The 2008 Telework Exchange Tele-Vision recipients were honored at an awards ceremony on Tuesday, April 22, 2008 at the Spring 2008 Telework Exchange Town Hall Meeting at the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center in Washington, D.C. The ceremony featured guest speaker John Palguta, vice president, policy, at Partnership for Public Service.

The 2008 Telework Exchange Tele-Vision Awards recognize excellence in government telework programs and their accomplishments in the following categories:

• Best New Telework Initiative
• State and Local Government Telework Program
• Excellence in Telework Leadership
• Innovative Application of Technology to Support Telework
• Telework Driver Award

Below please find the 2008 award recipients:

State and Local Government Telework Program
Organization: Loudoun County, Commonwealth of Virginia
Program: Mobilizing Inspectors

After conducting a successful pilot program in 2006, Loudoun County fully implemented its mobilization program for the building inspection department. The program, which expands the traditional definition of telework to include mobile workers, provides the inspectors the tools to complete all of their tasks in the field and at home, without traveling to and from the office. The county has equipped all 76 building inspectors and supervisors with notebook computers containing broadband cards and VPN access to the county’s network and its applications.

Inspectors can now receive assignments, conduct research, and communicate inspection results remotely, eliminating up to 152 trips to the office each day by the inspectors. Loudoun County hopes to realize $95,000 in annual leased office space savings when the current office lease expires.

Excellence in Telework Leadership
Organization: United States Government Accountability Office
Program: Telework Program

Government Accountability Office (GAO) instituted an agency-wide telework program in 1995, and today, more than 75 percent of its employees take advantage of the program. Employees are able to apply to the program online, and once approved, teleworkers can securely access the GAO network remotely to carry out their work. GAO tested the strength of its agency-wide program in October 2001 when 435 members of the House of Representatives and their key staff were unexpectedly moved into the GAO building in Washington, D.C. due to an anthrax incident affecting House offices. Several hundred GAO employees were asked to telework temporarily and were able to quickly and effectively carry out the critical work of the agency.

Further, in an effort to monitor the impact of telework on overall operations, GAO conducts a bi-annual survey of top management, supervisors, and staff, which captures 45 different key metrics, including benefit, quality of work/life, and importance to employees. In the most recent survey, GAO found that 88 percent of the staff believe the program increases work productivity, 93 percent believe it helps with work/life balance, and 94 percent intend to reapply to participate in the program in future years. The results show that management and staff agree the program is valuable to the agency as it increases productivity, fosters better time management, and acts as an important recruiting and retention tool.

Innovative Approach of Technology to Support Telework
Organization: United States General Services Administration, New England Region
Program: New England Regional Telework Program

Launched in 1999, the General Services Administration’s (GSA) New England Telework Program is helping to set standard operating guidelines for GSA’s 10 additional regional offices and is serving in a pivotal advisory role to GSA’s senior leadership. The regional program allows eligible employees to establish regular or situational teleworking schedules to meet their work and personal needs as well as the needs of the agency. One unique aspect of the program is the establishment of a telework committee to stand as an impartial oversight group that supports the telework program and provides mediation between management and employees. To ensure a comprehensive program, the committee is represented by all of GSA’s services and staff offices as well as human resources, regional counsel, the information technology (IT) support group, the union, and the office of equal employment opportunity.

Each teleworker receives a GSA-standard laptop and initial training in policy, technology, and transparency of working virtually, followed by an annual refresher training course. The region has also created the Telework Application Management System, a first for GSA, employing Lotus Notes to manage workflow and track the entire application process from start to finish. In addition, GSA installed a Citrix Presentation Server to provide secure, low bandwidth, high availability access to corporate applications. This program allows employees working anywhere in the world instant access to their data. Currently, 84 percent of New England Region employees have a signed telework agreement and almost a third work remotely at least one day in a two-week period. GSA’s goal is to increase participation in telework of one or more days a week to 40 percent by the end of calendar year 2009 and 50 percent by the end of calendar year 2010.  

