer to home.

Telecommuting

Working from home or other off-site location

Same Equally familiar with both

Employers without TC Employers with TC programs


III. Telework Program Perceptions: Non-Telework Organizations A. General Impressions of Telework 1. Suitable Positions and Tasks for Telework Overall, participants from companies that do not currently allow telecommuting indicated there were some positions suitable for telework at their organization. Most felt that employees that conduct most of their work over the phone or on the computer were the best candidates for telework. Participants felt positions in the following areas were most suitable for telework: marketing, information technology, human resources, sales, graphic design and management. Participants also mentioned that telework would be beneficial for those employees who need “peace and quiet” to complete their tasks, so they are not bothered by daily distractions at the office. Positions involved in manufacturing and production would not be suitable for telework. I would say like marketing people, IT people. Even some functions of Human Resources,

depending on if you have performance reviews that you need to review at home without the disruption of the people in the office. I know I can do payroll from my house. Some of those kinds of HR-related functions could also be done from home.

We have some design people that do landscape design on a computer; they can do as easily at home or from the office. A lot of times in the office things are too noisy or busy and they can’t get their work done anyway, so it might be an advantage to be at home where there’s a little more peace and quiet sometimes! Depending on what your home’s like!

Our customer care could work from home. It’s an incoming center, so answering calls from our customers (unable to hear).

All of our board designers and programmers would be able to function from home.

Pretty much anybody that works in sales typically is not in the office. Most of the time they’re working from branches, meeting with customers, working from home or making phone calls. Some parts of HR could definitely be done at home. Anybody who can remote access databases or what not if they have that technology. Even our controller works from home on occasion if it’s more convenient for him.

Some participants mention telework would be ideal for their organization because their employees conduct business in other time zones. Their employees communicate with vendors from the East Coast and spend most of their time on the computer and phone. Others mention their managers currently conduct meetings over the phone to reach people in other time zones and currently telework while they are traveling.


People who are communicating with someone maybe from the East Coast. We do a lot of that. They’re on the phone and on the computer probably 80 percent of the time and (unable to understand) with their co-workers, maybe running to the printer making brochures. They could easily work from their home and their home office with their laptop and the phone and still connect the same business from their home base rather than to drive to the office. There could be distractions at home, but there are a lot of distractions at work from people chit chatting.

Various managers can conduct conference calls from home. I know my general manager will conduct his weekly meetings from home based on the different time zones that other people are in. He can take that call from home and have his laptop there to go over whatever presentation material he needs to discuss during that call.

Mostly upper management performs that kind of telecommuting. It’s easy for them to be on the road, having the meeting from the airport. They can talk to people on the East Coast, West Coast or whatever. They can perform their duties much better than having to go all the way up there.

2. Personal Experience with Telework Four out of seven participants from non-telework organizations indicated they have personally teleworked in the past. The majority of these participants do not telework on a regular basis unless there was an out-of-ordinary event or project that caused them to work from home. These occurrences included: a broken leg, having a baby, an office remodel and working on a special project. One participant indicated they have had the opportunity to telework with their current and past employers. Yes, a couple of times. Once I broke my leg and wasn’t able to get to and from work, so we

just kind of moved everything into my home office and for a week I’d work out of there. Also when we did the remodel in our office I worked from home, too. It went pretty well. I was convinced I wanted to stay!

I did for the first six months after I had my baby.

I have on occasion. If I’m working on a special project or have an orientation with somebody on the East Coast, I could do it if I found I could do it from home.

I have with my current employer as well as companies that I’ve worked for in the past. I’ve had the opportunity to telecommute.


B. Flexible Work Options Very few participants from non-telework organizations indicated that flexible work schedules are offered for employees. Some organizations, however, indicated they had recently initiated a four-day workweek to save money. One participant mentioned their organization offers employees a compressed workweek on an as-needed basis. We did it just as a cost-saving measure for the fourth quarter for our maintenance guys and

some of the office personnel. We condensed their schedule to four ten-hour days to save on costs going into the last quarter of the year, but before that we really didn’t have a structured program for compressed workweek.

We do a four-day-work week and everyone’s on it. It’s kind of something we decided to do this year to try to save some money. People driving less and giving everyone an extra day off from work.

Ours isn’t established, but if you have something come up we can flex your schedule; we can compress your week on an as-needed basis.

All participants revealed that employees at their office and/or themselves take work home after hours. For most of the organizations this occurs on a regular basis and becomes part of their “normal protocol.” One of the main reasons employees are taking work home at night is to “catch up” on their work from the day, as they are unable to finish due to daily interruptions and distractions at the office. Other participants mention that their employees or managers will work early in the morning to “meet East Coast time differences.” The size of those of us who would be eligible to telecommute is small at my organization.

There are probably a number of us that work from home on a regular basis or take work home to get things done outside of the office. It just becomes part of your normal protocol because of the interruption of the day-to-day activities that go on inside the office. It would be HR, IT people, some accounting functions. They take their stuff home. The general manager for his calls and presentations. I’d say Yes. It does happen on a regular basis.

A lot of my programmers work evenings to be able to upload information to our customers

without interfering with their workday. I know some of my managers work from their laptops early in the morning to meet East Coast time differences. I know that my people take work home.

Not a lot of work but the same thing. Some of our supervisors are checking emails and corresponding with customers before and after work just to kind of tie up the days because a lot of times they’re busy with field operations and things like that. So they do. Occasionally I do if I just don’t get some work done at work that I need to get done on time. I’ll just take it home and finish it up and bring it back. It’s usually not very much, but for the most part the owner tries to keep us away from work on our time off. He likes us to have our time off.


In HR, same. Take work home. There are departments like purchasing, but they’re not able to do that because they’re talking with vendors on the East Coast. I think there are some at the management level. I’ve seen emails come back with a time stamp at 9:00 p.m. at night.

C. Consideration of Telework within the Organization Some participants indicated their organizations started to explore the option of allowing employees to telework on a more regular basis for economic reasons (e.g., wanting to cut office costs, help employees save gas money) or to expand the hours they are available to customers. In most cases, the human resource employees are advocating telework for the organization; however, they are receiving push back from upper management. We’ve had some of our branch managers wanting to for the sake of expanding customer

hours to our contractors going to four tens and having some split shifts. That was broached to me on several occasions. I brought it to our management team and they were pretty dead set against it at the time not wanting to expand hours. They threw out so many different reasons from a production standpoint to who processed an order and if they weren’t there the next day and if there was a problem there’s no one to answer the question. From one standpoint it was absolutely not, and then talking about some of the corporate functions, accounting and some functions could be done on a four ten schedule. It’s been tossed around, but nothing’s been decided.

We’ve talked about it in our company. We’ve even tried to start a pilot program in selecting the people that would be successful, that we think would be successful, but our upper management shut it down or is still thinking about it or will get back to us. The supervisors and the first-line managers would be willing to do a pilot program, but the senior management is questionable.

During the summer when the economy started to get a little worse and we started talking about ways to save money, something we’d talk about is getting rid of our office and having the people that work in the office just work from home. It was kind of a 50/50 split on people not sure whether they wanted to do it. Some people have families at home. They thought that might be too much interruption. We could save a lot of money not operating an office. That was a big plus. But the company has always been at this location, so it was kind of like, “Are we going to tear up our roots after 50 years and not have a location anymore?” It was kind of a mixed response to it, but it’s something that’s still out there and we still talk about it a little bit at our meetings. There are probably about five of us who could functionally do it. I think it’s more going to become a cost issue. If we can save enough money doing it, it’s probably going to initiate it because I’m sure as everyone’s recognized the economy’s taken a big downturn and it’s affecting our business a lot. It’s just one more way we could maybe save some money.

