Powering Up the Virtual Office

Mariley Ferens works for the General Services Administration in Washington. But her physical office is more than 2,000 miles away, in her home in Seattle. "Most of what I do can be done from anywhere," says Ferens, senior site coordinator for the GSA's Office of Workplace Initiatives.

Increasingly powerful desktop and portable computers, combined with simpler and faster telecommunications technology, have helped bring the concept of the "virtual office" to the federal government. "A lot of jobs have changed so dramatically, they can be done anywhere, anytime," says Warren Master, acting director of GSA's Office of Workplace Initiatives. Instead of reporting to an office every day, increasing numbers of federal employees are telecommuting part time or full time from home offices or suburban satellite work centers. Others, often called "road warriors," rely on a portable office as they shuttle among multiple remote locations. What they all have in common is a decreasing need to share a physical office with co-workers.

While no reliable statistics exist on federal road warriors, there are "about 10,000 federal employees telecommuting," Master says. That figure represents only "about half of 1 percent of the federal civilian workforce," he says. By comparison, telecommuters represent about 7 percent of the overall workforce in the United States. The federal number has increased significantly in recent years, roughly tripling from 1995 to 1996. And it will continue to grow, thanks in part to the National Telecommuting Initiative, an interagency effort approved by a presidential council in January 1996. It has set a goal of 160,000 federal telecommuters by 2002, which represents 15 percent of the expected federal workforce at that time.

The most popular arrangement, accounting for 95 percent of government telecommuters, is employees dividing their time between a primary office and home. The other 5 percent work out of their primary office and a GSA-supported telecommuting center. There are 11 telecommuting centers in the Washington area alone; that number will almost double by September. Telecommuters spend an average of one and a half to two days a week telecommuting, although the range is from "once every other week to four or five times a week," Master says.

Benefits on Many Levels

The government is embracing telecommuting because of the many benefits it offers to both employees and employers. Less commuting time translates into more personal time, reduced stress and lower transportation costs for employees. Federal employees in the Washington area who spend one and a half days per week at a telecommuting center are saving an average of 1,600 hours of commuting time per year, Master says. "That's 20 actual workdays, or the equivalent of someone's annual leave," he says. The resulting decrease in car emissions and energy consumption also benefits the environment.

Research shows that telecommuting improves employee productivity, according to telecommuting experts. "The single biggest advantage to the 'flexiplace' program is fewer interruptions" during the workday, says Rich Terry, an Occupational Safety and Health Administration program analyst who telecommutes two days a week from a center in Fredericksburg, Va. "I can concentrate better, because there aren't people stopping by the cubicle to chit-chat," he says.

The flexibility telecommuters have to work outside standard business hours helps many of them manage their jobs better. Telecommuting and mobile work arrangements can also improve customer service, by distributing employees throughout the communities they are serving.

Agencies also stand to reduce their facility costs by allowing employees to work remotely. When telecommuting takes place on a large-enough scale, several telecommuters can share one office-based workstation, if each worker is in the office on different days. "It's conceivable you could eliminate one workstation for every two to three telecommuters," Master says.

A leading accounting firm has estimated that the average office cubicle workstation costs more than $10,000 per year, Master says. The average cost of a telecommuter is less than $1,000 per year, he adds. Therefore, by meeting its year 2002 telecommuting goal, the government could save up to $1 billion a year.

Equipment Needs

"The most fundamental equipment a telecommuter needs is a telephone," says Jack Nilles, president of JALA International, a telecommuting consultancy in Los Angeles. "And for about a quarter of telecommuters, that's it," he says. Nilles adds that computers are becoming essential to more and more workers, especially those who are "computer-attached in their regular office." Employees who need to regularly connect to their office's local area network (LAN) also need a modem and remote access software. Up to 90 percent of telecommuters don't need any other equipment, Nilles says.

Many employees who already own equipment at home are willing to use it for their work because of the advantages telecommuting offers them on a personal level. Alternatively, agencies may have excess equipment to loan to telecommuters. In either case, the employer incurs minimal expenses, if any.

"Unless someone is working at home full time, it doesn't pay to equip them with expensive equipment," Master says. "For many, even a 386[-based computer] with a 14,400 baud modem will suffice," he says. Workers who rely on the Microsoft Windows operating system and who require frequent access to their e-mail or to the Internet would probably need a 28,800 baud modem, he says, and "a 486[-based computer], if not a Pentium." Fast but expensive ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network) technology would be needed only rarely, "if large amounts of data are to be transferred back and forth," Nilles says.

Some employers give telecommuters laptop computers to carry between the office and a remote workplace. Docking stations and monitors at both locations turn it into the equivalent of a desktop computer, with the added advantage that it can be taken on business trips.

Other equipment, such as printers, scanners and fax machines, are useful but not critical for most employees, especially those who telecommute only a few days per week and can use that type of equipment in the office. And in the case of fax machines, modems can now handle most faxing needs. (If such equipment is needed, buying a combination printer/scanner/fax machine can help an agency cut costs.)

In contrast to home-based offices, telecommuting centers can spread the cost of the equipment among many workers, and are therefore usually equipped as well as or even better than many primary offices. "Anything I might have in the D.C. office, I have here" at the telecommuting center, Terry says. Workers at the centers have access to Pentium computers, laser printers, modems, scanners, color laser printers, fax machines, duplexing photocopiers, voicemail and videoconferencing. Telecommuting centers also offer high-bandwidth networking connections. "You can't possibly have everything at home that we have available here," Terry says.

Because of this, the telecommuting centers will begin promoting themselves as "backups for home-based telecommuters," says Mary Bray, manager of the Hagerstown, Md., center. Such an arrangement would give home-based telecommuters access to the center's equipment and technical support on a fee-for-service basis. GSA is also considering setting up intranets (restricted-access sections of the World Wide Web) for home-based telecommuters within each telecommuting center's area. This would give the home-based workers access to CD-ROM jukeboxes and other networked equipment at the centers.

Some agencies with special security needs or with "a particular software [package] or arrangement for getting into their LAN" must tailor the telecommuting center's equipment to their employees' needs, Master says. But remote access technology has improved to the point that it's straightforward for most telecommuters to dial into their office network from virtually anywhere and have access to what they would in their primary office.

Telecommuting equipment needs vary with job duties, how much of the workweek is spent at a remote location, and how much of the work can only be done while connected to the office computer network. Maxcine Sterling, GSA's telecommuting coordinator, recommends that managers in agencies with flexiplace coordinators consult them to find out about norms. The GSA's Office of Information Technology Policy and Leadership has also issued a resource guide called "Flexiplace Questions and Answers" (KA0953-1).

Road warriors have similar needs to telecommuters, because most still rely on phone lines to connect to the office networks (wireless alternatives are slower). Usually their only additional requirement is that their equipment be portable. For example, some Agriculture Department meat and poultry inspectors travel to different packing plants over the course of a day carrying notebook computers with built-in modems and portable printers. Mobile workers who only need a telephone might turn to cellular phones, while those with limited data communication needs might consider pagers with e-mail functions or portable "smart phones" with Web browsers and e-mail capabilities.

Road warriors should benefit from a new generation of subnotebook computers running the new Microsoft Windows CE operating system. The new crop, which is scheduled to reach the market in a year, will cost about $1,500, half the price of current machines, says Andrew Seybold, editor-in-chief of Andrew Seybold's Outlook on Communications and Computing newsletter in Boulder Creek, Calif.