The Secret to a Robust Telework Program: Just STIR

Transcription

1 The Secret to a Robust Telework Program: Just STIR Authors: Ms. Robin Rodensky Ms. Jan Rybeck, CMC, PCC Ms. Margaret Rollins Dr. Michelle Heelan Ms. Colleen McGuire, PMP Ms. Heather Johnson Mr. Damian Liska

2 Abstract Government agencies have been promoting telework and alternative work schedules for more than a decade, but data show that only 7.6 percent of Federal employees actually telework. This paper examines the key challenges to telework in the Federal Government, and presents ICF s best practice-based STIR (Strategize, Transform, Implement, Recalibrate) methodology for agencies to use to design and execute successful programs customized to their unique mission and programmatic needs. State of Telework Today What Is Holding Us Back? For almost a decade, telework and other alternative work arrangements have been mandated and implemented to varying degrees at every Federal agency. Public Law states that every agency should establish a policy that allows employees to participate in telework to the maximum extent possible, without diminishing employee performance. Further, the legislation requires that agencies develop criteria for implementing a telework policy and remove barriers to full implementation. The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) defines telework as work arrangements in which an employee regularly performs officially assigned duties at home or other work sites geographically convenient to the residence of the employee. Telework can be anywhere from once a month to full-time offsite, depending on agency requirements. Benefits to telework include the ability to attract and retain a wider pool of qualified employees, increased morale, reduced adverse impacts on the environment, lower real estate and overhead costs, and improved ability to continue essential Government operations in the event of an emergency. Still, in spite of legislative mandates, available funds, and the benefits of telework, recent OPM statistics show that only 7.6 percent of Government employees currently telework. Why is telework not embraced by more agencies and, more specifically, their managers and employees as a desirable work arrangement? In addition to the concerns about the suitability of information technology (IT) systems to support telework, conversations ICF consultants have had with Federal clients suggest a number of other challenges and areas of resistance that agencies face to the widespread adoption of telework, such as: As a supervisor, how can I be sure that my employees are effectively conducting their assignments if I cannot stop by to talk to them about their progress and answer questions? As a teleworker, how do I ensure that I am not overlooked for assignments or passed over for promotions because I am not within my supervisor s line of sight? My work team likes to collaborate to brainstorm solutions to difficult problems, share lessons learned, and creatively problem solve. How can we do that effectively if the team is working remotely? Will my employees maintain their current level of performance or will telework hinder my workgroup from meeting its performance requirements? How do I know which tasks or types of work are appropriate for telework? ICF International, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

3 Although these challenges are very real, ICF has been working with Federal agencies to overcome this resistance by systematically analyzing the needs and challenges of each organization and integrating the following best practices: Identify a strong business case to promote telework that resonates with your unique organizational mission and operating environment. Recognize telework as a more fundamental change in how employees do their jobs and interact with each other, their teams, and their supervisors. In realizing this transformation, execute proactive change strategies to help facilitate the adoption of telework. Implement a robust, multifaceted infrastructure to address the needs of teleworkers, including adequate technology, business processes, performance metrics, accountability structures, performance reviews, and incentives to support telework. Continually reevaluate how the programs are working, and adjust as appropriate to adapt to a changing environment. ICF has developed a telework model that provides a systematic way to incorporate these best practices and guides Federal agencies and other organizations through the process of building successful, sustainable, and customized telework programs that meet the demands of a changing workplace. ICF s STIR Model: The Recipe for a Robust Telework Program ICF s STIR model offers a structured and highly adaptable approach to designing, executing, and sustaining telework programs. STIR starts with a clear understanding of how telework relates to strategy and business needs to ensure that telework is consistent with organizational priorities, culture, and mission, as well as the needs and demands of internal and external stakeholders. At the same time, STIR provides a structured framework of support and services that tracks progress, identifies barriers, and considers all aspects of the workforce and organization that will be impacted by the change to telework. The fundamental tenet of ICF s STIR model is that telework is more than a transition to employees working offsite; it is a transformation to a better way of doing business. Strategize For a telework program to thrive, it must be a compelling strategic imperative for the organization. When telework is a priority, it gets funded, it gets measured, and it gets publicized in short, it gets the attention of everyone, from senior executives to front-line employees. Demonstrating a compelling reason to establish a strong telework program will help to accelerate its acceptance and sustain the program. Each organization should consider carefully how telework can be a key element of its strategy. For example, for some of our clients, primary drivers for telework are lack of office space and need to reduce operating costs. For others, telework is a powerful recruitment and retention tool, which is especially important for organizations with high recruitment targets or long apprenticeship periods. For others, telework can serve to strengthen an organization s Continuity of Operations (COOP) plan ICF International, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