When gas prices went up we offered our web design team and our programming team the option to work from home at least one day a week. No, we haven’t rescinded the offer. They’re not taking advantage of it currently. In our scenario there are a lot of times when


they’re needed in office for meetings to be able to do a visual. We may have to sketch out a flow chart and it’s much easier if they’re there to see it. They might work remotely one day a week for two or three weeks and then they’ll have to be in the office for meetings and it just kind of loses its appeal, I guess. Then they work in office a couple of weeks and then they’ll pick up again.

Some other participants felt their organization might not be able to implement a formal telework program because they had so few employees that would be eligible due to the nature of their job (i.e., some were production/service firms where people need to be on-site).

There are probably only five jobs that I can think of that could actually work offsite. So

many people come to our business and need that direct contact that it’s not realistic for what we do.

We don’t have a formal program; we deal with it on a case by case. If there is something going on in someone’s personal lives that it’s easier for them to be outside of the office, then we accommodate that. Even from a corporate perspective it’s still dealt with on a case-by-case basis solely because of the environment that we’re in. It’s heavily production driven, so not many people can benefit from a telecommuting opportunity just because of the work that they’re paid to perform. Again, the amount of people that would be eligible to participate would only be the management team, and sometimes managers need to be present just to support the organization that they’re trying to lead.

It really wouldn’t work for most of our employees. They’re laborers in the field so they just can’t do it, so it’s only really applicable to the management people.

D. Employee Requests Overall, participants feel telework organizations have a bigger advantage when recruiting employees compared to non-telework organizations. In some industries, having the option to telework is crucial for being competitive in today’s economy. Some participants mentioned they have lost employees because applicants are either unwilling to move from another state or do not want to drive across town. One participant mentioned that their organization is currently receiving applicants from the East Coast; due to the type of position, their organization would be willing to allow them to telework.

I think it’s a good tool when you’re really trying to recruit the right candidate. Putting that

out there as an option is something that could really nail the right person for the position if they know that they have that as an option. Especially if they were coming from another company that offered that to them and here you may not have that. That could be the deal breaker if they decide whether they want this company or somewhere else.

Some of the positions we’re still recruiting for are senior levels, so I know that it’s one of the things that they ask about. Whether we’ve lost a candidate about it, I don’t know.


We have. We’ve lost applicants because it’s not a set up issue. We have a lot of applicants who apply from other states and if we require them to move, they’re just not interested. We have applicants who are going to school in Tempe and Mesa who don’t want to make the drive to Central Phoenix or the West Valley and if they can’t telecommute, then they’re not interested.

We’re running ads now and we’re getting a lot of applicants off of the East Coast who don’t have the desire to move but because of the position, we would be able to employ them.

For some employers, increased gas prices and economic concerns cause a heightened level of interest in telework and flexible work options among their current employees. One participant mentioned that her employees would bring up telework questions during the annual trip reduction meetings.

Especially this year with the economy, gas prices obviously going up, it’s been tossed

around. Something. Anything. They’re like, “Can we do four tens? Can we work from home?” And, I bring it up and I still get met with a lot of resistance. They don’t want to do that. There are so few people that it could work for and I think that perceived unfairness in our company and the fact that it’s not something we’ve ever done before is the major barrier. I would love to be able to do it for my own position even if it wasn’t all the time, just a special project. If it’s a slow day I could promote access in, call me on my cell phone and still handle everything I need to handle.

I would say as far as it being brought up, when we did the annual trip reduction there was probably just some conversation about what does this really mean, who does it apply to, would it be an option for what I do. There was more discussion about really what is telecommuting, who does it really apply to and how do I sign up?


IV. Telework Program Perceptions: Telework Organizations A. Setting up the Program 1. Initial Reason Organization Allowed Telework Participants from telework organizations indicated there were a wide variety of reasons that prompted their organization to begin allowing their employees to telework:

o Employee Retention o Absenteeism-eliminate sick days o Trip Reduction Program o Employee Interest o Long commute for employees/having remote employees o Accessibility/needed 24-hour IT help o Evolved from hiring outside consultants o Need for “quiet time”

In my place, Phoenix Offset Printers was part of the Arizona Republic, and about 2 or 3

months ago there was a concerted effort from management above to look into telecommuting, a condensed work week, and all that kind of stuff, and it was mostly to try to help employee retention and trying to find some creative ways to get people to basically keep working there because they were having a lot of problems with turnover, so that is kind of when it started. At my place I had a couple of people that had the ability to telecommute, so we kind of pushed that a little bit more, and also we went to 4-day work weeks.

Over at Affirmative it was simply to enable sick days to no longer be sick days. You could relax at home and get better of course, but at the same time you could still accomplish the form entry that we need in our business to keep track of literally thousands and thousands of dollars a day in business. If that’s not there, heads roll. If that option wasn’t there, it would make a normal 4-½ day work week become a 6-day work week. Saturday would be the one day out of the weekend that would be pretty much not an option for taking off.

It was certainly encouraged or at least supported by the Trip Reduction Program. It was represented on our annual county surveys, so there were a percentage of employees that were interested in learning more about telecommuting. We just felt like utilizing that summary information from the annual surveys and start encouraging divisions of departments to utilize it for those that could, and then certainly work with supervisors and managers to try to answer as many of the questions that they possibly had.

For us it was the remote employees and understanding how they could work remotely from 50 miles away or further, and enabling the company to say, okay our trainers can do this or our IT people can do this. IT obviously due to the nature of projects could not be on site 24


hours a day, so they started allowing different departments and then on an as needed basis for projects and quiet time to get things done.

At our place it started out that we would hire people as consultants, and we have been growing a lot in the last few years, so we would just take them on as full time employees and we wouldn’t really ever change their work habits, so they went from consultants to just doing it more often and being full time employees, so it has just kind of evolved that way.

Ours is a family owned business, so it has always been around. We’ve gone from having 10 employees to maybe 100 at one time, so it has made it easier with people accomplishing things to stay at home more often.

2. Initial Process of Starting Telework Program The majority of participants indicated they did not take a formal approach when they began their telework program. The programs usually evolved when organizations would allow one or two employees to work from home, and with their success, more employees were allowed to telework. Some participants mentioned that the increase in technology at their organization helped jumpstart the process of allowing employees to telework; integrating programs like Outlook and providing laptops gave employees the capability to work outside of the office.

It was sort of like that with my company. It was initially just our consultant programmer,

and then it was the owner and then it eventually expanded into the IT department when we started getting larger jobs off site. So it has just grown, but we didn’t actually have an initial pilot. It just happened as it was needed. It worked, and then it just expanded from there to the owner and then to IT.

It was somewhat of a pilot program for us, but really the opportunity presented itself. We

had an individual in our finance department about 9 years ago and they had a physical problem that took them off the job, so essentially during that particular period, while they couldn’t physically come on site and work, there was an opportunity for them to work at home, so we did work with that particular division. They set up a computer system at the person’s home because he didn’t have a laptop necessarily, and that person was able to perform productive work from home, so it really was a pilot program that showed that there were a number of positions within the organization that could work as far as telecommuting or teleworking.

We have the IT department when you go to our website and you can link into the Outlook, so

I think it just basically grew from there because the IT department was the first doing that, our grant writers, but we have had access to Outlook for a few years now and through that we are still able to communicate. We just came on board with the trip reduction, so I knew that was going to assist us.


In our situation it is kind of weird because we don’t have a performing venue of our own, so we go to a lot of different venues. As things were picking up, we would pick up more technology and we got laptops for people who had to be at rehearsals, but they still had a lot of stuff to do, so that kind of helped out. So now everyone who telecommutes has their own laptop with remote access to servers and Outlook of course. We always have had Outlook. I don’t know how long we have had that, but it was a good test run to see that if they can do it in Symphony Hall then why not do it at home, so it started up like that.

