Mobility

Telework in 10 Stats: A Story of Untapped Potential

The numbers prove that telework is low-hanging fruit for federal leaders.

Twitter

Jimmy is a writer and editor who publishes a weekly newsletter. You can find him on Twitter.

Telework is both a driver and a beneficiary of evolving technology at federal agencies. The pressure on agencies to provide telework opportunities is driving bring-your-own-device (BYOD) and other mobility initiatives as well as the move to the cloud. There are many reasons agencies are embracing these technologies, nearly all of which make it easier for federal employees to work from home.

A new white paper from Citrix — Federal Telework Obstacles and Opportunities — points out that telework in the government is not a new idea, which makes its slow adoption even more frustrating:

Telework in government is nothing new. In 1917 twenty thousand civilian government employees were asked to work from home to make uniforms because there wasn’t enough room at the Jefferson Indiana Depot. What’s more, they were asked to provide their own sewing machine—‘Bring Your own Device’ (BYOD) in today’s terms.

Advancements in technology have made telework a no-brainer for many agencies to pursue. So why aren’t they? The benefits — cost savings, increased productivity and higher morale — are well documented. The challenges — security, initial investment and managerial resistance — are outlined in this report, which includes a survey of federal and private sector telework leaders.

Here are 10 interesting statistics from the report, which can be viewed here.

685,000 Feds who were eligible for telework in 2012

7% Percentage of feds who teleworked in 2012

88% Percentage of feds who would telework if they could

$6 billion Potential savings, had all eligible feds teleworked twice each week in 2012

$7,920 “The average first year spend for IT, equipment, virtual infrastructure, hoteling support services, and connectivity” per employee at the Patent and Trademark Office

$9,630 Average first-year cost savings per employee

3.3% Percentage of feds who worked at home at least half the time in 2012

8% Growth of federal telework since 2007, compared with up to 39% in the private sector and state and local governments

85% Percentage of respondents who reported a positive impact on stress as a result of telework

$30 million Estimated cost to implement telework throughout government, “less than a third of the cost of lost productivity from a single day shut down of offices in Washington DC due to snow”

How is your agency embracing telework? Let us know in the Comments.

gpointstudio/iStock/Thinkstock