Telework is greener, reduces stress and boosts productivity so why aren’t more people working anywhere but the office?   |  May 27, 2009  

That’s a very good question, say many observers

By Hailey Eisen

Redefining 9 to 5

Three years ago David Hawkins spent more than two hours a day crammed into a crawling Vancouver bus. He jostled and was jostled, breathed other people’s air and stared out the windows at rush-hour pedestrians who sometimes made faster progress than the commuters trapped in the bus.

Hawkins was fed up and ready to ditch this rush-hour purgatory. Today, by telecommuting and shifting his hours, Hawkins now spends less time at his office and accomplishes a great deal more.

He now wakes up before his wife and children and spends a few quiet hours responding to e-mails and catching up with colleagues in the Central and Eastern time zones. He then enjoys breakfast with his family before catching the bus at nine o’clock. With few other commuters to contend with, he takes a seat and spends the next 40 minutes working on his laptop. The chief technology officer for Facet | Teletrips, a West Coast-based company that provides products and consulting services to help deploy and promote integrated telework solutions, Hawkins especially values this offline time during which he can work with virtually no interruptions. After spending the day at his Vancouver office, Hawkins leaves between 3:30 and 4:30 in the afternoon, well before most other commuters, and enjoys a productive ride home.

The best days are the one or two per week when he telecommutes and doesn’t have to even look at a bus. “My productivity at home is much higher,” said Hawkins, on the phone from Tsawwassen, a small community just south of Vancouver. “The main advantage is when I’m feeling beat I can take a walk or play with my kids—I can recharge—and then go back to my work in the evening when I’m feeling fresh.”

Hawkins’ telework routine allows him to work remotely while remaining plugged-in through his laptop, cellphone and collaborative Web applications such as Google Docs and Google Calendar.

And, he explains, the benefits of telework extend well beyond his increased productivity. By using Facet | Teletrips’ 3BL Platform (Triple Bottom Line) to track his activities, Hawkins has been able to measure the environmental, financial and societal savings associated with telework. In just six months he recorded 21 days of telework, and 90 days of other green commutes like carpooling and bus transit, reducing his greenhouse-gas footprint by approximately 1,430 kg, compared to driving a car. “If you consider that an average resident of British Columbia’s carbon footprint is 13 to 15 tons, then I’m [reducing a significant amount] of my total footprint just by working at home a couple days a week.”

Teleworking also saved 24 hours and 30 minutes in commute time. In terms of financial savings, it was calculated that Hawkins, through both telework and green commuting methods, avoided 6,320 km of driving and saved approximately $1,400 in fuel, car maintenance (based on the Motor Club maintenance estimates) and parking.

“That’s not to mention the one-and-a-half to two hours a day I save by being able to work on the bus.”

Calgary wants more telecommuters
Despite these advantages, relatively few companies are embracing telework. It is for this reason that the Calgary Economic Development (CED) agency is spearheading a three-year one- to two- million-dollar initiative to encourage the city’s businesses, large and small, to embrace telework.

“Given the economic indicators in place in Calgary we feel we are in a unique position to take advantage of this business solution,” said Karen Chown, director of corporate engagement with CED. Having undergone tremendous growth over the past five years, Calgary is now experiencing low unemployment, increasing demand for skilled workers and mounting pressure on its infrastructure, including roads and transit systems, which can no longer accommodate the population influx. With a shortage of downtown commercial real estate, Calgary would benefit from enabling managers and employees to work from homes, coffee shops, or distributed work centres in suburban neighbourhoods.

“There is a global war for talent and telework is also a great tool to attract people,” Chown said. Not only does telework promote flexibility, an attractive feature to Baby Boomers and Millennials alike, it also makes it possible for a worker in Ontario to be employed by a business in Alberta. “Through our extensive research over the past year we found that telework has proved to be a successful strategy in improving productivity and lowering operating costs—a solution that is right for our times,” Chown continued.

According to CED, telework can be structured in a number of different ways: from an employee working remotely in his home during rush hour and then coming into the office later in the day (peak-shifting) to a manager working full time in a distributed work centre or home office, and everything in between. “The most successful formula involves people working from remote locations for approximately two to three days a week,” Chown said.

While some organizations, including California-based Sun Microsystems and Nortel and IBM in Canada, have promoted telework for more than a decade, “our program is the first, that we know of, of this scope in Canada, and seemingly one of the most comprehensive in the world.”