B. Selecting Teleworkers Again, most of these participants indicated they took an informal approach on their telework program, and therefore they have an informal process when they are determining which employees are allowed to telecommute. They do not have written policies describing which employees are eligible; rather, it is on a case-by-case basis and is at the discretion of the supervisor or manager. Most often employees will ask their manager for permission to telework because they are trying to complete a certain task that requires more “quiet time” or because of a personal situation, e.g., they have an appointment where they need to be at home. One participant works for an organization that bases eligibility on where an employee lives; if they live more than 50 miles from work they are allowed to telework. Their employees also have to prove their trustworthiness and only employees that have been with the organization a certain period of time are allowed to telework.

Ours isn’t structured. What happens is, like myself, if I need the quiet time it’s mainly

because of needing that time that is not disruptive, so they will ask. It’s all on a case-by-case situation. It is a request that an individual makes. Normally it is the ones who are required to submit a reporting or are required to do proposals. We are constantly writing proposals. Or if we are put on a project that is manual then we will do that as well, so it’s case by case. There isn’t any abuse because it’s not something that we advertise, so again, because it is unstructured, it’s just known that it is available.

We have no real structure to our program either. It’s on a case-by-case basis. Mainly it’s for our remote consultant who does the programming on our system, as well as the managers. With IT it really is a case-by-case situation. I haven’t seen anybody else who would probably qualify.

In an unstructured environment, the supervisor or manager and certainly the employees working together, they try to determine some type of evaluation process to see who could be eligible at working from home. And again, that could be based on a particular task or it could be related to a situation where there is someone with some physical limitations and under the doctor’s care. So with that, we simply attempt to work with them, but they pretty much develop the hours or what those limitations would be and how that program would actually work. We are really trying to organize it and make it more structured, but right now


it’s pretty much the need of the organization, the situation or opportunity, and the willingness on the part of the supervisor, the manager, and employee to a large degree.

For us it’s pretty much the managers that have the opportunity to work from home. It’s also a personal thing depending on your personal situations, like if you have kids and how fast things are moving in the store and if it is busy because of course, you want to be there all the time so you do have hands on when it is busy. And then our owners pretty much all work from home. If there is a lot of work to be done and you have an 80 hour day and you still don’t finish or you are just tired of looking at somebody’s face, then you have the opportunity of going home and working from there. A lot of things as far as the advertising can be done from home. We have people who, maybe it is your day off, and almost everybody has a Nextel, so you just contact that person and ask what is going on with this or can you help me with this or any kind of troubleshooting over the phone. So it isn’t structured, but somehow it works.

An example for us is that we have a person who basically monitors the entire inventory for our news printing that we have. We had a certain news print program that was a huge access database and you could work on it remotely, but then we had to switch to a new inventory system that is remotely based; it’s actually based back in Michigan and you can access it through Internet Explorer. Once that became available, then my news print analyst had the opportunity that she could work from home, so we went through that and it actually worked out very well because she had a large amount of data that had to be input into the new system and she was able to do that at home and she was a little bit more productive because she wasn’t getting all the interruptions that you usually get at work. So basically if the opportunity is there that they can work from home, then we usually try to do that. We haven’t had a case yet of bad apples so far. Like with my managers, typically the only time is when we are doing reviews because it’s easier to get away from everything and write reviews that way. Some of the other people, like my news print person, maybe it’s once a month when there is a lot of data entry that she has to do.

One other thing I wanted to add is that I have about six people that have the ability to telecommute, and a lot of times what drives what day they are going to work from home is if they have an appointment, like the cable guy is supposed to be coming at 9:00, and then they just ask if they can work from home that day and we tell them that it is fine. So a lot of times it is personal things outside of work that kind of help drive which day they work from home.

For us, realistically our company has said no more telecommuting if you live within 50 miles of the site, but we have several employees who live in Maricopa who have been given the option one or two days a week to actually telecommute, so it is very selective. You have to bring your employee in and let them prove their worth or value and their trustworthiness. We did have some incidents where we had people telecommuting and the work was not being accomplished, so one or two bad apples can ruin it for a lot of people. So therefore, they have to come in and prove themselves and then they will be given the opportunity to take the telecommuting option. Unless it is a remote employee for our sales department or our


account management department, they normally don’t have the opportunity until they have been there for a little bit.

When participants were asked if they felt their organizations allowed telework because employees were asking for it or because management saw it as good work practice and pushed it down, there were mixed responses. Some participants felt it was employee driven and some felt it was pushed from the top; others thought it was a mixture of both. One participant mentioned their program was not driven by a person but more out of a necessity.

Ours is employee driven. It is not something that the management even considered or even

discussed. Employees wrote an employee request, so I never have seen the reverse. It has just been through employee requesting, and it is necessary usually when it is a project. It’s not something that management wants to talk about either. We were wanting to do condensed work weeks as well, so when you talk about it then you are worried about abuse, so it exists, but it is driven by the employees.

Ours is definitely employee driven. For instance, one of our employees who used to be a consultant who now makes the web stuff, like the videos on our website, he has so much more equipment than we have that is much higher quality, so of course it’s all going to have to be done at home because he can’t bring all that in. That was sort of the first one that I can think of that was a telecommuter, but now that I think about it after hearing everybody talk, we’re all sort of telecommuters because we all have to do stuff outside of our work and from remote locations. I can’t think of a single department that doesn’t utilize that, the working from home. In operations, we run around a lot and we have to pick up people and go to all kinds of different places, but you always have your cell phone and you always have your laptop ready to go and you continue to answer stuff, so it’s sort of like that. It’s just so important to everyone to have it, so it is definitely employee driven. And management, I don’t think they even really think about what that actually means because as long as we have an office person there to answer the phone, it doesn’t matter because everyone else could be anywhere else getting our stuff done. So I don’t think it would be at all possible to abuse this situation.

At mine it started from the top and then it went down from there. It is more of a convenience

for the managers to be able to do what they needed to do within their comforts and not have to be on site and not have to deal with any troubling issues. They also have fewer interruptions of course. And then from there it has just gone down the chain.

I think we’re a little bit of both in our company. You could go in and request to start working from home because I might have some family issues or some medical issues, but at the same time, with some other jobs management might require you to work from home as far as advertising, like there are sales associates trying to get the word out. Like if you are in the store you are selling, but how do you get the people in? You have to advertise. Sometimes they hand out flyers and sometimes they might even hand their business card out to someone saying to contact them. That is kind of a requirement of our sales staff to get people in, so I would say it’s a little bit of both.


With our remotes and our salespeople and people that travel all the time, they have to have access from other locations to their company information in order to be able to accomplish their job, so they need that remote access. It wasn’t necessarily that anybody said that it was more convenient to telecommute, but it was more of a necessity that drove us.

C. Perceived Success of Program

Participants were asked to rate the success of their organization’s telework program on a scale from zero to 10, with zero meaning it is not at all successful and a 10 meaning it is extremely successful. Five out of seven participants rated their telework program a “7” or higher. Although their telework programs are unstructured, participants felt that overall their programs have been successful with few or no problems. I wrote down a 7. There are some days where it’s just not used where it should be. A case in

point is the manager was out of town and I was still learning the ropes as far as some of the data entry, and I actually had to try to get in contact with him and I couldn’t do it, so it failed at that point. Otherwise, I would have rated it a 10.

I wrote down a 9. It’s a family owned business again, and when the owners and managers are overwhelmed with work it’s just better to go home and finish it off. We trust our employees. Our telecommuters are pretty much salary employees who have been there for 20 years, so it’s definitely positive because I believe you get more out of your employees and they stay with the company longer, thus learning the systems better and getting to know more about the business.

I gave it a 10 rating because I can’t think of a single problem, other than technology failing, but that just means you get cooler laptops, so that’s fine. It’s just never been a problem that we have had. When you work for the symphony though, you’re pretty much a 24-hour employee. You will get calls at 7:00 in the morning on a Sunday or you will get a call at 11:00 at night or anywhere in-between there, but you kind of know that when you take on the job. Everyone seems to like it, and I think there is a lot of trust between employees and managers and everyone else, and they will know if you’re not doing your job, but I can’t think of a single issue that we have had with this in the 2½ years that I have been here.