4 One of our Federal clients determined that it had two strategic imperatives for telework office space savings and retention/recruitment. To save office space, it created a program where employees relinquish their office work station and telework 4 days per week. When these employees are required to come to campus, they make electronic reservations to use shared office space. In addition to saving office space, this agency discovered, via surveys, that having a program that offered the ability to work from home almost full-time helped to retain many of its more tenured and experienced workers. ICF helps organizations identify and articulate the strategic imperative for telework through a series of brief, targeted, facilitated sessions to produce a robust business case supported by relevant metrics and powerful data points. ICF works with organizational leaders to review and collect key topics of importance to your organization and, as appropriate, incorporates data points from our best practices database to strengthen the business case. Key characteristics of the business case serve as critical design factors and drive how the telework program is designed. For example, if the business case surrounds securing real estate savings, the telework program might be designed with an emphasis on office sharing, hoteling, and/or a high frequency of telework per employee or per week. Transform Through ICF s work with agencies on telework programs, we have found that recognition of telework as a significant change in the way the organization conducts its business is fundamental to successful implementation. Telework is much more than just taking work home. Successful telework programs require employees to communicate differently with their managers and colleagues while still sustaining strong Organizations should widely communicate the business case for telework Intranet page, brochures, job aids, FAQ documents, and even on the telework application itself. Ensuring that everyone in the organization understands the big picture for adopting telework will facilitate greater acceptance and sustainability. As employees begin to transition to a telework environment, increase all internal and external communications. Frequent, transparent, two-way, multimedia communication can help build credibility and increase trust during this time of change and uncertainty. interpersonal relationships and partnerships. Innovative ways for holding productive brainstorming sessions and other types of meetings with team members who work remotely must be explored. Managers who have relied on personal observations as a way to evaluate employee performance will need to use other measures of performance. And crucial, time-sensitive information that is often communicated in the hallway must now find its way to team members in various locations. When an agency recognizes that telework requires significant changes in the way the organization operates, it can implement proactive change management strategies to facilitate a seamless transition. To ensure this happens, ICF recommends employing the following steps: Critically assess the readiness of your employees and organization for telework. The first step to change management is to critically assess how ready the organization is for the change. This includes assessing the suitability of your infrastructure, the need for changes to business processes and new policies, the reaction of your union to changes that you will need to make, and the impact of telework on your organizational culture. Two key questions to ask are: How big is the shift from your current working environment to a telework environment, and how easy will it be for your employees and all of the supporting systems and processes to support this shift? ICF helps clients with these readiness assessments by using a range ICF International, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

