In the wake of President Reagan's passing, Washington D.C.'s workforce is dealing with huge traffic snarls and the need to juggle schedules in light of Friday's federal holiday. Steven Barr of the Washington Post uses these factors to shine a light on the status of telework in the Federal government (With Miles to Go, Government Makes Progress Toward Telecommuting, June 10, 2004).

While progress is being made, as reported by OPM's recent report blogged earlier, the goals established by Congressman Frank when he sponsored the 2001 Federal Telework Mandate are still far from being accomplished. In May we heard that Wolf was going to put some teeth into the law he sponsored. Here we see the report seconded:

"Wolf, who views a robust telecommuting program in the government as a way to cut traffic congestion and pollution in the Washington area, is looking for ways to hold agencies accountable and has floated the idea of cutting budgets at agencies that do not show meaningful participation in the federal telework program, Wolf spokesman Dan Scandling said."

Some may wonder why this basic pairing of responsibility with accountability wasn't considered in the original mandate. I'd say what we're seeing is that teleworking as a concept is maturing. Telework may have been considered a "nice to have" when first introduced. Now that the benefits have become obvious, at least to the enlighted few that are setting the standards, it's becoming an expectation.

From there we'll see it move to being a standard way of doing business. That will happen at the point when the benefits are clear to the masses, not just he enlightened few. We can move more quickly to this point by spreading the word - and that's one of the goals of the Telework Consortium. We're actively working on a number of telework pilots and research projects - more on those to come.

2:41:44 PM    
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