I gave it an 8 rating because even though it is unstructured, everybody is professional. There are no secrets with the staff and everybody knows what you are doing and your deadlines. Because we are a nonprofit organization, we work hard and we’ve got to stay afloat, so unlike for-profit companies like Pruitt’s, we are relying on our resources, but the professionalism is there. I’m kind of worried now though because maybe we don’t need a structure. Maybe we should just keep it the way it is right now. So it is working.

I rated ours a 9. When I looked at the way we’ve got it set up, it’s basically just the five managers that I have and everyone has done a real good job. If they are going to work from home on a certain day, the day before they will leave a message on their voice mail so that if anyone calls them it will say to call their cell phone, so they are all very good about keeping


those communication lines open and when they do work at home, they do respond to emails and phone calls quickly, and I think it’s just because it’s a small enough group and there is not a lot of jealousy that I know of between them and the ones who don’t telecommute because the lines are pretty clearly drawn of who can and who can’t. If you are a press operator then you can’t operate the press from home, so it’s just the nature of the business that has made it easier to get it to work for us.

The other two participants gave their organization’s telework program lower ratings. One participant rated their program a “5” because, although the program was successful overall, not all employees are eligible to participate. Another participant rated their program a “4” or “5” because they believe their telework program should be more structured since they employ more than 1,400 people.

I gave it a 5 rating because for those who are using it, it’s working pretty well. For those

that aren’t using it and are not able to use it, obviously it’s not working because they want it to work, so I think we could definitely increase the utilization of it.

I would give it a 4 or 5 rating largely due to the unstructured nature of it. With so many employees within the organization, well over 1,400, it could be a great deal better. I think it’s widely acknowledged by all within the organization that it has great potential, so as we develop our How-to guide, we hope to tap into that potential.


V. Program Logistics A. Program Elements: Telework Organizations Although most participants indicated their telework programs were not structured, some participants indicated they have some formal program elements such as written policies and agreements. Most of the written policies inform employees on the “dos and don’ts” of telecommuting. For example, a few of the organizations will not allow employees to work from home with young kids in the house. Some of the organizations require that an employee sign a written agreement before they are allowed to telework, proving that the employee understands the organizations terms and conditions towards teleworking. Some of these agreements will often have a time frame on how long an employee will be teleworking, whether it is for a limited time frame or ongoing.

I know at the Republic they do have an official policy written, and I know there is something

written in there about if you are working from home then you can’t have any small kids there at home with you, and it’s not like you are at home babysitting. There are some other things in there laid out like that.

Anyone who telecommutes in our organization has to sign a telecommuting agreement, which has to be approved by not only their manager but also the senior vice president. Since the directive came down from our CEO about the telecommuting, it has to go all the way up to his level so he can keep track. With 600 people, I don’t understand exactly why he needs to keep track of every single person who is telecommuting, but I guess he went in one day to a ghost town, so now the agreement is in place so he knows. The agreement has the number of hours worked, if they are working from home for 1 day, whether it is going to be on a regular basis, etc. It is usually anyone who is employed to telecommute regularly, so if they are going to telecommute their full week, they have to put in a minimum of 40 to 45 hours, they have to make sure that they are available during regular business hours for conference calls and emails, they can’t work odd hours just because they are telecommuting, and of course they need a business office in their home and no small children.

In our business agreement it is a basic acknowledgement between the employee and their supervisor or manager. It advises them of the dos and don’ts. It speaks to how the program is essentially initiated and how the person was evaluated and how the person can be taken out of the program almost immediately. It also gives an opportunity to inform a lay organization that this isn’t that kind of thing and this is the current agreement, so it definitely works, but it shows that both management and the employee agree on certain terms and conditions, and whether it is a limited time frame or just ongoing, the understanding is in place and it is firm.

One participant mentioned they must sign a technology agreement, which states that the employees are only allowed to use the equipment provided to them (laptops, cell phone) for work purposes.


We have an agreement just between whoever is using the technology, so if you have a laptop or a cell phone you have an agreement with our IT department that we would use it only for work purposes and whatever access hours that we will have and things like that. It’s not an agreement of anything beyond that.

One participant from a larger organization indicated that it is necessary for their organization to create formal policies because if the rules are not written, it will change from person to person.

And since ours is not structured, everything that you have there so far in order to create a

program is necessary because what happens is, that if it’s not written, then it will change person to person, so this would be ideal to structure a program. And there also needs to be some acknowledgement within your company’s payroll policies as well, like alternative work schedules, telework or telecommuting. In many cases, some of the policies represent that if you work over 40 hours per week it’s overtime, which kills some of the alternative work schedules that you would like to design, like doing 9/80, for example, and this needs to be acknowledged in documentation, memorandums of understandings, and your basic payroll accounting for the time spent in a telework or telecommuting activity.

B. Employee Performance Evaluation 1. Non-Telework Organizations

Participants from non-telework organizations were asked if they evaluated employee performance in general. As expected, performance evaluation varies on the size of the organization and also within each organization. It is very informal for those that work in smaller organizations or in administrative positions. Evaluation tends to be based on the completion of projects and tasks. Employees will be noticed if a project does not get completed on time or if someone “drops the ball.” In smaller organizations, there is a feeling that employees evaluate by physically being watched and either co-workers or supervisors can “see if someone is doing their job or not.”

I think it’s just more of a kind of personal thing. You’re conducting business with the other

people in your company. If you’re not keeping your work done something’s going to happen. They’re going to say, “Hey, Max isn’t doing his job. I can’t get the bills paid. We don’t have any vendors left.” It’s not a real formal check but kind of an informal. As long as everything’s running smoothly, everyone’s probably doing his or her job correctly. (Non-telework organization)

I would say that ours is more task driven. Because it’s such a small number of people we

have the opportunity to telecommute. It’s usually those that are in managerial positions and you’re measured on your overall performance to achieving the company’s objectives or those organizational objectives. If those aren’t met it comes down to, “Where did the ball get dropped on a particular task,” and then you address it from there, but there isn’t a formal measurement tool that we use outside of that. (Non-telework organization)


We have such a small office you can see if someone’s doing their job or not, so I wouldn’t necessarily say formal other than your annual review. We’re task driven, but in a real small office you can walk down the hallway and tell whether or not someone’s doing their job. (Non-telework organization)

We have person-to-person where the directors of the hospital keep their eyes on the nurses and doctors and assistants. And of course it depends on the performance of the hospital for a week. The next day the manager’s going to keep an eye on if the hospital’s (unable to understand.) Okay, what’s going on with the hospital or pretty good performance in the last week or the last quarter? That’s what we do. (Non-telework organization)

Employee evaluation is very formal for other positions; for example, one organization monitors employees working in customer service on the phone. Another participant mentioned they have a database system that helps monitor warehouse inventory functions and sales transactions. We do. Our in-company customer care is monitored on the phone how long it takes for each

call to come through, so that’s self-monitored. Everybody works toward deadlines so we have quarterly meetings and then they break them down to monthly and each week you have to do certain tasks. So we’re task driven. (Non-telework organization)

We have a pretty sophisticated database that is attached to our sales accounting, all of our

warehouse inventory functions, even our time keeping so we use that to measure. We can see how sales are doing, the accounts that they’re writing up as far as any jobs that might telecommute. Anybody else, like a function like my own, would be, “Did I complete a project?” but really no formal measurement system. (Non-telework organization)

2. Telework Organizations

Participants from organizations allowing telework were asked if they thought employees that teleworked were under different scrutiny than people who do the same tasks within the office. Participants gave mixed views on this question. Some participants thought teleworkers were scrutinized more compared to employees working in the office because of their personal experiences and the tendency to not work as hard; others felt their organization kept closer watch on their production levels and the actual amount of time telecommuters work. Other participants felt teleworkers were less scrutinized and were not monitored as much as employees actually in the office. One participant felt their teleworkers were not scrutinized because their organization was “more trusting of their employees.” Another participant felt that employees in the office are scrutinized more because they can physically be watched working and taking breaks.

