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| Findings and Future Direction |
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Prepared by:
Mary Beth Corrigan
Kathy King
Suzanne Dillard
Sandy Post
This report was prepared by the Oregon Department of Energy with the support of the Oregon Department of Transportation and Federal Highway Administration, Grant No. XSTP0000(3), and the U.S. Department of Energy, Grant No. DEFG5195R020558A001. However, any opinions, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of these agencies.
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| Introduction |
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The Oregon Department of Energy believes teleworking holds promise for stemming the growth in auto travel and thereby conserving energy, relieving congestion, and improving air quality. With Oregon´s population growing rapidly, now seems a fitting time to incorporate telecommuting into our overall strategy for protecting Oregon´s quality of life.
The purpose of this paper is to describe Oregon´s commitment to reducing auto travel, examine the potential of teleworking, describe what the Oregon Department of Energy has learned about teleworking from working with Oregon employers, and outline the department´s strategy for the next two years to expand the adoption of teleworking in Oregon.
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| Background |
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Teleworking is a work option that is drawing the interest of many Oregon employers and employees. The emergence of home computers, modems, Email, fax machines, and other communication technologies has made it possible for many jobs to be done virtually anywhere. teleworking can save employees the time, cost, and stress of the work commute and provide them the flexibility to better balance their work and home lives. For employers, teleworking can boost productivity and cut operating costs.
The potential benefits of teleworking extend beyond the workplace. Because teleworking eliminates the work commute, it also may prove to be a successful strategy to help stem the growth in auto travel. The traffic congestion and poor air quality that come with ever increasing auto travel already plague some areas of the state. With Oregon´s projected population growth of a million more people in the next 20 years, that can only get worse.
A fundamental mission of the Oregon Department of Energy is to conserve energy. The transportation sector, accounting for 40 percent of Oregon´s energy use, has been particularly difficult to reach. In 1991, the Legislature made projects that conserve energy used in transportation eligible for the Business Energy Tax Credit. At the same time, the department applied for and received a grant from the Environmental Protection Agency to encourage employers to set up programs for their employees to commute to work by means other than driving to work by themselves. At the completion of that project, we concluded that even with a tax credit, the vast majority of employers are not interested in funding projects or programs to influence how employees commute to work. They did express considerable interest in teleworking, however.
In the fall of 1993, the department received a $256,000 grant from the Oregon Department of Transportation to encourage Oregon employers to offer the teleworking option to their employees. The approach we took was threefold.
First, we joined with state energy offices in Washington and Arizona and created materials to distribute to employers who were interested in teleworking. The materials include a video tape that introduces teleworking as a work option, a handbook that describes how to establish a teleworking program, and a training kit to educate telecommuters and managers on how teleworking works. Each energy office published case studies that showcase successful teleworking programs.
Second, we set up pilot teleworking programs to learn firsthand what it takes to get successful programs up and running. The pilots included the following:
11 bureaus of the city of Portland
The Deschutes County Assessor´s office
A satellite office in LaPine for Deschutes County assessors
Oregon State University Extension Energy Program, Bend
ORCOM, a software development company, Bend
An off-site work center in Salem for state employees
Third, the department sought to heighten awareness of teleworking as a practical work option in Oregon. We held seminars for businesses, trade associations, vendors of telecommunications equipment, city and county officials, and others. And we formed partnerships with the Lane Transit District in Eugene, the Rogue Valley Transportation District in Medford, the Oregon State University Extension Energy Program in Bend, and the Central Oregon Environmental Center in Bend to integrate teleworking into their travel reduction campaigns.
By year-end 1994, we had worked with more than 350 organizations throughout Oregon on some aspect of teleworking. The organizations represent a mix of public and private and urban and rural. They range from one-person offices to some of Oregon´s largest employers. For some of the organizations, we provided expertise on issues such as how to select telecommuters and how to draft teleworking policies. For others, we worked with them from the initial seed of interest all the way through to training employees and managers.
The final phase of the project was a followup evaluation of some of those programs. We surveyed 66 telecommuters, 68 coworkers and 35 managers in 32 organizations to learn what impact teleworking was making on the organization and to measure any reduction in auto travel.
