In case you missed it, last week marked what was known as “Telework Week”- a dedicated effort to increase awareness and popularity of the now federally mandated initiative and the benefits thereof. But how many federal employees are actually taking advantage of teleworking? With the organized event now behind us (Feb. 14-18), Ed O’Keefe in his column The Federal Eye takes a quick look back to evaluate the government’s recent teleworking efforts:
Report: Less than 6% of federal workers telework
New government figures show few federal workers were taking advantage of telework options in the year before President Obama signed a bill requiring agencies to develop work-at-home plans.
According to an Office of Personnel Management report submitted to Congress Thursday, just under 6 percent of the federal workforce — or 113,946 employees — teleworked in 2009, an increase of more than 11,000 workers from the previous year.
Granted these numbers are from 2009, and I can only imagine 2010’s numbers will be reasonably higher for a variety of reasons, but 6% for the entire year seems a bit weak, no? Perhaps my expectations are just too high? For a period when teleworking was still relatively new, maybe 6% is actually quite good? .
In any case, GovLoop’s Fearless Leader, Steve Ressler, recently asked, “What’s your teleworking secret?” Now let’s look at your teleworking secret from a different angle:
What are your teleworking challenges? If you’re not in that 6%, what keeps you from ditching the daily gridlock and working from the comfort of your own home?
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Good Qs on what is a reasonable percentage of staff teleworking. I see a variety of factors; your office’s purpose such as customer interaction requires your presence, an employee with the self discipline required to work from home, supervison of those teleworking (is Uncle Sam getting his 8 hours), many employees enjoy the office environment, does your office’s hardware require an employee to be there to use it (printing for example) are the % numbers counting for those who ever telework, regularly telework, 1 x per week or more, etc.?.
Teleworking is here, so lets start looking looking at its effectiveness, its usefulness, its situational usage (where is teleworking best, or offices where its not as effective), where are the studies showing these performance metrics?