Yes. In regards to the one company that I do part time telecommuting for, I am under a lot

more scrutiny than if I were to telecommute for Affirmative simply because, even though I have been doing it for almost a year now, they still monitor my performance and still keep track of when I am signing in and if I am accomplishing the tickets and the entry that I need


to do. If I’m not meeting up to those standards, then they let me know right away. On occasion there are repercussions.

I guess when we work from home with our company it is kind of more lenient and you are more relaxed, so it’s not like you are regulated where you have certain things that you have to do or you have to have certain equipment or you have to work a certain amount of hours. You can’t bring your kids into work every day, but you can go home and take care of business at home, but yet still work and get everything done. We are more trusting I guess and that is why it’s so lenient, because most of the employees have been there for 20 years and they kind of rely on that, so it’s not as regulated, but I wouldn’t say that it is scrutiny.

I think there is more scrutiny in the office in the person work setting than there is for employees who are telecommuting because I can tell you how many times people walk past my desk to go on breaks, even though I won’t to be able to tell you how many times they have gotten up from their desk, but for those who are telecommuting, as long as they are getting their work done in a timely manner, who cares how many times they are up away from their computer. Nobody sees them and nobody cares. They are answering their emails and they are doing their work, so that is why it’s such a positive benefit to be employed and to be able to work from home.

C. Technology

1. Non-Telework Organizations For most participants, technology would not impede the process of allowing employees to telework. Most of the employees eligible to telework already have personal computers or laptops they could use; other participants indicate that their organization would provide all of the equipment. In addition, all participants indicated their organizations currently allow employees to access the organization’s computer network from home. Employees are able to check their e-mail and access their work files. Two technology-related concerns brought up by participants were security (data protection) issues and loss of connectivity (i.e., no cell phone reception) with employees living in remote areas.

For my organization those people who would be eligible already have laptops, so they would

just be taking the laptops home and would still be able to be supported with the IT support that we have. That wouldn’t be a problem for those people that would be eligible at my organization.

My industry would provide all of that equipment to do their jobs.

A select people can only access their emails and then a select people can access their personal computer.


We had that conversation saying, “What happens if I’m using my personal computer at home for business and maybe I’m doing something that I wouldn’t be doing at work but I’m doing it at home on the same computer.”

Yes. That was a point we brought up and it was simple. I have my personal computer desk and I have a work computer desk. I have two computers. We just take the one that’s at work and put it in my home office and away I go. When I’m working I’m on one computer and when I’m surfing the internet or whatever I’m on my personal computer.

We have a problem with one employee who lives in such a remote area that when we let him telecommute, we can’t get in contact with him. His cell phone doesn’t work and his internet for his laptop is intermittent so you don’t have. (Employer without TC)

2. Telework Organizations Similar to participants from non-telework organizations, all participants from telework organizations indicated employees have both email and network file access from home. The majority of participants from telework organizations indicated their company provides the hardware (laptop, desktop) to their employees so that they have the ability to telework. Other companies will allow their employees to use their personal computer to work for home and/or will help reimburse them for some of the expense. Some of the companies are also providing their employees with Internet service. One participant mentioned that the use of laptops has made allowing employees to work outside of the office much easier; they are more cost effective, less hassle to fix problems and have fewer security issues compared to personal desktop computers. In my situation it’s with the managers. The company provides their laptop and they also

provide their Internet access for work, so that’s what I was talking about earlier is that we do have kind of the application or selection process, and then they might have a laptop hooked up or they might not. At my plant they came up recently with a newsprint person and she is working at home on her computer because she is able to with the new system. That was just a circumstance that came out that way, but typically it’s done where we provide the laptop and we provide the Internet service.

All of our hardware is the company’s except on certain occasions, but we don’t compensate for Internet access.

We have laptops available to most exempt employees, not all of them, but most of them if they

are going to be expected to do work outside of work hours, but I don’t know about the Internet connection.

We have equipment, so at any point there are laptops available through our IT department

and we also have access where if you want to do the remote access, then you just request it, so it is done per request. But laptops are available, so when staff people are traveling from


county to county, there are laptops they can use. So they provide it and most of the ones that are needing the resources are familiar with it because they are our grant writers or they are the IT personnel.

With my company it is mainly based off of whether they have the technology available to

them in the first place, and then we provide whatever the necessary software is to be able to connect and any other special requirements that are needed. In a rare case, and it’s probably going to be coming up here soon, but we might even be providing the Internet connection like her company does. I worked for another company, actually I still do, and I telecommute for them on a pretty much daily basis. They provided me with the Internet connection, but I already was fitting the selection criteria for that because I was working a full 40 hours, so I was okay to have that ability.

We compensate our employees. Like if you don’t have something and let’s say you needed it

at that moment, you can go out and buy it and then bring in the receipt and you will be compensated for it. At the same time, some people just prefer to use their own computers and their own Nextels or whatever, but they do have the option of coming and saying I need a radio or something like that, so it’s all over the place, but we compensate mainly.

We found that it was cost prohibitive years ago and there was a barrier to the standing

program by having to put the necessary equipment in the home, so it was a big cost to the organization and it was a time concern as far as getting the necessary homes set up. With the laptop technology now, it is very easy. Everything is there and you have the error card if need be, and you still have the policing effect where you can only use it whether at home or at work for certain things. There are certain sites that you are prohibited from going on to, so it’s much easier now. Now we still kind of need to structure it even more because the cost for setting up a home office is not a barrier today with the current technology, so now we need to factor that in as we structure it even more.


VI. Management Issues A. Management Concerns 1. Non-telework Organizations Overall, participants from non-telework organizations would like to integrate a telework program into their organization; however, they are unable to convince upper level management. Some participants believe their managers are not very familiar with the concept and have a “fear of the unknown;” they do not want to lose control of their employees and like to have the physical ability to see them. Other managers have allowed some of their employees to telework, but because of a bad experience they will no longer allow it. Other participants mention that their managers work out of the office most of the time, so the managers want to know that their employees are at the office working, even if they are not. If money gets tight, managers might be more open to allowing employees to telework if they see a cost savings to the organization. If they’ve never been introduced to the concept, it’s the fear of the unknown and lack of

education.

Or like the manager that had one bad experience and can’t get past that. So, no matter how it’s presented, he’s not going to buy into that it’s a good thing for his organization to do.

They’re excited about it, but our senior management is, you know, maybe with the economy they have other fish to fry and they just keep bouncing it back. “I’ll get back to you,” “I’ll get back to you.” They want cost analysis; they want all of this other stuff. They always come back with, “Get me this report.” Then I work hours on it and then they come back and say, “Now we want to know about this.” I’m like, “Okay! Tell me everything you want to know now!”

It’s like they’re always giving me an excuse to put it on the table for another 30 days.

I think it’s just the fear of the manager not knowing what the employees are going to do. We have a lot of employees who have been with us for several years, and so they’re not good workers now, what makes you think they’re going to improve then.

Like I said, we’d have about a 50/50 split. The senior company president is very against it, so he kind of has control over everyone else. Everyone kind of underneath him is more for it so we’re hoping to get rid of him, put him in a corner or something!

Ten years ago we tried the 9/80. People loved it, upper management did not. We have a general manager that actually travels a lot, so when he tried to reach that person that was off on the Friday they weren’t there, he didn’t get his answers, so that has left a really bad taste in his mouth in entertaining telecommute. When I got the call for this and the gentleman


said, “Would you be able to, would people be able to do at least one or two days?” I’m like, “You know, that’s even a thought that I should bring to the general manager because that would be a possibility. But I think it’s that he would not entertain this. He likes his people on the premises because he’s not there and he wants to be (unable to understand.)