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| The Issues |
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Today, Oregonians drive more than 25 billion miles a year. Without any change in driving habits, the state´s projected growth in population will mean at least a 30 percent increase in yearly auto travel over the next two decades. This huge increase in auto travel threatens to diminish Oregon´s quality of life.
Energy: Transportation accounts for 40 percent of Oregon´s energy use, and gasoline accounts for more than half of the energy consumed. Until recently, most of the department´s efforts to conserve gasoline have been to support federal fuel efficiency standards. Between 1970 and 1990, average auto fuel efficiency for new cars increased from an average of 14 miles per gallon to 28. During the same period, the amount of driving in Oregon nearly doubled, so little gain was made in reducing gasoline use.
Land use: One of the fears Oregonians cite in survey after survey is that growth will cause Oregon to become like California: vast expanses of subdivisions and crowded freeways in place of orchards, farms and open spaces. With houses spread out over acres and acres of land, separated from stores and shops, business services and work sites, the distances between places are usually too great for walking or biking, and the developments too sparsely populated to support mass transit. To get most anyplace, the car is the only practical choice.
Air quality: A major cost of more and more auto travel is the carbon monoxide and ozone it generates. In 1994, every Oregon community met the clean air standards for these pollutants. Success, however, may be short-lived. The influx of new drivers and a continuation of the trend toward more driving per driver could outstrip the technological improvements that have enabled cities to meet clean air standards.
Economic development: Oregon´s quality of life has been a central piece of the state´s strategy for improving its economic diversity and becoming more resilient to economic downturns. That effort has been largely successful - Oregon weathered the 1991-92 recession better than most states. But if congestion, pollution and blighted landscapes become prevalent, as they have in other states that have grown without regard to quality of life, then Oregon´s advantage in drawing new industries will be lost.
Oregon's Goals
Managing Oregon´s population growth to protect our quality of life requires a shift in how we view urban transportation. Traditionally, as roadways have become congested, we have simply built more roads, added lanes and improved intersections. Continuing that approach would not only jeopardize the achievement of many of our other goals - we simply cannot afford it. Consequently, Oregon is looking at reducing the need for more transportation capacity - not by limiting mobility, but by moving people and goods by alternative means with less impact on Oregon´s quality of life. The following are Oregon´s goals for achieving a more balanced transportation system.
The Oregon Benchmarks: The Oregon Benchmarks are standards for measuring progress toward maintaining and enhancing Oregon´s quality of life. Because of the serious consequences of increased driving, six benchmarks aim directly at reducing auto travel and increasing the use of alternative modes:
136. Percentage of Oregonians who commute (one-way) within 30 minutes between where they live and where they work. In 1994, the percentage was 84 percent. The goal for 2010 is 88 percent.
137. Percentage of miles of limited access highways in Oregon metropolitan areas that are not heavily congested during peak hours.
In 1992, the percentage was 42 percent. The goal for 2010 is 60 percent.
138a. Transit hours per capita per year in Oregon metropolitan areas.
In 1994, the percent was .99 percent. The goal for 2010 is 1.7 percent.
138b. Percentage of arterial and collector street miles in urban areas that have adequate pedestrian and bicycle facilities.
No measurements at this time.
139. Percentage of Oregonians who commute to and from work during peak hours by means other than a single-occupancy vehicle.
In 1994, the percentage was 25 percent. The goal for 2010 is 38 percent.
140. Vehicle miles traveled per capita in Oregon metropolitan areas (per year).
In 1993, the number was 7,727 miles per year. The goal for 2010 is 7,443.
The Oregon Transportation Plan: Oregon´s transportation plan, "The New Oregon Trail," was developed by the Department of Transportation. Adopted in 1992, the plan is Oregon´s guide for the development of "a safe, convenient and efficient transportation system which promotes economic prosperity and livability for all Oregonians." Among its recommendations are improving city bus services by adding more buses and expanding routes and operating hours; completing the lightrail system in Portland; developing high-speed rail in the Willamette Valley; creating more bike and walk paths; and expanding programs to encourage carpooling, vanpooling, working at home, and other alternatives to single occupant auto travel. So far, the only option receiving major state funding has been Portland´s lightrail system.