5 of customized approaches, including customized online assessment tools to analyze IT systems job tasks and employee readiness, taking into account their individual strengths and weaknesses; focus groups and interviews; and business process reviews. Identify potential issues of concern and develop tactics to encourage acceptance. After assessing an organization s readiness for telework, it is important to determine who will be affected by telework, including teleworkers, their supervisors, non-teleworking colleagues, and customers, and identify any potential areas of concern for these groups. Actively soliciting feedback from representatives throughout the organization during the program design and development phases can help gain buy-in and avoid misunderstandings and misperceptions. Acknowledging the validity of everyone s concerns and developing tactics for mitigating them will be critical for minimizing dips in productivity. For example, one of ICF s clients did not initially recognize the level of concern among its supervisors about the negative impact that telework would have on its group s performance. As a result, whenever there was a performance related issue, the supervisor s first response was to assume the problem was related to telework and to revoke telework privileges. In cases where a dip in performance was a result of a skills gap, insufficient direction, or a lack of resources, revoking telework not only failed to resolve the performance issue, it also created a source of additional conflict between the employee and the supervisor. By failing to recognize this key issue of concern on the part of the supervisors, the managers did a disservice to not only the individual employee, whose needs will likely remain unaddressed even upon return to the office, but also to other teleworkers, who must overcome ingrained misperceptions about the organization s lack of support for telework. Communicate, communicate, communicate, and celebrate successes. In organizations with an employee union, ensure that the union is involved in both the development of the telework policy and subsequent procedures, such as a telework agreement. Gaining union buy-in from the outset of implementation will help foster trust and develop a strong working relationship between both parties. Regular and clear communication about all aspects of your telework program, including strategy and policies, and open acknowledgement of the challenges is essential to building trust and avoiding misperceptions. Celebrating and advertising successes also can help accelerate acceptance of the program. For example, one of our clients advertised the success of a full COOP exercise as a way to demonstrate that the organization was not only ready for an emergency, but also already had in place many of the key elements for a successful telework program. The exercise also highlighted areas of the skeleton telework program that needed to be strengthened before full implementation. ICF helps organizations assess their readiness for a robust telework program through customized assessments, surveys, job task analyses, and focus groups. ICF then creates targeted communication and change management strategies that seek to mitigate this resistance, gain buy-in, and celebrate the successes of implementation ICF International, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

6 Implement When telework is mentioned, many people immediately look to technology as the solution. Technology is certainly an essential component of a telework program; indeed, without the technological advances of the past 20 years, telework on any scale would not even be possible, let alone desirable. Laptop computers, , SharePoint sites, Communities of Practice, LiveMeeting capability, video conferencing, and other technology tools allow teleworkers to communicate and share information with colleagues across the country and around the globe. However, ICF has found that technology needs to be supported by a number of other components to allow telework to yield the desired benefits. Establish a senior telework coordinator as a strategic leadership position. Designating a senior member of your leadership team as a strategic telework coordinator and partnering this person with designated liaisons throughout the organization will facilitate a smooth program rollout. To be most effective, the agency telework coordinator position should be full-time and include the responsibility and authority to support program design, develop supporting policies and procedures, provide technical assistance, and conduct evaluation. By involving the telework coordinator from the beginning of program design, the agency can be assured that the supporting program components will align with and support the overall strategy. In addition, the coordinator, in partnership with agency liaisons, can identify unanticipated challenges early, as well as celebrate successes, share lessons learned across the organization, and recommend areas for continuous improvement. Establish telework policies and procedures. A clear telework policy that provides an overarching framework with parameters, standards, definitions, rules, and clear expectations for both employees and supervisors lays the groundwork for operational consistency throughout the agency. Many successful programs also find it useful to establish policies and procedures that are specific to each department or business unit to further customize the telework initiative for each individual work group. These policies are often supported by telework agreements, signed by employees and their managers, which lay out the details of a telework arrangement (e.g., telework days, contact information, safety checklist for the home work environment, performance and communication expectations). Assess eligibility for telework at a task level. To embed telework more quickly into the culture and more easily identify implementation challenges that could hinder performance, designate a network of telework coordinators who represent business units or departments to work closely with the senior telework coordinator in developing policies, sharing best practices, and identifying key challenges. In determining telework eligibility, it is important to look at the individual tasks that an employee accomplishes as part of their job rather than the position as a whole. For example, while it may seem counterintuitive to think that someone serving in a customer service or administrative assistant function could telework, these employees may be able to more effectively and efficiently perform select tasks, such as required paperwork, in an alternative work environment. If there are multiple employees serving in these positions, it may be possible to rotate schedules and the timing of tasks to accommodate telework 1 day per week. Conversely, even for ICF International, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