Innovative Application of Technology to Support Telework
Organization: Defense Information Systems Agency
Program: Automated Telework Application

The Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) recently updated its telework policy to allow employees to work at home three days per week, a change from the previous arrangement to telework one day, every two weeks. DISA realized that cultural changes must occur to ensure the telework program’s success and wanted to simplify the process for employees to apply for approval to telework as well as eliminate the cumbersome application paper process. As a result, DISA’s staff created an innovative Web-based application that allows employees to register for their telework program, select the days they would like to work remotely, and record teleworking hours. The system notifies managers of pending applications and managers can log in to approve, disapprove, or modify their subordinates’ registration requests. Additionally, managers have the ability to run reports, which provide much needed data to assist in DISA’s effort to improve its telework program in years to come. Further, DISA’s senior leadership is able to view telework program status, recognize areas where resistance could exist, and take action to eliminate it. To date, the number of eligible teleworkers at DISA has increased eight-fold. During a recent employee satisfaction survey, the telework program was one of the catalysts for a dramatic improvement in employee satisfaction with regard to DISA quality of work/life programs.

Best New Telework Initiative
Organization: United States Patent and Trademark Office
Program: Trademark Assistance Center Work at Home Program

The United States Patent and Trademark Office’s (USPTO) Trademark Assistance Center (TAC) recognized that one of the major challenges facing the call center industry is identifying and implementing viable strategies to attract and retain highly qualified employees. As the main interface between Trademark customers and the USPTO, TAC provides customers with accurate and timely information via multiple channels of communication within a real-time environment. To meet customer needs and retain a skilled workforce, TAC developed a Work at Home Program, one of the first call center telework programs within the Federal government.

The TAC Work at Home Program enables USPTO to attract and retain highly skilled employees by providing work-life balance while simultaneously advancing operational goals in productivity, responsiveness, efficiency, and space planning. Since implementing the official program in 2007, TAC has experienced a zero-percent attrition rate and found that agents performed at a six-percent higher production rate for handling incoming phone calls and 144-percent higher rate for e-mail processing. The program has proven effective from a business continuity-planning standpoint as well. During a 2007 campus-wide power outage, the TAC was able to provide continuous service due to the Work at Home participants’ ability to answer phone calls from their home workstations.
 

Telework Driver Award
Honoree: Arleas Upton Kea, Director, Division of Administration
Organization: United States Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation

Arleas Upton Kea, Director, Division of Administration at Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), launched a telework pilot program at a time when many in the agency did not embrace telework. Her forward thinking and creativeness helped Ms. Kea to convince the FDIC Chairman, as well as her senior management peers, to move forward with the program. Ms. Kea has empowered her staff to promote the program across the corporation, which has resulted in substantial savings for FDIC and has allowed bank examiners the flexibility to telework on a full-time basis. She has dedicated division staff to monitor, evaluate, and track the program, as well as to make sure employees have as many benefits connected to telework as legally possible. As a result of the telework program, FDIC has been able to consolidate buildings in regional office and field locations nationwide. The savings have benefited the cooperation significantly in the leasing and building of office space and in improving employee morale.

Ms. Kea’s accomplishments and unwavering support of the FDIC Telework Program not only highlight the tremendous payoff for government agencies in terms of their ability to respond in times of crisis and disaster; but has also shown with innovative ideas and programming you have the ability to recruit and retain talent in a world of changing roles and growing choices. By communicating the benefits of telework, Ms. Kea has convinced managers to not only allow, but also encourage employees to telework. She not only talks the talk but she walks the talk, as she has shown senior managers, by participating in the telework program herself, that even at the most senior levels with the FDIC managers can lead by example and telework.
 

For Award Enquiries:
Erin Lundberg
(703) 883-9000 ext. 116
elundberg@teleworkexchange.com

John Palguta, Vice President, Policy for Partnership for Public Service
recognizes the 2008 Tele-Vision Awards Program winners.

Loudoun County, Virginia receives the award for the State
and Local Government Telework Program.

Excellence in Telework Leadership is awarded to the
United States Government Accountability Office.

The United States General Services Administration, New England Region,
New England Regional Telework Program received the Innovative
Approach of Technology to Support Telework award.

Defense Information Systems Agency accepts the Innovative
Application of Technology to Support Telework award for their
Automated Telework Application program.

The United States Patent and Trademark Office’s (USPTO)
Trademark Assistance Center (TAC) won the Best New Telework Initiative award.

Arleas Upton Kea, Director, Division of Administration at the
Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation is the 2008 Telework Driver Award winner.

Click here for more information on the 2008 Tele-Vision Award winners