For the past four years Telework International have been writing about the implementation of telework as an effective work option for organizations of all sizes. Recently I have noticed that more and more organizations are now moving past just considering telework and moving into a complete menu of alternative work arrangements -- one of which is telework.
This range of alternative work arrangements (AWA) includes some familiar options along with some new ones. The common alternative work arrangements include variable work hours where employees have some flexibility in the starting and ending times of their work day. This approach is fairly common with more people taking advantage of it to have some quiet concentrated time to get their work done or merely to avoid the traffic challenges in many of the larger cities.
Another familiar AWA is job sharing. Job sharing is the concept of two employees sharing one full-time job. The number of job share type arrangements is usually fairly low in most organizations but we have noticed a growth in this area over the past few years. Many employees are choosing to job share as a compromise between being at work full-time and being at home full-time. Organizations are benefiting from job sharing arrangements by creating positions which have the ability to perform a broader range of tasks due to the joint skills of the two employees sharing the job.
An AWA which seems to be under-going a resurgence is the use of modified work weeks. This AWA allows employees to work longer hours each day in exchange for reducing either the work week or the work cycle (i.e. work nine 9-hour days and get the tenth day off). Some organizations are using modified work weeks to increase the hours of customer service or to reduce the number of days field employees are on the road in a week.
Regular part-time work is an option that used to be considered somewhat undesirable -- something you did until you could secure full-time employment. Today many employees are finding that they are happy to work part-time allowing them to take on other non-work related activities or more entrepreneurial business ventures during their free time. The regular part-time route can allow an employer to keep a valued employee while only incurring the wage and benefit costs associated with part-time work.
The above AWAs all involve employees who typically work out of the regular office. As we all know telework is extremely popular for employees who are able to work from home 2-3 days per week and then spend the remaining time in the regular office. The business benefits of improved productivity, office space savings, reduced absenteeism, etc. are well documented.
We are also seeing an increase in the number of mobile workers. These are employees who are working anytime, anywhere using portable technology to allow them to perform their jobs from customer locations, their vehicle, their home, etc. Mobile workers are able to help the organization improve their level of customer service while reducing costs associated with office space and daily travel to the corporate office.
As you can see the list of alternative work arrangements is reasonably extensive. I have included here a few of the common ones but there are others. The common questions of organizations considering a menu of alternative work arrangements include: "Who else is offering a broad list of options and how successful are they?". I would, therefore, put this challenge out to our readers. Let us know about your organization. Have you implemented an AWA program? If so how successful is it? How was it implemented? Where are you going next? What AWAs are included? Which AWAs have been excluded and why?
I would be pleased to hear from you either via e-mail or fax. I will publish the results in a future issue. If you are uncomfortable with having your organization's name mentioned then just let me know and we will exclude it from the copy. We will, however, ask for the name of the company to authenticate the research.
I must stress that these calls for input (actually they're pleas!) can expand our collective knowledge of telework and other alternative work arrangements. Please take a few minutes and click on the e-mail address at the bottom of this article and let me know about your organization. We at Telework International can deliver a lot more business value to you our valued readers if you take the time to give us some feedback. Thanks!
CONTACT
Ken Robertson
KLR Consulting Inc.
e-mail: Ken.Robertson@KLR.com
fax: (604) 294-2694
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