He wants everybody else there so he doesn’t have to be! He’s not in the office all the time and that’s exactly it. That’s pretty much his reasoning. “I don’t want to be in the office so I have all of these other people taking care of things in the office.” He sees that we could really take care of that stuff away from home and save some money. If the economy worsens and that money becomes a big issue he might say, “Ditch the office. Save us that $20,000 a year or whatever. That could go a long way in paying salaries.”

2. Telework Organizations Overall, participants from telework organizations felt their managers were supportive when their organization initially allowed employees to telework. Only a couple of participants mentioned some apprehensions from management. One concern was that employees would abuse the system. Another participant mentioned employees had higher expectations related to keeping up their job performance. The concern at our place was the abuse. Again, it was because the presentation was that we

would like to telecommute and they said it will be abused, so they were just firm on this. What we did is recognize certain key positions because we were on a lot of boards and there are groups of individuals that do so much outreach, so what we did is instead of just saying it, we had to outline it, but the outline wasn’t structured, so they felt like at any point they could say it isn’t going to work for this person, so it’s a win-win, and those individuals deal directly with the supervisors.

With the job being fairly simple, it was very easy to transfer over to a remote environment. It

really didn’t end up being as long and drawn out. It is working and it still is, although I did end up having a lot more expectations put towards me and I do have to keep up performance.

One participant mentioned that changing management perspectives helped them initially gain support for teleworking. They focused on the “new work force” opposed to focusing on the “current work force,” looking at the future of telework in the organization and not “fitting” it into the current structure.

I certainly agree with everyone, but one of the things that somewhat made it successful and

kind of opened the door to a conversation of consideration was talking about the new work force and not the current work force. We weren’t talking about how we currently do things and continuing that and fitting that into a new work schedule or program. We have been successful with alternative work schedules and expanding that with fuel conversations and packaging power points and going from divisions to departments and sharing the information on what they could do, and also personal vehicles and service vehicles, so primarily it’s identifying and working with the employees and management within a


particular area and offering tips and information that talk about not how you currently do things and enforcing it into that, but structuring or planning your work week, so on certain days of the week you are getting certain things done to kind of open the door to having telework or other opportunities where the employee is off on a particular day of the week. So structuring your work activities in such a way that it presents those opportunities and makes it more welcome. So it’s kind of rethinking not just how you do things, but in many ways why you do things, why you do it this way, and if it will sustain you into the future, so it’s a number of conversations that we have, but instead of just talking about it and making something fit into your current situation, no, talk about changing your situation, changing your standards, looking at your expectations, and open the door to invite in new ideas.

Participants from organizations allowing telework were asked what advice they could give to employees that are trying to initiate a telework program into their organization. Most participants advise employees to “highlight” the employer benefits. Although employee benefits are important, management is very interested in how telework programs can “actually help the company.” All participants assert that management needs researched information, facts, examples and a structured plan. Management is most interested in learning more about cost savings, employee retention, and employee morale. You have to be a problem solver and you have to take a plan to them. You can’t just say, we

think we should telecommute.

Lay out the plans; lay out the positives to how telecommuting can actually help the company. Show them the cost savings. Show them that if you do go to a 4-day workweek and there is 1 day of telecommuting, this is how much you will save on electricity and heating and cooling and water. Show them the optimistic view of why this is positive and not just the true production program, which is very positive, but show them what a benefit it is to them and how it’s going to impact their bottom line because that’s what is going to make an impact and not just oh, it’s going to make the employees happy. Why is it going to make the employees happy and how is it going to impact the employee retention, and again, hit the bottom line?

One of our failures in looking back was always highlighting the employee benefits, and that is well known. We didn’t necessarily highlight the benefits to improving air quality or relieving traffic congestion. We didn’t go back to the organization and highlight some of the benefits there and relieve some of the supervisors and managers thoughts of are we going to decrease service to the public, are we going to interrupt some of the activities that we are currently involved in, are we going to create a need for more employees by alternative work schedules, telecommuting, teleworking, and some of the other programs? What we are trying to do and really answer those questions or concerns is really kind of put those issues to rest, so highlighting the benefits to the organization I think is going to be much more welcoming and having a How-To guide as to how you accomplish this and how you make it successful. It has been our failure to highlight the employee benefit and not the organizations.


I think it takes employee motivation. When I first looked at going to a condensed work week, I was just picturing maybe just the managers and the front office staff and maybe that’s all we could do, but my present manager and neighbor manager actually got with their employees and developed a plan that we implemented that we basically eliminated the early 2:00 am shift and condensed everything to print during the day, so we eliminated a shift and spread the work out and it actually saved us money because we have a day and night differential of .36 cents an hour to that group that started at 2:00 am, so now as a company I am saving money and the employees aren’t having to work those weird hours and they can have 3 days off and they are working 3 days of 9-½ hours and 1 day of 9 hours because it’s 37-½ hours a week. So they are working a little bit longer days, but not that much significantly. I’m actually saving money and then they are happier. It was the employees that actually figured out how to put that schedule together, and that really was the thing that sold me is that they really had to be motivated to do this and then once I started getting into it and looking at it, I saw that I was actually going to save money too, so I think it just takes a motivated work force to put something like this together.

And then give them examples as well because I know the idea of actually setting up somebody’s schedule and saying these are the job duties that can be done from home, so you have to have a plan. You cannot just request it. You need to prepare for it and you need to plan and create it.

B. Positive Impacts of Allowing Telework Participants in both groups brainstormed the positive impacts for allowing employees to telework. Both lists included increased productivity, employee retention and employee morale, as well as reduced costs. The list includes first-hand experience from those currently allowing telework and speculation from those currently without a program. Interestingly, those without a telework program offered more potential positive impacts than those who currently allow teleworking. Perhaps this is a reflection of the fact that most of the companies with telework programs had not evaluated their program so they did not offer those items as benefits, whereas non-telework organization “expect” those benefits.

It was easier for us to allow them to telecommute to save gas rather than give them a raise to compensate when fuel costs went up. It was an easier employee perk to telecommute than to give raises. (Non-telework organization)

Just generally saving money. You don’t have a central office that you’re renting; you’re not paying utility bills for it, things like that. It may not be a lot of money, but it’s a little money. (Non-telework organization)

I think the overall productivity would be higher. (Non-telework organization)

You might also have less absenteeism. If you’re not feeling exactly good you may call in sick versus, “I can still work from home. I’ve got my box of Kleenex and I can lie down in bed for 15 minutes if I need to.” (Non-telework organization)


Table 3: Positive Impacts

Positive Impacts

Do Not Allow

Telework

Allow

Telework Increased productivity √ √ Increased retention √ √ Lower costs/Save money √ √ Higher employee morale √ √ Save gas rather than give

raise √

Good for recruiting √ Better employee performance √ Bigger pool of employees

(able to have employees who don’t live in area)

√

Less absenteeism √ Meets TRP requirements √ Increased public perception (environment)

√

Get more hours from employees

√

I think in some situations the person is acting more productive because you have fewer

interruptions. (Telework organization)

There is lower cost based on things that are provided by the company. For example, our company provides coffee, tea, and you name it. Those employees aren’t drinking coffee or using sweetener or any of that, so the more employees that we don’t have in the office on a daily basis, the less that some of those expendables are used. (Telework organization)

We get things done faster, and if you can work weird hours, you can get stuff done by

8:00 the next morning. (Telework organization)

And certainly the public profile, like being environment friendly or certainly being conscious of it. (Telework organization)

I think we actually get more hours out of them. (Telework organization)

It certainly helps with the trip reductions. (Telework organization)


When I work from home, I will work my normal hours and then go have dinner or whatever and then I will come back and think there are a couple more things I can do, so you end up spending more time doing it. Even though you are accomplishing more, you are spending more time actually on the job. (Telework organization)

