Subscribe
Community
They're out of the office, still on the job
Telework helps pollution, traffic, advocates say
Friday, Aug. 20, 2010
 Click here to enlarge this photo Staff photo by EMILY BARNES
Sharyn Hutson of Avenue teleworks two days a week at the Telecommuting Center of Southern Maryland in Waldorf. She works for the Department of Education.
|
E-Mail This Article
Flexibility. A shorter commute. An escape from gabby co-workers or a nosy boss. Working remotely has its attractions for the legion of Southern Marylanders who head elsewhere every weekday to earn a paycheck.
But telecommuting is down in the region, at least judging by patronage of the Southern Maryland Telework Centers, even though a study shows the federal government is gradually expanding the practice nationwide.
The College of Southern Maryland runs the three centers, in Waldorf, Prince Frederick and Laurel, on behalf of the U.S. General Services Administration, CSM telework Director Jill Wathen said.
Originally intended to serve federal workers, the centers since have opened up to others as well, but locally, telework remains the almost exclusive province of federal employees, with 77 of the 78 workers served by CSM's centers working for a variety of federal agencies, Wathen said. A year ago, 90 people considered the centers their work-homes away from home, a decline Wathen attributed to an increase in the cost of renting a workstation, which was $28 a day in 2008 but had reached $72 by Sept. 1, 2009.
The increases were necessary, she said, because the price had not risen in 12 years.
Nationwide, the number of federal employees working remotely rose slightly, from 5.12 percent in 2007 to 5.24 percent in 2008, or by 8,257 people. These were the most recent years for which statistics are available.
"We have significant work ahead to develop a strong telework culture," John Berry, director of the Office of Personnel Management, wrote in the 2009 Status of Telework in the Federal Government report.
It might seem counterintuitive to head to an office to work remotely, but there are good reasons to do it, Wathen said, including escaping the distractions of home and avoiding isolation. The centers also provide all the technology of an office to those who might not have such things available at home including high-speed Internet connections.
About 60 percent of Charles and Calvert workers, and about 30 percent of St. Mary's County workers, commute to jobs outside their home counties, according to 2008 data from the U.S. Census Bureau. But while such workers might welcome the chance to work from an office in Southern Maryland, the skepticism of managers who are reluctant to let their workers out of their sight is a significant obstacle, Wathen said.
"The supervisor resistance has been here since I've been here four years ago … I can't say that I haven't seen an improvement, but what has always been an issue is the supervisors' resistance in people's ability to be able to telework," Wathen said.
Kimberly Savoy-Brown, a program management analyst for the U.S. Department of Education, is allowed to work from the Waldorf center one day a week, but wishes it were more.
She got her first taste of relative freedom in April, when federal employees were urged to take leave or work from home to make room for attendees of a nuclear summit in Washington. She opted to use the center because she needed an office environment, she said, and found that "it's very, very quiet. It gives you a lot of time to get more done. I get a lot more done without any of the interruptions from people coming to my desk or happening to get pulled away from certain things. It's different at the center, less demanding," Savoy-Brown said.
Tuesday night is now her favorite during the workweek because she knows she won't have an onerous commute in the morning.
"I'm like, I don't have to go into the office; I'm six minutes away. It's a lot better. I don't know if this makes sense, but getting to sleep in a little longer and be more rested with less traffic, or stay later and not have to worry about getting home so late fighting traffic, it's just a lot more convenient," she said.
Like Savoy-Brown, Michelle Sawall, also a Waldorf resident, is allowed one telework day per week. But if her employer, the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, follows through with plans to move her office from Washington, D.C., to Quantico, Va., she might leave her job if she isn't granted more leeway, she said.
"I figure I'm accountable for the work that I do. That's between my boss and [me]," Sawall said, "... I think it's the thinking of management. I think they see it's beneficial. It's a good morale-booster, especially for people who — I think happy workers are definitely better workers, and anything they can do that's not going to hinder the mission, they're going to try to do that for people."
Between one-fifth and one-quarter of workers telecommute to OutsourceIT, according to Craig Guice, president and CEO of the La Plata technology firm. The company introduced the practice two years ago in order to recruit talented people in Washington, D.C., and Northern Virginia who balked at commuting to Southern Maryland every day.
The strategy has worked but there are serious drawbacks as well, he said.
"The problem with telecommuting is [that] what happens is you lose that relationship with the employee, and the employee loses that relationship with their peers they work with, so that camaraderie is lost. The fact is, it's not that easy to just reach over ask a colleague a question or for help, or sit down and have a meeting with the boss. Everything has to be planned," Guice said.
To compensate, company policy requires local workers and new hires to come to the office every day, and teleworkers to come at least once a week, generally on Thursdays, so that team members have chances to get to know each other.
"We want to keep that relationship with all of us knowing each other. We work in an industry where not one person can know all the information. It's impossible," Guice said.
The benefits for workers are undeniable, but employers who allow telecommuting come out ahead as well, said Chuck Wilsker, president and CEO of The Telework Coalition, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit.
For one thing, telework lets employers save money on everything from real estate to utility bills to the office pot of coffee, Wilsker said. He claims teleworking employees are also, on average, substantially more productive, though "telework is not for everyone; it is not for everyone; it's not for everyone," he said.
It is not for "people who shovel papers around, people who aren't that productive." But for those who are focused on completing their assignments rather than working a certain number of hours, the ability to choose their own environment is an unmitigated boon, he said, while a good manager judges his workers by their productivity, not by the number of hours they spend in their chairs.
More broadly, getting cars off the road eliminates traffic jams, improves national security by reducing reliance on foreign countries for oil and improves the environment, he said.
"Here's what's interesting: People do this for a whole bunch of different reasons. What's kind of a neat about this is it doesn't matter what reason you buy into it; all of the advantages come along with it," Wilsker said.
