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The Washington State Legislature has provided $150,000 in funding for the Kitsap Regional
Coordinating Council to conduct a Telework Pilot Project. The funding is administered
through the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) Commute Trip Reduction
(CTR) Program.
Teleworking, also called Telecommuting, has numerous benefits to both employer and employee,
and it has the potential to significantly reduce the number of vehicles on the road,
translating to reduced highway construction and maintenance costs, and reduced carbon
emissions.
The Telework Pilot Project runs from May 2008 through June 2009. On July 1, 2009, when the
pilot project wraps-up, the project team will present to the State Legislature a progress
report of what we learned, as well as a Telework Toolkit that includes essentially
everything an employer needs to know to launch and operate a successful telework program,
and everything an employee needs to know be a successful teleworker. In addition, the team
will create a template for Cities, Counties and other agencies that want to use the toolkit
to promote teleworking in their jurisdictions.
The project will also include a test of Telework Centers. Imagine, that instead of
a long commute to work each day, a worker could commute a short distance to a nearby office
without changing employers. As an example, a worker lives in Kingston (North Kitsap County)
and works in Port Orchard (South Kitsap County); their daily commute is approximately 66 miles
each day (round-trip); over an hour of commute time. Instead of this, the
worker commutes only 5-6 miles round trip to a telework site in a nearby office -- not their
employer's office, but a spare office of another organization. Using this telework
site 3 days a week they would reduce their commute by about 180 miles a week or more than
9,000 miles a year. At 20 mpg and an average gasoline price of $3.45 per gallon, that's
a savings of over $1,550 a year in fuel costs alone. In terms of time, the worker would save
more than 3 hours each week; more than 150 hours a year.
The T3 Team is actively searching for sites around Kitsap County. Some sites may be as simple
as a spare desk, others may be offices outfitted to handle numerous teleworkers.
The Telework Toolkit is the core deliverable of this project. Initially, the Toolkit will be
be built from a review of existing telework programs and the advice of experts. It will be
refined through knowledge gained during six-months of pilot testing. The Toolkit will be
designed as a web page that employers can install on their server or operate from a CD. It
will include separate pages for Teleworkers, their Managers, HR Executives, IT Executives,
and Organization Executives.
The team has prepared a
Toolkit Mock-up as a starting point. During July-August 2008, members of the Techno-Tools
& Telework Team (T3 Team) will research and refine toolkit content. As pages are refined,
they will be posted here (left). If you have suggestions for improving content, please email
us at the address below.
We are also actively recruiting employers and employees who would like to participate in the
pilot project. We are also looking for employers, IT executives, and HR executives who have
knowledge and experience with teleworking to serve on our Expert Panel. If any of this sounds
interesting to you, contact Brad Rucker:
BradR@KitsapRegionalCouncil.org.
In 2006, The Kitsap Regional Coordinating Council assembled a team of agency IT and HR managers
to explore teleworking and workplace technologies. Their task was to study which technologies worked
best in which conditions, the components of a telework policy, security, and other technology issues
affecting public agencies. The team shared its findings in a series of brown bag lunches. Handouts,
and other information from the June 14, 2007 brown bag lunch:
The team's investigation into teleworking showed strong interest and promise. HR Directors saw
telework as a benefit that could help retain high-knowledge employees in Kitsap County. The team
also found that many organizations adopt teleworking incrementally, learning through trial and
error what works and what doesn't, sometimes without clear policies in place. The team concluded
that telework would be more feasible for employers if they were provided with some basic tools,
such as facts to address their questions and concerns, and a telework policy template, so they
didn't have to invent it from scratch. This was the genesis of the telework toolkit and pilot project.
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