Let me be clear up front: Telework is not a panacea for anything. While the practice does show potential for reducing the number of commuting trips — thus relieving traffic congestion, burning less gasoline and emitting fewer pollutants — there are limits to how much large organizations are willing to let their employees work at home.
Indeed, as the Wall Street Journal reports today, several high-profile companies that promoted telework and telecommuting are rethinking the merits of telework and have called some of their home-based workers back to the office. Working solo at home is not conducive, it appears, to collaboration and team building. Meanwhile, one of the nation’s biggest telework promoters, the federal government, posted a 7.3 percent drop in teleworkers between 2005 and 2006, due in part to a recall by the Interior Department.
Despite that significant caveat, I believe we will see an inexorable increase in the number of teleworkers, even if follows a path of two steps forward, one step backward. Here are some reasons why:
New technologies, such as inexpensive, quality videoconferencing, will improve communication between teleworkers and their office-bound mates, providing the facial cues and body language absent in e-mail and telephone conversations.
The “green” movement is gaining momentum. Telework is as green as Saint Patrick: It conserves energy by reducing Vehicle Miles Traveled and enabling organizations to shrink the size of their offices, thus cutting HVAC and lighting costs.
The knowledge economy continues to evolve to more flexible labor markets, in which large organizations rely increasingly upon contract workers who do some, if not most, of their work from home.
As baby boomers retire, creating a chronic labor shortage, employers will compete for employees by providing them more work-life balance. Typically, that balance means more flexible hours and work locations, including telework.
We will see more telework in the future. And, while we must be careful not to expect too much, too fast, from this practice, Virgina lawmakers need to take reasonable measures to encourage it.
Del. Tim Hugo, R-Centreville, has struck the right balance with recent legislation that he sponsored. In these three bills, which have sailed through the General Assembly and now await the governor’s signature, Hugo doesn’t fall prey to the legislator’s usual temptation of, “If we want something, let’s subsidize it.” One bill, HB 1017, would create an office of Telework Promotion and Broadband Assistance under the Secretary of Technology. States the bill summary:
The goals of the Office are to encourage telework as a family-friendly, business-friendly public policy that promotes workplace efficiency and reduces strain on transportation infrastructure. In conjunction with efforts to promote telework, the Office shall work with public and private entities to develop widespread access to broadband services.
A second bill, HB 1018, provides a definition of telework, while a third, HB 2021, Establishes a goal for state agencies, except for the Department of State Police, to have 20 percent of their eligible workforce telecommuting by January 1, 2010.
Bacon’s bottom line: These measures are entirely appropriate. No subsidies here, no tax credits. The Commonwealth will step up its backing for broadband deployment, indispensable of telework, across the state. And the state will swallow its own medicine, promoting telework within its own workforce. As long as that 20 percent goal is a target, not a hard requirement plucked from thin air, the law is entirely appropriate.
