Telecommuting has many fans among workers, who are more than happy to eliminate long commutes and work from a familiar home office or a handy coffee shop on the road. And more and more employers are finding that there’s plenty of upside in terms of productivity and happier workers, outweighing any concerns they might have had about workers goofing off without supervision.
The federal government is among those employers that have bought in. Telecommuting is now commonly used to let employees work from outside agency facilities. This even applies for workers in national security offices, although they have to take extra security steps to protect classified and sensitive information.
RAND management scientist Cortney Weinbaum and her team analyzed seven federal agencies with employees who conduct work outside of government facilities, and they conducted interviews inside the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. She and her team created a road map for overcoming telecommuting-related hurdles — including technological, legal, financial and security issues. Their work can help your company embrace secure telecommuting too.
Here are four recommendations that can be easily applied to your company.
A key first step is to clarify the mission of telework and to effectively convey those objectives to the workforce. For examples, you could set a goal of reducing real estate costs, improving employee job satisfaction or being more responsive to the public and during crisis events.
Another important early step is to create a list of which work positions qualify for telecommuting, and which functions within each position are reasonable for off-site work. If a department has sensitive information that requires special handling, those employees will need to be trained on proper security protocols.
Establishing clear policies and providing adequate training are vital to implementing a successful telework program. Employees and managers ought to have a reasonable comprehension of how to successfully participate in telecommuting, including what is expected from both employees and their supervisors.
After a telecommuting program is in place, you’ll need to keep track of performance in relation to the established objectives, and adjust as needed. For employees and managers, performance measures may consider deliverables-based or results-oriented management approaches or quantifiable measurements for performance.