Study Reveals $13.9 Billion Annual Federal Telework Deficit

Telework Exchange, a public-private partnership focused on telework in government, today announced the results of the "Telework Eligibility Profile: Feds Fit the Bill" study. Underwritten by Tandberg, the study reveals that federal government agencies are telework friendly, based on responses to a quiz-based calculator that helps employees determine telework eligibility. An overwhelming majority -- 96 percent -- of respondents should be teleworking said the Telework Exchange in a release, yet only 20 percent currently do. Extrapolating from the online calculator, the study reveals that if all federal employees who are eligible to telework full time were to do so, the federal government could realize $13.9 billion savings in commuting costs annually and eliminate 21.5 billion pounds of pollutants out of the environment each year.
 
 Key study findings include:

• Knowledge is Power: One in three federal employees is still not aware of their agency's telework program. Study participants cite reducing commuting time/costs, maintaining work/life balance, and continuity of operations (COOP) as top telework benefits.
• Ideal Telework World: federal workers are telework friendly -- out of 96 percent of respondents who are eligible to telework, 79 percent are eligible to telework full time 
• Eligibility Deficit: Forty-two percent of respondents are not aware if they are eligible to telework. Ninety percent of these respondents are, in fact, eligible to telework. If federal staff who are unaware of their telework status could telework full time, they would collectively save $5 billion in commuting costs and spare the environment 7.7 billion pounds of pollutants annually
• Fitting the Profile: To telework effectively, candidates identified the following requirements -- communicating via e-mail and phone, remote access to an organization's IT infrastructure, a safe alternative work environment, and the ability to control one's schedule to a significant degree
  

"The federal government has been slow to adopt telework," said Joel Brunson, president, Tandberg Federal. "However, with recruitment and retention benefits, growing traffic concerns, continuity of operations requirements, and increasing environmental awareness, we are finally reaching a tipping point. Telework will soon become a standard operating procedure in many federal agencies."

"As the study indicates, the benefits for feds' wallets are staggering," said Stephen W.T. O'Keeffe, executive director, Telework Exchange. "Teleworking just three days a week translates to a 60 percent reduction in commuting costs -- saving the average federal employee nearly $6,000 annually. In fact, the federal government telework deficit is equivalent to the gross domestic product of Jamaica. To offset the amount of CO2 emissions Feds disperse in the environment by commuting, we would need to plant 32 million trees a year. Let's get these people off the roadways."