• House Okays Telecommuting For Civil Servants
Posted by Tom Harnish on June 4th, 2008
Yesterday the House approved telecommuting legislation that requires federal agencies to allow qualified workers to work from home at least 20 percent of the hours worked in a two-week period—that’s two work days or one day a week in most cases. The national average, by the way, is 2.3.
The idea is to give more federal workers the opportunity to telework and boost productivity by cutting down on commuting time, reducing absenteeism, allow for greater organizational flexibility, reduce traffic congestion and pollution, and offer relief from high gas prices.
To date, studies have cited such issues as management resistance, security concerns and technical problems for reason that have slowed adoption.
The Office of Personnel Management estimates 110,000 federal employees teleworked at least one day a month during 2006, down slightly from the year before. At the Labor Department, on the other hand, teleworking was up 58 percent because the agency integrated teleworking into its continuity of operations planning.
The good news, according to an AP story, “…the American Federation of Government Employees, which represents 600,000 federal and D.C. government workers, said the legislation was a good first step in that it requires agencies to show that workers are ineligible for teleworking rather than the current system where workers are presumed ineligible unless the agency determines otherwise.”
The bad news is this bill and the Senate version don’t have any enforcement mechanisms for agencies that don’t meet teleworking requirements. But it’s another small step forward.
June 22nd, 2008 at 6:14 pm
The bill passed by congress is a good start, but it is only part of the solution. The way that employees and employers implement telecommuting will determine the success or failure of the initiative.
For many workers, the optimal solution is to lease an office for them in a telecommuting center near where they live. Remote office hosting centers can provide professional grade internet, phones and security. They would also provide a place to work without the distractions of home life and a place to come home from at the end of the day so that the problems of work can be left at work.
The bill that congress passed specifies that workers can telecommute from home or a convenient location. This model would work just as well in the private sector. The use of remote office hosting centers requires a small paradigm shift, but is really nothing more than a new way to host offices and support telecommuting initiatives.
July 19th, 2008 at 11:05 pm
Workers who are interested in telecommuting, but would prefer working in a remote office can go to a free web site that lists Remote Office Centers by city. The web site is: http://www.remoteofficecenters.com/findLocation.php