Virtual venue spares attendees' travel costs
A congressman, former governor and CEO took part in a Web conference held last week to champion teleworking as a means to reduce fossil fuels dependencies, provide business continuity and ease the burden on our transportation infrastructure.
Scott Fleming, founder and CEO of Teletrips, hosted the event. He emphasized that teleworking doesn’t require a full-time commitment to be effective. “The impact of having millions of people not all driving or using transit to and from work at the same time, or staying at home a day or two per week is enormous,” he said.
Using the software Teletrips developed for auditing trip reduction programs, Fleming calculated the savings attendees racked up just by logging in to a virtual event rather than traveling to a hotel in Washington, D.C. With 25% of attendees reporting the distance they would have had to drive to get to the hotel, he estimated savings of about 2,500 gallons of gas, $7,800 in operating costs and $1,300 in parking.
Christine Todd Whitman, president of management consulting firm Whitman Strategy Group, talked about the impact the 40 million people who telework nationwide are already making: “Every day across America, telecommuters save about $120 million in gas costs and prevent the emission of 1.76 billion pounds of carbon dioxide. That’s each and every single day.”
But there’s much more that can be done, said Whitman, former New Jersey governor and EPA administrator. The benefits of telework extend beyond the environment, she said. Whitman cited news that the New Jersey Transit public transportation corporation plans to spend $425 million buying 231 train cars to reduce congestion on commuter lines. The purchase will increase capacity by about 6,200 seats. If instead the state could add that many people to the telecommuting ranks, the $425 million purchase wouldn’t be necessary.
“Not only could that save millions of dollars in capital expenditures, it would also reduce operating costs by millions of dollars,” Whitman said. “And those savings would reduce the need for increases in transportation taxes and could also mean fewer fare hikes, which is music to everyone’s ears.”
In addition, teleworking can decrease our nation’s dependence on foreign oil, Whitman said: “Each day Americans use 733 million gallons of gas to travel 11 billion miles… Even a modest gain in telecommuting can produce enormous savings.”
Bob Schulz, professor of strategic management at the University of Calgary’s Haskayne School of Business, likewise cited compelling research into the environmental, operational and quality-of-life benefits afforded by teleworking. “But we do need corporate cooperation, and government has to take the leadership role,” he added.
Sun CEO Scott McNealy shared some of the savings his company has achieved since launching its iWork workplace flexibility program. Since 1994, Sun has avoided about $300 million in real estate costs. This year it expects to save $69 million in real estate costs. In addition, Sun will save $24 million in energy and maintenance costs this year by deploying thin-client devices that use about 10% of the energy a typical PC requires to run, McNealy said.
Today about half of Sun’s 35,000 employees participate in iWork, and Sun plans to add another 5,000 employees to the program by 2008. “It does pay off, and it’s a good thing to do,” McNealy said.
Similarly, Rob Roy, audit supervisor in Virginia’s Department of Taxation, shared the results of his department’s telework-friendly reorganization, which lets 150 auditors and 70 field staff representatives work from home offices. The department was able to close eight district offices as a result, Roy says.
Gerry Connolly, chairman of the board of supervisors in Virginia’s Fairfax County, said a reasonable gain in the number of teleworkers could reduce highway congestion in the same way traffic issues subside during prime August vacation weeks. Bolstering the numbers of teleworkers has the effect of “adding a major public transit investment except at much less cost,” Connolly said. “We need to take a fresh look at telework both in public and private sector, and be more aggressive about it.”
The Web conference concluded with a videotaped address by Congressman Frank Wolf (R-Va.), who has spearheaded legislative efforts to increase teleworking. Wolf introduced telework mandates in a 2001 transportation bill requiring all federal agencies to allow eligible employees who want to telework – and have telework-friendly jobs – to do so.
Telecommuting increases productivity and improves employee retention while decreasing real estate costs and providing environmental benefits, Wolf said. But uptake by federal agencies has been slow. “I’ve been disappointed at the federal government’s efforts in implementing the ’01 law. Federal agencies are actually now in clear violation of this act,” Wolf said.
More recently, Wolf inserted language in the 2005 and 2006 appropriations bills for agencies including the Commerce, Justice and State department “to show these agencies that teleworking is serious business.”
“I inserted a provision in both spending bills to withhold $5 million from the budgets of the departments of Commerce, Justice, State and now NASA, until they ensure that all their eligible workers are committed to telecommuting,” Wolf said. These agencies also are required to designate a telework coordinator to oversee their telecommuting programs and make quarterly status reports to the appropriations committee.
“I hope these provisions will get the telework point across to the agencies from the top down and they will start taking telework seriously,” Wolf said.
In addition to Teletrips, sponsors of the Web event included The Telework Coalition and Northern Virginia Technology Council Foundation, along with Cox Communications, Comcast and Microsoft.