7 positions that seem very amenable to working remotely, there may be certain tasks that require face-to-face interaction to be most effective. Provide employees and supervisors with training and ongoing support to sustain strong program performance. Maintaining strong performance in a telework environment requires employees to be well-trained on the details of their agency s telework policy, criteria for eligibility, roles and Be sure to make teleworkers feel welcome when they are responsibilities, and expectations for maintaining high not teleworking. Remote workers can feel disconnected performance. Teleworkers as well as non-teleworkers will need from their employer and colleagues without a good place to be highly competent on the new processes and procedures to call home when they do come into the office. Establish regular hotel offices for visiting teleworkers and that will be implemented to facilitate remote communication. encourage teleworkers to use their in-office time to For example, one of our clients invested in a number of tools to work with supervisors, managers, or other employees on help teleworkers communicate. When performance of the work tasks that need to be conducted in person, as well as to team began to decline, we found that these new collaboration reinforce social networks. tools were not facilitating effective communications because onsite, non-teleworking employees were not trained on how to use them. In addition to training on systems and processes, support for employees and their supervisors as they develop new ways to collaborate and communicate is also essential and often overlooked. Support should be highly customized to the needs of the group (e.g., How familiar are employees with telework? How amenable are the tasks to a telework environment? How savvy are employees with technology?). Combinations of support tools, such as customized instructor-led and online training, small group exercises, job aids, frequently asked question (FAQ) documents, Intranet pages dedicated to telework, blogs, and Communities of Practice, can be useful for addressing topics and sharing best practices on challenges like how to set expectations and metrics for a remote workforce, how to effectively hold difficult conversations, how to use technology to foster collaboration and innovative thinking, and how to determine if a drop in performance is related to telework. Providing an on-call coach or support group with other teleworkers, managers, and colleagues can provide a real-time mechanism for addressing emerging issues. Establish pilot programs to test-run telework program implementation. Once the decision to institute a formal telework program is made, how quickly the program can be put into place will depend on the organization s readiness. An organization with a clear business imperative for telework and tasks that can easily be done remotely can move quickly to a telework environment without risking a significant drop in performance. However, for organizations where telework represents a significant shift, creating a pilot with constraints on how the pilot is launched, progress is measured, and outcomes are evaluated, as well as how the transition will be made into a full program can help to test drive the program while minimizing risks to performance. For example, one of ICF s clients decided that before rolling out a telework program that employed a new type of remote access technology, it would do a test-run with a pilot group. After the 90-day pilot of 35 users was completed, the agency conducted a Web-based survey to evaluate the pilot s success. Use performance metrics established during the pilot to advertise successes, communicate lessons learned, and continue to build acceptance for telework throughout the rest of the organization ICF International, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