The three-year program—funded in part by Transport Canada and the federal government’s EcoMobility fund—will promote telework through education initiatives while providing businesses with the tools needed to succeed. While technology is a great enabler of telework, allowing remote transactions and communications to be conducted seamlessly and securely, many companies do not yet know how to best manage remote workers. “Our research shows that employees and citizens want to make this happen,” Chown said. “The challenge now is to get employers on board and prepare middle managers for the changes that are necessary.”

Who benefits?
If CED’s initiative proves successful, an increasing number of businesses in the Calgary area will realize the economic, environmental and social benefits of telework. And for Bob Fortier, founder and president of the Canadian Telework Association, this will hopefully inspire some action on the part of the Canadian government. “There are huge financial incentives for telework in the United States and I don’t understand why our government is not moving forward on this,” said Fortier from his “remote,” a home office in Manotick, Ont. “Telework is also gaining popularity in Australia, the United Kingdom, Japan and other Asian countries where technology is cheap and education levels are high.”

Those most suited for this type of work, Fortier explained, are information workers: employees whose jobs can be done at least partly from anywhere, using a laptop, telephone and Internet connection.

These jobs can be found within almost every sector from government to financial to manufacturing. With the proliferation of Virtual Private Networks and Unified Communications technologies, teleworkers are able to work from anywhere at any time.

The benefits of telework are also realized during flu season and stormy winter weather. On a day when no one can make it into the office due to road conditions, teleworkers can continue to be productive. Fortier said, though, that this type of work is not for everyone, and that a 100 per cent telework model is rarely the best option; the goal is to find the right combination of face-to-face interaction and remote-work conditions.

The decline of the cubicle jungle
A few times a week, Joanne Munroe, a senior career development consultant with Telus in British Columbia, sets aside time to meet with her colleagues in Alberta and Ontario for a virtual coffee break. As a teleworker, Munroe believes very strongly in building and maintaining relationships. “It’s important to interact with others even while working from home,” she said. “This teleconference coffee break gives us a chance to connect on a personal level while also discussing work-related materials.”

Telus formally hopped on the telework bandwagon in 2006 when it implemented a 10-month pilot project to track the benefits of a non-commute. Telus partnered with Teletrips to track the results experienced by the 170 team members who participated. The environmental savings alone were astounding. “One hundred and fourteen tons of greenhouse gas emissions were reduced and air pollutants were reduced by four tons” over 10 months.

The study also highlighted for Telus that the nature of work had already shifted. “There was a time, about 20 years ago, when people sat and worked independently in a cubicle all day,” said Mark Lang, human resources business partner with Telus. “The cubicle jungle just doesn’t make sense anymore; today people move around, they collaborate.”

Recently Telus began changing the layout of its corporate offices across the country. Now, fewer teleworkers have dedicated workspaces and they spend more time in conference rooms, coffee shops, home offices and hotel rooms.

When the project began, Lang said he got a lot of concerned calls from managers who were having trouble “keeping tabs” on remote employees. The conversations would go something like this:

Manager: “I know he’s at home walking his dog...”

Lang: “Are performance objects being met, is the bar still set very high?”

Manager: “Yes, but that’s not what I’m worried about. Performance isn’t a problem.”

Lang: “Then why do you care if he walks his dog?”

“It’s all about closing the gap between perception and reality,” Lang said. “People weren’t spending much time at their desks anyway so we were better off recognizing that work had already changed and realizing the benefits of this increased flexibility.”


SIDEBAR


Telecommute savings
David Hawkins can be productive almost anywhere. Working from home a couple of days per week over six months means he:

> saved $1,400 in fuel, car maintenance and parking
> avoided 6,320 km of driving
> eliminated 24 hours and 30 minutes in commute time


New work
Telus created three formal categories that describe all employees.

1. Resident Worker: resides in a single location
2. Mobile Worker: highly mobile within the Telus space. Some time spent working in external sites (home, vendor sites, etc.)
3. Teleworker: works 40 per cent or more of their weekly work schedule at home or has an established schedule for home working

Recommended reading 

> Growing the Virtual Workplace: The Integrative Value Proposition for Telework, by Alain Verbeke, Robert Schulz, Nathan Greidanus, Laura Hambley 

> Work Naked: Eight Essential Principles for Peak Performance in the Virtual Workplace, by Cynthia C. Froggatt


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