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Responsibility to telework?

Susan Miller, editor in chief for online (and all-around Web guru) in this neck of the woods, offers this guest post:

As we monitor the chatter on twitter and social networks about Snomageddon, we’re noticing that most of the tech/professional people we follow have been bemoaning the fact that today’s technology means never having a snow day. So between breaks to shovel, most of us have been working as usual.

Perhaps not everyone.

We got a comment from a reader who found that just because you can telework doesn’t mean you really have to.

Even when employees have the capability and technology to telework, I'm finding many don't believe they should. It's a snow-day, go play. I work out West and can't get people from the DC area to participate in a basic telecon. Here is the email response someone sent me from their Blackberry: "Isn't the government closed today?"

So that got us thinking: What’s the responsibility of a salaried, professional government servant on a day when the “government is closed”?

We’d love to hear your thoughts.

Posted on Feb 10, 2010 at 7:10 AM


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Reader comments

Fri, Apr 9, 2010

I don't like working from home. My home workspace is cold in the winter and hot in the summer, but more importantly, I get the majority of my social life at work. I like getting dressed up and going in and seeing my friends. There's something about the idea of people in their home cubbyholes working in isolation that seems kind of sad. That said, I do have coworkers who love it. Some wouldn't have their current careers without it. So I hope there will always be both an office option and a home option for jobs where telework is a possibility.

Wed, Feb 17, 2010 thomas kesolits Fort Monmouth

Telecommunicating may sound good on the surface but it is open to abuse from the employer side. I worked from my home for 13 years and I know that I was never free. An employee subject to telecommuting cannot just leave work, forget about work and go home. The work is now at home, and yes, the person will feel they have to just work a bit more. Family and life priorities go down the tubes. The orgnaization may benefit, but the employee will suffer. It may sound noval at the beginning but it gets old very fast. Consider what the person said about schools being closed. If your kids are home, you are at home working and devilish applications such as SAMETIME effectively keep tabs on you. You are tied to that computer like a slave tied to a plow. If it is to exit, it has to be controlled so as not to be abused by the employer not the employee.

Wed, Feb 17, 2010 disappointed

I work for a USDA agency which primarily doesn't allow ethnic minorities to telework. Rather, telework is given to the priveliged few and implementated in a very dispariet manner. We, Gov't employee, could be very productive and save the Gov't money, but since they won't allow fair telework participation then production goes down.

Tue, Feb 16, 2010 Merrie Colorado

Our jobs are fully portable but we are not allowed to telework under any conditions during normal duty hours. We are only allowed to "work remotely" after normal duty hours. When our office closes for a snow day we cannot work until after the end of our duty day. When I cannot make the 80+ miles trip into work because of weather or road conditions, I must take leave and can only work after normal duty hours. Does that make sense?

Mon, Feb 15, 2010

One big reason some agencies won't institute telework is security (data security, asset security, network security). It is difficult for those organizations to let employees access sensitive or protected data and networks from outside the office because, often, the employees have to do that from a home computer not assigned/configured by the agency. There are options to overcome this, primarily virtual desktops and thin clients. Thin clients are the most secure option (and easiest to manage), as they generally do not have any memory and can't store any data - everything is running back at the secure data center. Users see the same desktop they always have, and access the same programs and data, they just do it over a display that is securely connected back to the home office datacenter. The thin client can be protected with logical and physical security (passwords, AFIS, etc), and if the actual device is stolen or lost it is worthless, as it holds no data or passwords. Once agencies start looking at solutions other than just "VPN from your home computer" they will start to feel more open to instituting telework/telecommuting initiatives. It's an anthropology problem, not a technology problem.

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