8 The post-pilot survey contained questions in a number of topic areas including experiences during initial program log-in, reliability of connections, and usability of and suggested changes to the resources developed to help participants. Given the results of this survey, the pilot managers not only had the information they needed to support bringing the program into full production within multiple departments, but they were also able to adjust the pilot before transitioning it into full program status. When creating any telework pilot or program, it is important to identify metrics for evaluating its success for both the individual employees and the organization. This means developing metrics that go beyond looking at the increase in participation and looking at how telework is affecting organizational performance. To facilitate sustainability of the program, metrics need to be integrated into performance plans, individual development plans, and training plans not only for teleworkers but also for their managers and colleagues. ICF helps organizations with all aspects of implementation, including working with organizational IT departments to help ensure that appropriate technology systems and tools are in place to facilitate telework; implementing communications strategies; developing collaborative support tools, such as Communities of Practice; and helping organizations align performance management systems to support employees and managers working in a telework environment. ICF also helps organizations develop telework pilots and programs, establish telework policies, draft telework agreements, and provide training and coaching support for all affected stakeholders. Recalibrate Even the most successful telework program must be adjusted periodically to reflect changes in organizational goals, the workforce, technology, and the external environment. Steps for evaluating the program need to be included at the outset and conducted regularly to ensure that changes are made as needed to adapt to new situations and that the program is sustainable over the long haul. For example, one of our Federal clients that regularly pilots telework programs in different departments conducts ICF-designed pre-, mid-, and post-pilot surveys to gather information on telework readiness, operation, experience, and impact. These surveys target telework pilot participants and their supervisors, colleagues, and clients. Following the post-pilot survey, ICF conducts focus groups with the pilot participants. Survey results are analyzed and reported at each stage of the pilot, allowing for continuous improvement during the pilot and providing the business case for full program launch. As needed, any aspect of strategy, transformation, and/or implementation can be recalibrated based on results. In addition to evaluating programs to identify areas for improvement, performance metrics, such as customer satisfaction indices, can show where tasks are being performed more efficiently and with better outcomes since the institution of a telework program. Data, such as dollars saved in operational costs or real estate savings, can be used to cultivate greater senior leadership support, reinforce views that telework results in a positive return on investment, and obtain backing for other investments that could continue to help remote work thrive. Recruitment/retention metrics can be used to validate whether telework makes the organization more attractive to employment candidates and whether commitment/loyalty of current staff has improved as a result of alternative work systems. ICF helps organizations with every aspect of pilot and program evaluation, including creating pre-, mid- and postsurveys to both measure success and identify areas for continuous improvement; working with facilities management groups to forecast real estate impacts and track the benefits attributable to the telework program; and collaborating with human resources departments to leverage employee satisfaction/engagement data in ICF International, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

9 recruiting and retention efforts. Additionally, ICF helps communicate the results of all stages of evaluation to continue to gain stakeholder buy-in and help organizations show how the results of telework are accomplishing the strategic imperative they set out. ICF International Telework Experience and Capabilities ICF International supports Government organizations on the full life cycle of telework programs, from providing strategic advice for developing the business case for telework to designing and implementing pilot and full programs, to designing and delivering customized training and coaching for employees and supervisors to conducting program evaluations. Our customers include the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Institutes of Health, Health and Human Services, the National Transit Institute, the Transit Cooperative Research Program, and other public and private sector organizations. ICF s telework experts are supported by our subject matter experts on energy, environment, transportation, social programs, health care, defense, and homeland security to ensure that our recommendations are carefully tailored to the needs of the organization. ICF itself embraces telework as a business model. Nearly half of ICF s workforce works outside of a traditional office, either at home or at other offsite locations. ICF maintains a formal telework policy, has leading edge IT capabilities that facilitate teleworking, and provides tools and training for our managers to foster effective communication flow with employees who work remotely. We continually evaluate the effectiveness of our telework program and its supporting processes and tools to ensure the program s effectiveness and alignment with organizational objectives. About the Authors This paper was written by telework experts and thought leaders from ICF s Human Capital Solutions group, a group comprised of more than 120 human capital consultants. Twenty percent of ICF s Human Capital Solutions group telework full time, while an additional 25 percent regularly work from home or remote locations. Of the seven contributors to this paper, three are full-time teleworkers, and the other four work from home or remote sites an average of 1 day per week. The views expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of ICF International. About ICF International ICF International (NASDAQ:ICFI) partners with government and commercial clients to deliver professional services and technology solutions in the energy and climate change; environment and infrastructure; health, human services, and social programs; and homeland security and defense markets. The firm combines passion for its work with industry expertise and innovative analytics to produce compelling results throughout the entire program life cycle, from research and analysis through implementation and improvement. Since 1969, ICF has been serving government at all levels, major corporations, and multilateral institutions. More than 3,500 employees serve these clients worldwide. ICF s Web site is ICF International, Inc. All Rights Reserved.