C. Negative Impacts of Allowing Telework In addition to asking participants about the advantages of telework, they were also asked about the negative impacts telework might have on an organization. Again, the list includes first-hand experience from those currently allowing telework and speculation from those currently without a program. The three items common to both lists were loss of “control” over the employee, perceived “unfairness” by non-teleworking co-workers, and communication issues. Representatives from non-telework organizations brought up notably more potential negative impacts of telework than those from telework organizations – reflecting many common misperceptions of telework in the business community. I know with our designers who have families they were afraid they wouldn’t get their design

work done. They’d be interacting with their children all day long and stopping arguments or fights and things and they just couldn’t get the quality of work done. (Non-telework organization)

I think, too, there is a perceived notion that maybe it costs the company money to allow

employees to telecommute. Having the technology set up for them in their homes and do they have to provide specific telephones and all of that. The costs that could be incurred if the company allows you to telecommute. (Non-telework organization)

Our marketing and sales work with displays and props and they have a marketing room so they wouldn’t have the access to their materials. (Non-telework organization)

Another reason, we may have better than 100 people in the office and this would only affect ten people. I think if three or four people work for you just have outrage from the other people, “I want to do it,” and they wouldn’t, their positions would allow. (Non-telework organization)

Sometimes individuals that do work from home a lot lose that culture and that sense of belonging to the organization. (Non-telework organization)

I think in smaller organizations it makes it harder because everybody knows when everybody’s there and everybody knows when somebody’s not there. If you’re missing more than a day or two, it becomes everybody’s business, so I think with the smaller organizations you have a bigger challenge. (Non-telework organization)

They also lose their professionalism when they’ve come back into the office and they’re wearing shorts. (Non-telework organization)


Table 4: Negative Impacts-Barriers

Negative Impacts

Do Not Allow

Telework

Allow Telework

Lose control over employee/don’t have constant “eye”/ Lack of accountability

√ √

Perceived unfairness among non TC employees/jealousy among those who can’t

√ √

Communication issues - Loss of face to face contact/ Less accessible for questions and answers/ forget to give them communication

√ √

Technology issues - Technology challenges, Afraid of technology

√

Less security - (company trade secrets could be leaked, lose information)

√

Increased costs - price of technology, phones, computer

√

“Leanness” of Organization - Everybody counts

√

Don’t want to lose a physical location √ Not able to reach employee √ Employees are less productive-lose quality

b/c they are distracted by home events √

No access to materials in office √ Fear of unknown/lack of education √ Prior bad experience √ Doesn’t impact enough people √ “Miss” employees in smaller organization √ TC employee loses contact/connection with

office √

TC employee loses professionalism √ Forget about TC employee √

And even a lack of communication to the telecommuters. It’s sort of like you hear things

through the rumor mill about a party going on or what not. Some company event and, “Oops. I forgot to let the telecommuter know.” (Non-telework organization)

Our issue is tracking or verifying that the work’s getting done. We get a lot of last-minute changes. We do custom software for other companies. We could write a scheduling program for you guys. You might call us up and say, “Hey, we’ve got a problem. It won’t let


me do this.” Well, then when I call you at home I might have ten things for you. I have no way of making sure you got all ten things done on time. (Non-telework organization)

Are they being productive, are they completing all their tasks. We are so time sensitive; if it slips through our fingers it’s now a crucial problem. It’s not a, “Oh, we can pick it up tomorrow.” (Non-telework organization)

You don’t have that constant eye on those employees. (Telework organization)

And I think those individuals that aren’t able to telecommute, there are comments from them

because they are jealous. Even though it is a positive thing for the person who is telecommuting, those individuals at work don’t see it like that. (Telework organization)

Face to face contact is another thing. Even now that we have our phone systems, it’s difficult because there’s not a live person or the hands on person. (Telework organization)

The accessibility for questions and answers because if somebody is remote, you can’t just walk over to their desk and ask them a quick question. Who knows if they’re going to answer? They may not be available. (Telework organization)

For us it’s technology. Computers fail and phones go out of service, especially with Nextel,

but technology fails, so that’s what I have noticed as kind of a flaw with telecommuting. Yeah, and it’s not necessarily the individual, but it’s just relying on computers and phones and fax machines or anything like that. Sometimes they don’t work to your advantage. (Telework organization)

Participants from organizations with a telework program were shown the list of barriers/negative impacts that participants from non-telework organizations created. They were then asked if they had experienced any of these barriers, and if they had, how they addressed them. Most participants indicated the issues they encounter center around communication: making sure employees are receiving the right communication, making sure employees are accessible and answering emails and phone calls promptly, and trying to coordinate meetings when employees work different days/hours so they can be informed. Participants mentioned a few ways that helped improve communication for them: hiring an employee specifically responsible for remote employees, utilizing conference calls and webinars, and making sure employees are aware of the organization’s expectations, even if this involves getting them to sign an agreement.

The one thing I have noticed, and not so much just with the telecommuting, but also I think

it’s kind of a combination of telecommuting and going to the 4-day work weeks because I’ve got my 5 managers off on different days because they are all working 4 days and we are still working 5 trying to keep everything covered. It’s difficult trying to get everyone together for meetings and that kind of thing. Typically Mondays and Fridays I can’t have meetings because that’s usually when everybody has picked one of those days as their other day off, and we do have others off on Wednesdays, but it does make it a little bit more difficult to try


to have that face-to-face interaction. When they are telecommuting, they’re not forgotten. Another thing that makes my situation a little bit unique is that myself and the managers often will work different hours because my plant runs 24 hours a day, so if a manager is working at night, then I don’t expect him to come in the next morning, so we’re all just kind of bouncing around.

The people forgetting about communication. What we ended up doing is, being that we have

six locations, we have one human resource manager who is specifically responsible for our remote employees, so along with her site employees, and she is responsible for the remote employees. She makes sure that all the departments and corporate communications also are relaying things to those remote employees as well as any other information that they have. So we have one person that is specifically responsible for doing that.

We utilize conference calls and webinars on a regular basis for people who are either

telecommuting or are out there, so that helps keep everybody up to date on current things that are happening within the company for the lack of contact, because that keeps them up to date. We do executive road shows and in order to get the employee to feel like they’re there, we do a teleconference so that they can actually listen in and ask questions based on the current meeting rather than having it video taped and not really having that interaction.

And for us it’s technology, so if you are telecommuting, you better either answer your cell phone or you need to answer your home phone or you need to answer your email, so once it’s known you are working from home, it’s not a secret, so everybody knows....at home and that happened today because I needed that individual, so I called her on her cell phone and she picked up the phone and I received my answer, so that’s what works. That same expectation as being there at the facility is the same expectation as that you have to be accessible at home and that you are calling within a reasonable time too, so if somebody is leaving a message or trying to communicate with you, you are calling them back within a reasonable time. So if you are working from home, you need to be accessible so that doesn’t happen.

Yes, when talking about technology and communication, it’s definitely not a barrier now with laptops, and certainly it’s part of the agreement to actually utilize your home phone or cell phone provided by the company. There is communication regarding for areas of job sharing as necessary so that we don’t lose the ability not only to communicate, but the ability to reach a deadline and get work done within the office itself. We certainly cannot jeopardize any customer service activities, and I don’t care if it’s responding to a complaint because individuals are working from home. In our organization, they aren’t necessarily working from home 4 or 5 days a week. It may be 1 or 2 days a week on a regular basis, and sometimes it could be just a particular project that they are working on which may be one week or the equivalent of one week per month, so that kind of makes it more favorable for the supervisor and manager, so it can work. The other thing that is very important is establishing expectations with the employee, which can be done within the agreement itself, but establishing it and maintaining it.


