The Telework Improvements Act (H.R. 1722) got a second chance in the House on July 14th and won. The same bill was narrowly defeated in May. A similar bill (S.707) passed unanimously in the Senate on May 24th.

While it's been a mandate since the year 2000 that every federal worker telecommute to the maximum extent possible, participation rates are only slightly higher than those of the private sector. According to a recent report, only about 100,000 of the government's 2 million workers telework at least one day a month--a number that's actually declined in recent years. While still higher than private sector participation, only about 5 percent of the total federal workforce telework and less than 9% of those who are eligible do so.
 
If signed into law by the President, the Telework Improvements Act would, among other things, direct the Office of Personnel Management to issue regulations on telework, require agencies to come up with policies that permit teleworking for up to 20 percent of the hours worked over two weeks, require agencies to designate a telework managing officer, provide training to employees, and ensure that there are no distinctions between teleworkers and others in performance appraisals. Independent of this bill, the Obama administration has set a goal of having 150,000 teleworkers by 2011, and 500,000 by 2014.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates program costs at $30 million over a five year period. In fact, the staggering costs of lost productivity from federal workers during last Winter's snowstorms--estimated by the government at $71 million a day--would pay for the five year cost of H.R. 1722 in one snow day.

The potential savings of the program were not presented by CBO. Using assumptions from a 2006 study commissioned by the U.S. General Services Administration (conducted by Booz Allen), we used our Telework Savings Calculator to quantify the potential governments savings if those eligible federal employees who wanted to work from home did so just one day every other week (half 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

Talk of a national telework initiative has been rattling around Washington ever since the start of the current administration. While the Telework Improvements Act does nothing for the private sector--except perhaps reducing traffic in areas with significant government workers and possibly shortening the wait time at downtown D.C. Starbucks'--hopefully it will send a strong message of endorsement of the concept to the private sector.

What do you think?

Photo Credit: Vinoth Chandar
 

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

Martha Johnson, the new administrator of the General Services Administration (GSA) has become a passionate endorser for Workshifting since her appointment to the post in February of this year. She has given numerous speeches in which she has touted the advantages of remote working environments.

 Earlier this week she backed teleworking during a speech at GSA's Interagency Resources Management Conference in Cambridge, Md:

"Why are you not teleworking? Are you in love with the 1980s for some reason?"

And at a keynote for FOSE in March she talked about the role teleworking played in keeping government agencies operating during the storms that rocked the Northeast this winter. She said that nearly 60 percent of GSA employees worked remotely during the blizzard.

"I am personally passionate about this notion that 'work is what you do, not where you do it.' I believe we are moving away from the industrial model where you watch workers do work. That is waste in the system. There's no need to have a system where people watch people. There's a fundamental shift in culture that everyone needs to understand, and that is something that is core to this for me."

This shift in culture that she references is just as big of a barrier for private companies as it is for the federal government. While many companies have embraced Workshifting, there are still plenty out there that have yet to accept this idea that (as Johnson so eloquently puts it) "work is what you do, not where you do it."

I still regularly come across people - from clients, friends or family - who have a hard time grasping that I don't work in the MindFire office. Many people automatically assume I don't work as hard as my office counterparts or that I have the luxury of sleeping until noon (not true). Others think that my remote working environment will come in incredibly handy once my husband and I have kids. After all, I'll just be able to watch the kids since I'm not in the office all day, right?

So the question becomes - how do you help facilitate that shift in culture? A solid "business case" for teleworking is certainly an important part. In addition to productivity and efficiency, Johnson believes there are also security and environmental benefits that should be touted.

But in order for the established cultural beliefs to take hold, change needs to take place on a more personal scale, as well. I think the sheet logistics of Workshifting are daunting enough for some to simply dismiss the idea. I believe that the more people work with Workshifters and are exposed to the benefits (and perhaps downfalls) of this type of working arrangements, the more accepted into the mainstream teleworking will become.

As such, an increased acceptance of teleworking in the federal government will likely also ultimately help increase the acceptance in the private sector.


What do you guys think?


Photo Credit: Cayusa

Drew Clark from BroadbandCensus.com, one of the leaders in the quest for public and transparent broadband maps, asked me to cover the first ever White House Conference on Workplace Flexibility last week. "Cool," I said, "but I live in San Diego." "No problem," he offered, "it's being broadcast live over the web." So I actually got to workshift my first White House news assignment (full disclosure: it wasn't so much a White House news assignment as it was a request to write a little blog post, but it's probably the closest I'll ever come to the former so I'm milking it for all it's worth).

