National Telework Week
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National telework week
get your organization talking Telework

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Mark National Telework Week in your calendar now, and set it aside for telework thoughts and actions!
It's worth taking the time now to think about what your organization's telework next steps should be, and how you can connect with actions during Telework Week. Take some inspiration from our suggestions below...

Add telework to the agenda!
Regular, honest conversations and check-ins about telework are vital to its continued success!
  • Add the topic to your next departmental or management meeting: As telework becomes more widespread and new technologies available to address technical challenges, it's legitimate to raise the issue of telework periodically.
  • Consider holding a departmental meeting through video-teleconference!
    (Watch for an article in the March Telework News on Video-teleconferencing Do's & Don'ts!)
  • Organize a two hour telework seminar with department heads, including members of HR and IT, to talk about telework ~ whatever stage your organization is at. Contact Vicky Clarke (KRCC: 360.377.4900 or Vicky@KitsapRegionalCouncil.org) if you need an outside speaker to talk about their Telework experiences, or a specific aspect of Telework, or if you need help finding additional resources for your seminar.
  • Evaluate telework opportunities and issues: Is it time to implement a formal policy or re-visit your (possibly outdated) policy? Can new technologies be integrated in your organization to make telework more fluid? For instance, is it time to move to a cloud based server that's easy to access remotely?
  • Coordinate Telework & IT discussions: Having the right technology in place (for example, remote email access or instant messaging), is often one of the deciding factors in an agency's ability to offer telework. IT and telework decisions usually can’t be made in isolation from one another.
Create a telework survey for HR & IT staff, managers and teleworkers: What common issues arise when you consider teleworking? Any ideas about how they be addressed? Are there any improvements needed with your current telework set-up?
 
Pilot an expansion of telework opportunities ~ consider it an experiment!
  • Could you telework one extra day each week? Could someone else in your work unit? Everyone can learn from the experience!
  • Have departmental changes altered schedules and workloads, so that different roles are more applicable to telework than before?
Celebrate your success!
  • Calculate $'s saved for your organization by your telework efforts to date, or the environmental savings that have/will impact your community. There are a number of telework savings calculators online. Take a look at the Telework Model from the Telework Research Network (they have a free model as well as a fee-based custom model).
  • Send an email or make posters with telework savings or with positive quotes about telework from members of the team.
  • Throw a telework office party ~ get everyone together (with cup-cakes) to talk casually about Telework for an hour after work.
  • Look out for awards that your organization could win for your telework efforts.

Comments? Email: Vicky@KitsapRegionalCouncil.org