Telework for Organizational Performance Where Technology, Employee Engagement, and Smart Implementation Come Together

U.S. General Services Administration (GSA)		Washington Metropolitan Telework Centers

Program Info  |  Registration  |  Hotel

Who Should Attend:
Federal employees and others with oversight of or an interest in effectively implementing telework at their organization.

When:
September 26, 2006, 7:30am- 4:30pm (Please note: The morning program is open to the public and federal employees. The afternoon program begins at 12:30pm and is open only to federal employees.)

The Benefits of Your Participation:

• Hear from leading senior executives who have embraced telework as a business strategy.
• Learn the metrics of calculating telework's ROI for employee productivity, operational savings and technology investment.
• Understand how to incorporate telework into your organization's flexible work portfolio.
• Learn the flexible work options that are best for certain employees and types of jobs.
• Gain insights about how some organizations find the right match for both the employee and the employer.
• Find out how to determine whether an employee can make use of more than one flexible work option.
• Grasp the tools and techniques managers need to guide a distributed workforce while maintaining a sense of cohesiveness and good communication.
• Explore the government agency planning process as it relates to COOP and what can be done to make it happen.*
• Learn how to add discipline to security practices for all forms of remote work to ensure that agency and citizens' data are safeguarded.*
• Find out how to develop sound methods for tracking costs and benefits, as well as sensible ways to report on and recover the actual savings.*

*These topics will be explored in the afternoon programs available only to federal employees.

Registration

Please note: The morning program is open to the public and federal employees. The afternoon program begins at 12:30pm and is open only to federal employees.

How to Register:
Use the secure online form to register online or by mail. Click here.

Program Info

This is a preliminary program and is subject to change. Please check back for updated program information.

Morning Program (open to federal employees and other attendees)

7:30am – Registration and Continental Breakfast with Sponsors

8:30am – Welcome Remarks
Gil Gordon, Gil Gordon Associates
Stan Kaczmarczyk , General Services Administration

8:45am – Swimming Up Stream to Going Mainstream                 
For most of its more than 25-year history, telework implementation has been a struggle for many organizations. Although the benefits and payoffs from well-managed telework have been clearly described and documented, we have still seen a fairly entrenched base of skepticism if not resistance. Nobody quarrels about the successes that have occurred – the problem is simply the amount of effort and time needed to achieve these benefits. Since the start of the 21st century, however, that upstream battle has begun to dissipate. Telework has become an important tool in the workplace that enables employers to improve organizational performance and at the same time engage employees and enable them to more effectively manage their work-life demands. Telework has come into the mainstream for many successful organizations as it is increasingly woven into the fabric of today's workplace to: reduce office space and other operational costs; improve employee productivity and effectiveness; ensure continuity of operations; reduce employee commuting costs; and improve the environment in their community. This opening session will address these and other factors in the workplace and in the world we live in that make it essential that telework becomes mainstream in your organization.

9:45am – Break and Opportunity to Meet with Sponsors

10:15am – The Metrics of Telework - Show Me the Money!
Our panel of presenters will provide the details on how to calculate telework's ROI for employee performance, operational and facilities savings, and technology investments. This session will directly address one of the most common questions about telework implementation: how do we demonstrate its value in tangible, dollars-and-cents terms.

11:15am – Incorporating Telework into Your Organization's Flexible Work Portfolio
Although there are millions of people teleworking every day, we know that telework isn't right for every position or every employee. That's why other flexible work options (such as job-sharing, part-time, flextime or compressed work weeks) continue to be popular. However, telework planners often aren't as aware of these other options as they should be, and HR staff overseeing flexible work programs don't always have a clear picture of current telework possibilities. We'll bridge those gaps with this session, where you'll learn: what flexible work options are best for what types of employees and types of jobs; how organizations find the right match for both the employee and the employer; whether an employee can make use of more than one flexible work option; and much more.

11:50am – Managing a Distributed Workforce: A 21st Century Necessity
No matter how much telework goes on in your organization, it is increasingly common for people to work with others located elsewhere; the days of having all members of a work group located in close proximity are fading away fast. Distance today seems irrelevant since we can work just as easily with someone on the other side of town or across an ocean. The pressure is on managers today to learn how to manage an increasingly dispersed, distributed workforce – whether or not any direct reports are working at home. This session will explore the tools and techniques that today's managers need to successfully guide today's distributed workforce, and maintain a sense of cohesiveness and good communications.

12:25pm – Conference Summary and Concluding Remarks

12:30pm – Morning program concludes. Last opportunity to meet with sponsors. Federal registrants move to workshop for lunch.

Afternoon Program: Federal Telework Workshop (open to federal employees only)

12:30pm – Speakers from morning sessions will be seated at lunch tables and Federal registrants will have the opportunity to sit with them and discuss morning sessions over lunch.

1:15pm – Strengthening the COOP - Telework Connection

There's no escaping the fact that despite all the attention given to COOP (Continuity of Operations Planning) in the last few years, telework has not taken on as integral a role in agency COOP planning as many believe it could and should. Last year's ITAC report on telework and contingency planning laid out specific, attainable steps for this kind of linkage, and the challenge now is to put this kind of plan into action. In this session we'll hear first-hand from an agency involved in making this connection. The primary purpose of this session is to look at the COOP – telework connection across all agencies and come up with some practical steps to help each agency mesh telework and COOP.

1:45pm – Locks, Passwords, and Common Sense
Recent events in the private and public sector have once again drawn attention to the need for more disciplined approaches to maintaining security and confidentiality of computerized data, removable memory, CDs, desktops and laptops, etc. in the context of all forms of remote work.   Telework coordinators are on the hot seat and will be held increasingly accountable for assuring that good security practices are followed. What exactly are those good practices, and what exactly is the role of the coordinator working in partnership with line management and technology staff to make sure the agencies' and citizens' data are safeguarded? You'll find the answers in this important session.

2:30-2:45pm – Break

2:45pm – Show Me the Money: A Government Perspective
If we each had a dollar for every time we've been asked to back up claims about how telework can save money for agencies, we'd have a lot of dollars. That's exactly what this session is about: how do we find a lot of dollars in our telework programs? This session will complement the morning session on this theme by reviewing detailed information from one or more agencies that will describe how the agency portrays measurable, tangible paybacks. We'll then discuss how to draw on their approaches to learn about sound methods for tracking costs and benefits, as well as sensible ways to report on and recover the actual savings.

3:45pm – Telework Solutions Showdown
Every agency coordinator can make up a long list of problems faced in various aspects of telework program planning, marketing and implementation. Every agency coordinator can also make up a long list of solutions he/she has developed for these kinds of problems. Our mutual challenge is that while we all face problems and all have discovered solutions, we don't always have an easy way to match up our problems with someone else's solutions, and vice versa. In this session we'll have some fun as teams of three people each try to beat the clock while coming up with the best solutions to the problems posed by another team. Which team will be the winner? You won't know until the session is over, but in reality everyone will be a winner as you work together on problems that stand in the way of telework success.

4:30pm – Federal Workshop Ends

Sponsors (as of Aug. 4, 2006)

Thank you to the following sponsors for their support and cooperation which has helped to make this event possible:

U.S. General Services Administration (GSA)	Washington Metropolitan Telework Centers

Hotel

Hotel information to come.