What was clear from the kickoff by the First Lady to the Teleworker in Chief's final remarks, was that workplace flexibility, and in particular, workshifting is high on the federal agenda--not just for their own employees, but for the private sector workforce as well.

Michelle Obama talked about how much flexible work has meant in her own her family and how she's discovered throughout her career, that the more flexibility she gives the people who work for her, the happier they are and less likely they are to leave. The President described flexible work as key to being competitive in the global economy.



"It's about attracting and retaining top talent in the federal workforce and empowering them to do their jobs, and judging their success by the results that they get--not by how many meetings they attend, or how much face-time they log, or how many hours are spent on airplanes. It's about creating a culture where . . . work is what you do, not where you are," said the President. He urged those organizations already successful at making work flexible to spread the word.

Addressing the challenges to this new way to work the President promised "where regulations are in the way, we'll see what we can do to change them. Where new technology can help, we'll find a secure, cost-effective way to install it. Where training is needed to help managers and workers embrace this approach, we'll adopt the best practices from the private sector." Calling for a 50% increase in workshifting eligibility among federal employees in FY2011, he joked, "I do not want to see the government close because of snow again."

John Berry, head of the Office of Personnel Management, spoke about how flex policies improve the government's ability to hire and retain great people, "I want to make government (jobs) cool again." Adding with a smile that "if flexibility can succeed in the federal government with the unrivaled complexity of our missions--as well as our red tape . . . it can succeed anywhere."

Common themes throughout the conference included the stuff us workshifters have been saying for years; workshifting increases productivity, reduces turnover and absenteeism, and improves worklife balance. But hearing those words coming from White House mouths was music to my ears. Between that and wanting to make federal jobs cool again, it was clear this is not your grandmother's government. What do you think?

Today our post is from Tom Harnish, who is a telework evangalist, writer, and researcher at the TeleworkResearchNetwork.com. He co-authored the popular press book, Undress For Success--The Naked Truth About Making Money at Home (Wiley 2009).

Sad, but true, U.S. broadband penetration ranks 15th among the 30 top industrialized nations, according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). In terms of affordability, our broadband ranks 8th. And 10 countries advertise faster download speeds. In Japan, for example, 1,000 Mbps top speeds are available compared to just 50 Mbps in the U.S


The FCC, is determined to reverse this disparity. They've just announced a plan to create a high-speed digital highway that could be as significant for workshifters--for everyone, really--as the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956 that created the nation's highways. The average U.S. broadband speed is currently less than 4 Mbps. Julius Genachowski, FCC's chief, wants to see 100Mbps speeds in 100 million American homes by 2020.

It's hoped that the new communication infrastructure will spur innovation in the same way electricity and transportation networks encouraged innovation in the past. But some argue these investments don't make economic sense, and many are irked that Uncle Sam is about to invade an arena that belongs in the private sector.

In my opinion, the FCC's efforts are justified by the potential benefits to the environment as well as the energy, healthcare, education, and transportation industries. Even small improvements in these areas could justify the government spending. In fact, broadband has already become the medium of choice for the news, music and video industries; and broader access to high speed distribution will only encourage growth in the media world.

The OECD concludes in a recent report, "On average, a cost savings of between 0.5% and 1.5% in each of the four sectors over ten years resulting directly from the new broadband network platform could justify the cost of building a national point-to-point, fiber-to-the-home network.

Hi-speed virtual highways, for example, can help energy providers and users understand supply and demand in real time and adjust consumption automatically based on price change broadcasts.

As our population ages, our health-care system is faced with pressure to improve quality, accessibility and outcomes in a cost-effective way. Broadband makes possible doctor-patient interaction at home, including health monitoring, remote consultation, and intervention.

Today there is no wide scale way to collect traffic data, analyze it, and pass the results along to commuters to help them alter their routes to save time and money. But more, broadband can dramatically reduce the traffic and maintenance demands on our transportation infrastructure.

Broadband is already changing education. Digital learning resources are now available so, for example, you can audit courses at Harvard and MIT, to name just two universities with growing catalogs of online material. Indeed, there are already several virtual secondary schools and colleges that exist only as administration, teachers, and students connected by the Internet.

If there's an industry to watch that will have a huge impact on your future, it's broadband. Not just change, but the rate of change--the acceleration--in progress will drive developments unimaginable today.

