Consensus Would Save Taxpayers $11 Billion a Year

Just two weeks after a narrow defeat in the House, the Senate unanimously passed legislation (S.707) that would beef up federal workshifting participation. Passage of H.R. 1722--The Telework Improvements Act, a nearly identical bill, missed by only 4% with all but one of the nay votes coming from the Republican side of the house. It's hard not to blame party politics for the House failure since they themselves passed an almost mirror bill in the last months of the Bush administration.

Many of the House naysayers cited costs, which the Congressional Budget Office estimated to be $30 million over a five year period, as the reason for their opposition to the bill. Our reseach shows the bill would actually save agency and employee participants $11 billion a year. Let's see, that's something like a 1,800x return on investment.

The House bill should have made it a no-brainer. You'd think the staggering costs of lost productivity from federal workers during this Winter's snowstorms--estimated by the government's own bean counters at $71 million a day--would wake lawmakers up to the need for a trained teleworkforce. Apparently, at least in the House, those memories melted along with the ice.

Only 5.2% of the 4.7 million government workforce telecommutes on a regular basis but 61% are considered eligible. Based on assumptions from a 2006 study commissioned by the U.S. General Services Administration (conducted by Booz Allen) our Telework Savings Calculator shows that if those eligible employees who wanted to work from home did so just one day every other week (the level required in H.R. 1722):


Agencies would:

• Increase productivity by over $2.3 billion each year - equivalent to 26,000 man years of work
• Save $850 million in annual real estate, electricity, and related costs
• Save $2.3 billion in annual absenteeism
• Save $3.1 billion in annual employee turnover
• Improve continuity of operations
• Improve work life balance and better address the needs of families, parents, and senior caregivers.
• Avoid the 'brain drain' effect of retiring boomers by allowing them to work flexibly
• Be able to recruit and retain the best people
• Offer fuller employment for disabled workers, rural residents, and military families

Federal Employees would:

• Achieve a better work-life balance
• Save $400-$1,400/year in transportation and work-related expenses
• Collectively save $57 million a year at the pumps
• Suffer fewer illnesses

The Nation would:

• Save almost 3 million barrels and $233 million in imported oil
• Reduce greenhouse gases by 532,000 tons/year--the equivlient of taking 97,000 cars off the road
• Reduce road travel by 1.2 billion miles/year saving $20 million in road maintenance
• Reduce road congestion thereby increasing productivity for non-teleworkers as well
• Save 1,000 people from traffic-related injury or death each year and save $117 million a year in related costs
• Improve emergency responsiveness
• Reduce pollution from road work and new office construction
• Preserve open spaces
• Alleviate the strain on our crumbling transportation infrastructure
• Reduce terrorism targets of opportunity
• That's a savings of over $5,000 per telecommuter.

Supporters of the H.R. 1722 need your help bringing the bill back to the floor under a full session. The President, the First Lady, and the director of the Office of Personnel Management, John Berry, have all professed their support for workshifting. If you agree, please contact your political representatives and urge them to vote to make the road less traveled the way to work. A list of those who opposed the vote is available and you can cast your own vote on the bill at OpenCongress.

Want to know what your company could save by workshifting? Download our latest white paper: Workshifting:The Bottom Line


Photo Credit: myoldpostcards