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Weekly UpdatesQ: Does your organization offer a telecommuting option? If so, what are its policies?
The Points of Light Foundation supports telecommuting as a viable work arrangement. Our current policy allows our supervisors, with senior management concurrence, to support telecommuting where the nature of the job and the performance of the employee warrant such an assignment. Telecommuting is only made available to exempt employees. The normal duration is usually all or a portion of the regular workweek.
Where an employee's circumstances require that his or her work be conducted at an extreme distance from his or her normal work site, the foundation may make arrangements to provide equipment, furniture, and so on at the remote location with my approval.
Robert K. Goodwin President and CEO, Points of Light Foundation, Washington, D.C.; rgoodwin@pointsoflight.org
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Roughly a sixth of our entire staff telecommutes. This program started as an experiment with one person. It has been so successful that it has now become a vital part of our staffing design.
The secret--at least to our success--has been to treat each arrangement as a separate experience. Rather than have a blanket set of policies for telecommuting (as the question suggests), we have found that it is important to design these positions around the particular needs and circumstances of the individual, the specific position, and even the organization. As such, we have different understandings with each telecommuting employee with regard to computer expense, phone costs, support services, work hours, availability, travel, supplies, job flexibility, and so on. So that I don't sound too radical, I should probably add that these customized work arrangements don't exempt staff from complying with corporate culture, legal considerations, and performance expectations.
Nelson Fabian Executive Director and CEO, National Environmental Health Association, Denver; nelsonf@neha.org
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In response to staff members' unique needs, the National Association of Health Underwriters offers a number of flexible work arrangements. For example, the editor of our monthly magazine lives and works in North Carolina, as moving to Washington, D.C., was not an option for him. The husband of our director of legislative research was transferred to Philadelphia; she now telecommutes from there. Two other staff members live in and around Frederick, Maryland, which can easily be a 90-minute drive to and from D.C., and they each work from home one day a week. Also, in recent years we've had two staff members with serious health issues. Both took advantage of our disability insurance program and then transitioned back to work on limited schedules until they were ready to work full-time. In each case, our flexibility has allowed us to hire or retain better staff and keep everyone happy.
Of course, telecommuting is not appropriate for every position or for every staff member--some people need the office environment to do their jobs or to remain focused on their tasks. And while computer technology can be a wonderful tool, we've had to upgrade some of our equipment and invest additional time in troubleshooting glitches and bugs because of our telecommuting program. But the return on investment has been well worth the effort.
Kevin P. Corcoran, CAE Executive Vice President, National Association of Health Underwriters, Arlington, Virginia; kcorcoran@nahu.org
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We have no policies against telecommuting and thus offer telecommuting on a case-by-case basis. So, we have no written policy for the part-time telemarketer who telecommutes or for the occasional employee who needs to work at home for a week or longer due to personal needs. While it might appear that we are on shaky ground without a do's and don'ts document, the fact is telecommuting requires a level of trust that does not flow from a written document. While we learn from management classes and gurus to not do things willy-nilly, more often than not personal policies evolve, and written policies just codify prior practices.
J. Michael Keeling, CAE President, The ESOP Association, Washington, D.C.: michael@esopassociation.org
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