Bandwidth--in whatever form--is, and always has been fundamental to innovation. Congestion on the roadways already constrains our nation's growth. Congestion on the information highway will strangle it. If we expect to continue as a global leader, world-class broadband needs to be a national priority.


What are your thoughts?

Today we're fortunate to have Chuck Wilsker, President and CEO of The Telework Coalition, and Nicole Belson Golubuff, an attorney in New York and an Advisory Board member of the Telework Coalition, join us with his very timely call-to-action regarding the Telecommuter Tax Fairness Act.  Chuck is a true thought leader in the telework/remote working/workshifting space.  WIthout Nicole's tireless efforts, this Bill would not have progressed as far as it has.

Although there has been dissension in Washington on just when to tackle reauthorization of the country's transportation funding bill (SAFETEA-LU), once lawmakers and the Obama Administration agree to focus on it, they must make sure the new legislation strongly encourages telework.  They must do the same as they develop new energy legislation.
 By reducing the number of people who rely each day on roads and mass transit, telework lowers the cost of maintaining, fixing and expanding such infrastructure. At the same time, it enables the nation to conserve fuel, improve its energy security and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

A crucial component of any plan to encourage telework is clearing away significant roadblocks to it.  One of these roadblocks is the telecommuter tax.  A bill pending in Congress called the Telecommuter Tax Fairness Act (H.R. 2600) would get rid of this barrier to Web-based work.  This legislation must become law.

What is the telecommuter tax?  Currently, under a state doctrine known as the "convenience of the employer" rule, when an employee works for a company located in a different state and chooses to telecommute some of the time, the employer's state may tax the employee on 100% of his wages - not just the wages he earns when he travels to the employer's state, but also the wages he earns in his state of residence.  Because the states where telecommuters live can also tax their residents on the income they earn at home, telecommuters risk double taxation of their at-home income.  

In some cases, to protect them from the double tax risk, the home state will give telecommuters a credit for taxes they pay the employer's state on their home state wages.  However, this approach may not solve the problem:  When the employer's state has a higher tax rate than the home state, telecommuters have to pay that higher rate on the income earned at home:  They are still penalized for choosing to work in a virtual environment.
 
The states where telecommuters live can also take a significant hit because of the telecommuter tax.  When they give their residents a credit for taxes paid to the employer's state, the home states essentially surrender their own revenue to the employer's state:  They supply the funding for such public services as police, fire and transportation in the employer's state, even though their residents working from home rely on those services at home.  In the current economy, the many states faced with having to reduce or eliminate their own services can ill afford to subsidize the services offered elsewhere.

Consider the case of Scott Smallwood.  Scott is a resident of Arlington, Virginia.  He works for a financial services firm in New York, a state which applies the telecommuter tax aggressively.  Although Scott spends only a few work days each week in New York and the rest, working from the office his employer set up in his Virginia home, New York has demanded that he pay taxes on all his wages - both the wages he earns on his New York days and the wages he earns on his Virginia days.  Virginia has given him a credit for taxes he has paid New York on his Virginia wages.  However, New York's tax rate is higher than Virginia's, so both he and his home state have suffered:  For several tax years, Scott paid the higher New York rate on his Virginia income, and Virginia received no income tax from Scott.

Because the telecommuter tax makes working across state lines via the Web unduly expensive for employees, it is a potent deterrent to this green work practice.  As one Connecticut resident has explained, "I had to stop working from home for [my] firm in New York City because my taxes were out of sight."

The Telecommuter Tax Fairness Act would bar states from taxing non-residents on the income they earn at home, abolishing the stiff punishment for using virtualization technologies to get to work.  The bi-partisan bill was introduced by U.S. Representatives Jim Himes (D-CT) and Frank Wolf (R-VA) and has been co-sponsored by eleven other lawmakers representing states from east coast to west. 

As forward-looking companies design the cutting edge tools that facilitate efficient collaboration among decentralized workers, neither New York nor any other state should be permitted to frustrate such collaboration by menacing interstate teleworkers with double or excessive taxation.  To maximize the transportation and environmental benefits of using virtualization technologies to reach the office, Congress should pass the Telecommuter Tax Fairness Act.

To help build continued support for the Bill, I have created a petition which is being sent to Congress.  I encourage you to sign the petition and help pass the Telecommuter Tax Fairness Act.

If you would like to track the progress of the Telecommuter Tax Fairness Act as it moves through Congress, head on over to OpenCongress.

Photo by: jmd41280