Posted by: In Washington D.C. Metro Area, we have had approximately 88 inches of snow since the start of the winter and another 2-4 inches was predicted this week. Luckily, the additional snow passed us up. For a geographic area that tends to average roughly 15 inches of snow, you can imagine that we’ve basically had to shut down. But can government really shut down in D.C?
The Office of Personnel and Management (OPM) and the General Services Administration (GSA) had nearly 30% of their local employees logged in from home, according to OPM Director John Berry.
Especially with a formal government culture that is in general hesitant about telework, if these numbers are indicative to what happened to other agency employees in town, the snow storms really did a number in pushing forward the issue of telework and its benefits of sustaining productivity.
According to Max Stier, president and chief executive of the Partnership for Public Service states in this Washington Post article, “one problem is the government doesn’t really know how to manage performance. If you know what good work is and you can hold people accountable,” he said, “it shouldn’t matter if they are in eye or ear shot or at home or in the office.”
Despite the issues, the fact remains that increased productivity clearly outweighs the losses that occurs when a government agency has closed down and no one is able to get to the office. John Berry stated that if government, “provided workers with laptops, the cost of equipment would be covered by the estimated $100 million a day the government loses when offices in Washington close.”
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office is one agency that is taking advantage of telework and has had many successes with it. For our readers at Unleash the Monster, we will be posting exclusive interviews with the head of this program during the next couple of weeks, so that you can learn best practices and determine the best approach to pursuing telework at your agency or organization.
Thu, Feb 18, 2010
Federal