VII. Potential Areas of Assistance and Future of Telecommuting A. Potential Areas of Assistance: Non-telework Organizations Near the end of the discussion, participants from non-telecommuting organizations were asked to brainstorm what questions they wanted answered and the type of information they felt might be helpful in “selling” the concept of teleworking to the managers within their organizations. Their suggestions/questions are listed below. They would like information on the following topics:

o How to implement the program o How to monitor telework employees o Benefits to the bottom line o Costs o Which positions are suitable for telework o Morale issues - how to deal with employees who cannot telework o Legal ramifications o Payroll tracking o Systems needed to implement program o How to support at home technology

We need to know how to implement and monitor it. If they would come in and say, “If you would answer yes to any of these questions, these people would be perfect candidates to telecommute.” Now, after you have them telecommuting, “These are your guidelines,” type of thing. Yes, that would be excellent in our scenario.

What are the benefits to telecommuting? If we’re trying to sell it to the management team they want to know bottom line, “What is this going to gain me? What am I going to get out of this? Why should I do that?” We need to be able to present a case as to why it would be best for them.

How do you deal with the positions that aren’t eligible? How do you deal with their morale or their, “Why can’t I do this? What about us?” They feel like they’re being left out of the equation.

Are there particular systems that are needed and if it is, what is the cost of setting up those systems? What kind of support is needed outside of the office?

Overall, most participants were very interested in receiving assistance from an “education standpoint.” They are too busy and do not have the time to research and find the information that would help them in convincing their managers to implement a telework program. All participants indicated case studies would be beneficial to them. There were mixed views regarding employee surveys; some thought they would be beneficial and others felt their organization had too few employees. Although all participants mentioned they are interested in


receiving telework information and assistance, they indicated they would not be willing to pay for this information.

More for an education standpoint. I don’t necessarily have time to do a bunch of research!

It’s great that you can do all of this research and report. I do a little bit of everything. I am the HR department and do payroll and all that so I don’t have time to do this mass research to present to our powers that be to even have them consider something. If somebody outside had all the answers and could answer the questions from an expert standpoint to our management team, that would be extremely useful to me.

Again for me, because of the people who would be eligible are such a small number, I don’t think that a survey would be helpful at all.

It would just be a matter of, “What days of the week are you going to do this? What can I expect that you’re going to get done while you’re working outside of the office?” Those kinds of things. It would just be the manager signing off that, “Yes, I agree to that,” and communicate it to the rest of the organization.

I think it would be interesting from my standpoint to show my upper management to say, “See, there is a genuine interest for this.” Nobody speaks about it much after we lost the 9/80s. I know how they feel, but to actually have something tangible is like, “See?”

B. Future of Telework 1. Non-Telework Organizations Most participants were hopeful and thought there was a good possibility that their organization would allow more employees to telework in the near future, especially with recent economic events. However, participants see their telework program as being very selective, mentioning that telework would probably be available on a case-by-case basis and only for employees in certain types of positions.

It’s a good possibility especially with the economy downturn. It just depends on how our

industry performs and if things start to come back a little bit, we may lose interest in it. It’s something one of the other designers and I am always pushing for because I could do all of my work from home. Getting rid of the office I think would be ideal, just because with the phone and the computer, that’s all I need.

I see we’ll start offering telecommuting more in the next year or so. There are so many

benefits. Yes, with the economy and gas and everything I can see it having more of a pressing need, but even for us, once we are back up on the upswing you could have twice as many employees in half the office size. We do see the perks to it; it’s just a matter of how to implement it and monitor it once it’s going.


It definitely could be done for the corporate and marketing and sales, not for our manufacturing. You can’t put a line in somebody’s house. But I’m hoping. I’m very optimistic that it will just for employee morale in keeping and creating these positions.

It’s possible, but I don’t think they’re going to go too far. Priority to the doctors - we might start pushing them a little bit more but also trying to correct them from old habits is not easy.

We have a small group as well, maybe 10 to 12. It would be more of a perk benefit for these

people. They’ve been long-term employees - 12, 15 years - so it would be more of a benefit for them. We have a lot of office space and we would have more of the cubes. Again, it would only be a select group, so it might be affecting the morale of the other people if we went forward with it. But the opportunity is there for one to two days.

I’m in the same situation. We have so few people it would be the exception rather than the

rule. I don’t see us having any kind of formal, “These positions are available to telecommute.” It would even be for a position like mine or accounting manager. This is a slow day and I’m going to work from home today; it wouldn’t be on these days.

The people that could be impacted by my organization are such a small number of people I think it could be dealt with on a case-by-case basis. If I really wanted to telecommute it would just be me going to my manager and saying, “Hey, on these days I could be at home doing x, y and z,” and then present to him that the accounting manager could probably get certain things done outside of the office as well and, “If you just want the presence of managers being in the office, let’s see if we could set up a schedule that best supports that.” In my interaction with my manager I know that he is more concerned about the bigger state of what the economy is and the morale of employees and some of the other stresses that are on employees. He feels that we all need to be in this together, and the presence of managers being there to help support that is something that’s very important to him.

2. Telework Organizations Three out of seven participants feel their telework program will expand in the near future; the other four participants feel their organization will remain the same. Participants feel that their programs will expand because the future of the workforce is moving toward more telework and, due to economic times, it is a way to decrease costs. I think it’s actually going to be part of the new or modern work environments. I think it’s

going to have a permanent place and will be considered much more widely than it is now. In Peoria, my job is to help put some of the formal things in place and to have it part of the considerations on a very regular basis. Sustainability is a key tool that our organization as city government has not only embraced, but has embraced very seriously. This is one of the definitions of sustainability is having the type of flexible work force and being able to consider clean air and waste reduction and other programs that help describe what sustainability is. So it is the new workplace, and we are taking steps now to help make sure


everybody understands that and, encouraging it widely throughout the organization, so I think it’s going to be a very big part of how we do things.

I have heard rumors that now that we have our office phone forwarding system actually working, it’s probably going to mean more people being out of the office a lot more because the calls would go directly to your cell phone, so I can only see there being more and more telecommuting going on.

For us, due to the economy, obviously we are looking for ideas, and this is going to be one of the ones that we will be implementing more on a structured basis. Also, a condensed work week because we rely on those grants, and as you can see, the city and the state and everybody is cutting back and obviously programs are being affected by that, so we are looking at this as becoming our future, and soon. We are actually looking at this currently due to our enrollment in the trip reduction program as well.

I assume that ours will stay the same. We have to have employees in the stores selling as

well as employees able to work from home to get their job accomplished, so I think it’s going to stay the same.

I don’t think our plan is going to change very much. If anything, we might put in some sort of a structure for criteria at least. Right now it’s case by case. If anybody requests it, it might just be handed out; otherwise I would say more structure.

I think ours will pretty much for the time being at least stay the same until we expand a little bit more and have some more remote employees. We have quite a few now, but once we have some more infrastructure in place, I think they might expand it a little bit, but they really like having everybody on site, which we want to smack them because of that. In a nutshell, what happened was that we had a new CEO come in where we had a very relaxed organization, and literally several days a week the corporate offices were like a ghost town because people were working from home and things were happening, but he came in from a structure in Europe that everybody was in the office from 7:00 to 6:00 and they were there and it just basically freaked him out. But he pretty much said, I want to see people in the office and I want to know that people are accessible. That was the whole problem for him is that he could not go and say, I have a question, tell me what your department is doing. It had to be scheduled and it had to be structured, and he wanted a more formal office setting, so once he relaxes in and he gets more comfortable with the technology and webinars, I think he will become more comfortable with more of the opportunity to telecommute for his managers and then it will have the trickle down effect.

My place I think will probably stay the same just because of the way it is structured. The main office downtown at the Republic, I kind of foresee that they will probably have more people telecommuting, and I think more so just as a retention kind of benefit. And there may be some impact as far as, like as people have left the newspaper, the ones that are still there are taking on more and more tasks, so I could kind of see telecommuting as, like I’ve got all


these things to do and what would really be beneficial is if 1 or 2 days a month I could take this work home, so on the Republic side I think it may increase.

Date post:	13-Jul-2020
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