Feature Story:
Telecommuting |
By Donna Miles The author, former deputy editor, wrote this article while telecommuting from her home in Annapolis, Md.
|
State's new regulation outlines a program that's proving to be good for the Department as well as its employees.
nybody who's spent the early morning hours in bumper-to-bumper traffic or standing-room-only Metro cars knows all too well the hassles of commuting to work. Washington, D.C., the city with the largest single concentration of State employees, is also saddled with the United States' second most congested highways. An estimated 324,000 federal employees in the Washington, D.C., area--almost 8,000 of them from State alone--contribute to that congestion. Some spend three to four hours a day commuting to and from work. Their commutes take a toll on the highways and the air quality. But they also take a toll on the commuters themselves in terms of their pocketbooks, their safety and, most significantly, their mental health. That's why the President's Management Council wants more federal employees to telecommute to work. Telecommuting means working outside the traditional office. Simply put, it's moving the work to the workers, instead of the workers to the work. The concept would have been unthinkable just 30 years ago. But the explosion in home computers and telecommunications technology means that many workers no longer have to be physically in their offices to do their jobs. "The intent is to increase employees' flexibility, helping them better balance their work, family and community obligations," said Corinne Thornton in the Bureau of Personnel's Office of Employee Relations, which oversees State's telecommuting program. Telecommuting has caught on like wildfire in the private sector, where some 9 million employees telecommute one or more days a week. But the federal government hasn't embraced it quite so readily and has fallen far short of the President's Management Council goal of boosting the number of federal telecommuters to 60,000 by September 1998. State's telecommuting program started as a pilot program in 1995, with each bureau establishing its own policies and running its own program. The programs remained small, with fewer than 40 participants Department-wide, until the U.S. Information Agency merged with State on Oct. 1 and brought with it almost 200 additional telecommuters. To prepare for this boom, the Department recently published a new telecommuting regulation that provides detailed information about the program, including guidelines for participation. Although all of State's telecommuters work from their homes, they also qualify to use one of 15 General Services Administration-run "telecenters" in the Washington, D.C., area. These centers are equipped with printers, copiers, fax machines, telephones and other office essentials. For State employees who work from their homes, some bureaus may be able to loan out excess computer equipment and to reimburse employees for official long-distance calls made from their home telephones. But with ever-present funding constraints, most State employees will need to purchase and maintain their own equipment if they hope to telecommute. For example, when Mary Reynolds, chief of the financial disclosure division in the legal adviser's Ethics Office, started telecommuting one day a week two years ago, she set up a basement office in her home and bought office furniture and a new computer with an internal modem so she could send and receive faxes and retrieve voice mail. She subscribed to an Internet provider and had two extra telephone lines installed at her home so she could work online while talking on the telephone. The investment, she said, was well worth it, enabling her to better keep up with increasing family demands while actually boosting her workload. She said working one day a week from her home in Spotsylvania, Va., gives her uninterrupted quiet time to focus on the more than 3,000 financial disclosure statements she certifies each year. In addition, it offers her immediate access to the Internet to conduct research and communicate with embassies overseas. Chip Harman, a webmaster on the Office of International Information Programs' electronic media team, said he's able to respond much faster to problems at missions in the Far East, Middle East and Europe by telecommuting from his home in Bowie, Md. "When dealing with people in so many time zones, you need to be available after hours, and being able to do that from home made a whole lot more sense than having to drive 22 miles into the office," he said. Telecommuting has increased his productivity, too. "It takes two days in the office to do what you can get done in one day at home," he said. "It's amazing how much more you can get done." Linda Rhodes, a personnel management specialist in the Personnel Bureau's Office of Overseas Employment, said the best part of working from her home two days a week is that she's able to concentrate on her work without interruption. On Tuesdays and Fridays, she drafts policy regulations on overseas recruitment and employment. "It's made me much more productive than I could ever be in the office," she said. "Plus, I tend to put in more hours at home because I'm saving the commuting time I used to spend driving 40 miles back and forth to work every day." Supervisors, too, are singing the praises of telecommuting. Robert Morris, director of the Office of Overseas Employment and Ms. Rhodes' supervisor, said allowing four members of his staff to telecommute has lowered the noise and traffic in his office while helping the staff reduce its backlog.
"The objective is to get the work done, and the best way to do that is to make it as convenient and comfortable as possible," Mr. Morris said. "From a productivity standpoint, it's a no-brainer. So I guess you could say that I'm all for telecommuting." But not all managers are as enthusiastic as Mr. Morris about telecommuting. Some feel a loss of control when their employees aren't in close contact. Others feel that managing telecommuters is an administrative burden. Still others don't know how to evaluate an employee they don't see every day. "Telecommuting puts a whole different perspective on management," acknowledged Ms. Thornton. "It requires managers to assess their workers based on results, not simply on their presence in the office." It also requires managers to determine which employees are--and more important, aren't--suitable for telecommuting. "It's not for every employee," said Mr. Morris. The best candidates for telecommuting, he's convinced, are the "self-motivated, high performers" who have proven through their day-to-day work in the office that they can function without close supervision.
But no matter how stellar an employee might be, not all work is suitable for telecommuting. What might work ideally for an employee whose job involves research, writing or budget analysis simply won't for an employee whose job requires regular face-to-face contact with the supervisor, colleagues or the general public. One of the best forecasters of a successful telecommuting arrangement, telecommuters and their supervisors agree, is that both parties go into the situation with a clear understanding of the requirements and expectations. Brenda Sprague, director of the Office of Language Services, held in-depth discussions with two translators in her office before approving their separate telecommuting requests. "To make this work, we talked out everything in advance--expectations and ground rules--so everyone knew what to expect," she said. "The result was everybody understood the agreement and abided by it. There were no surprises." No matter how specific a telecommuting arrangement, all telecommuters understand that the needs of the Department--not the convenience of the employee--must come first. That means that telecommuters must be willing to forfeit their telecommuting days when they interfere with office activities. "If I have a meeting or something pressing in the office on one of my telecommuting days, I have to be flexible and come in," said Ms. Rhodes. "It's the only way this kind of arrangement can work." Communication, too, is a key to the telecommuting arrangement. When working at home, Ms. Rhodes leaves a recording on her office voicemail so callers know where to reach her. "I get calls at home all the time, and I'm always within reach," she said. Ms. Reynolds, too, said she maintains regular contact with her office during her telecommuting days. She checks in by phone with her assistant at 10:30 a.m. and 2:30 p.m. each day and notifies the office before leaving the house at an hour other than her regular lunchtime. Even then, she carries her cellular phone so she is within easy reach of her colleagues. "Communication is critical," she said. "You can't have people questioning your whereabouts when they need to contact you." State's telecommuters agree that the open communication, trust and respect that go into successful telecommuting arrangements are helping build stronger employer-employee relationships. "My supervisors have placed significant confidence and trust in me," said Ms. Reynolds, "and I want to do everything I can to make sure they continue to feel that way." "It's morale boosting," agreed Mr. Harman. "When an institution gives this kind of flexibility, it shows that it values its employees."
State's Program at a Glance
|
Homepage | Previous Feature |