The Oregon Transportation Planning Rule: Oregon´s Land Conservation and Development Commission and the Department of Transportation developed a transportation planning rule in 1991 aimed at reducing auto travel. The rule calls on communities to promote walking, biking and transit in their transportation plans. For cities larger than 25,000 people, it requires that new housing developments be less auto-dependent. For Portland, Salem, Eugene and Medford, the rule requires a 10 percent reduction in the number of miles traveled per capita by 2016 and a 20 percent reduction by 2026. The cities must submit plans in 1997 detailing how they will achieve the reductions.
The ECO Rule: The Department of Environmental Quality is responsible for implementing HB 2214, a law passed by the 1993 Legislature to ensure that the Portland area complies with the federal Clean Air Act through 2006. One of the elements of the law is an employee commute options (ECO) rule for Portland that will require employers to reduce commute travel by single-occupant vehicles. The rules to implement the law are being drafted now. They will define which employers must comply; what kind of programs they must set up; the reductions in travel they much achieve; what sanctions, if any, will be imposed for noncompliance; deadlines for setting up programs and achieving reductions; how compliance will be measured; and a host of other implementation issues. The ECO rule is expected to take effect in mid-1996.
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| The Findings |
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These findings are drawn from the department´s experience in the past four years working with Oregon employers to set up teleworking programs and resolve teleworking issues, setting up and monitoring six pilot teleworking programs, and surveying 32 Oregon organizations that have established teleworking programs.
1. Early evidence suggests that Oregon employees who telecommute do reduce their weekday auto travel.
The department estimated the reduction in auto travel for 24 telecommuters who kept a three-day log of their auto travel. The total number of miles they traveled on a teleworking day, and the total number of trips they took, were compared to the total miles traveled and total trips taken on a non-teleworking day. These are average results per telecommuter:
Total miles traveled on a non-teleworking day: 43.2 miles
Total miles traveled on a teleworking day: 8.0 miles
Reduction in miles traveled per teleworking day: 35.2 miles
Total number of trips taken on a non-teleworking day: 3.9 trips
Total number of trips taken on a teleworking day: 2.0 trips
Reduction in number of trips taken per teleworking day: 1.9 trips
Average number of teleworking days per week: 1.95 days
It has been suggested that while teleworking may reduce the work commute, it might increase noncommute travel. On average, that was not the case for the respondents in the department´s survey. If this finding proves true over a larger and more representative sample, it may be more accurate (and much easier) to estimate trip and mileage savings by assuming a teleworking day eliminates two trips - one trip to work and one trip home - and that the mileage reduced is the roundtrip distance between work and home. For this study, that approach yields 36.8 miles and two trips reduced per teleworking day compared to the 35.2 miles and 1.9 trips from the logs.
2. Nearly half of Oregon´s work force are potential telecommuters.
Employees who telecommute must have jobs that don´t require them to be at the office everyday. For example, computer programmers, writers, graphic artists, analysts and accountants can do most of their work anywhere. For the most part, the general positions amenable to teleworking include the following: executive, administrative and administrative support, managerial, sales, professional and technical. All together, more than 600,000 Oregonians out of a work force of 1.3 million worked in those positions at the time of the 1990 census. With continued advancements in technology, however, it will be possible for even more jobs to be done away from a central work site.
Not all employees want to telecommute, of course, and not all of them have the temperament or work habits suited to teleworking. Some employees, for example, require the organization and structure of a formal work setting. Others work best in an atmosphere where there is a lot of interaction among employees.
Employees who want to telecommute from home also must have a home environment conducive to working. While some employees working from home need only a telephone to keep in contact with the office, others may require a computer, modem, fax, or other equipment to do their job and to communicate with coworkers and clients. So, while half of Oregon´s work force may have jobs that are suited to teleworking, not all employees are able to telecommute.
3. teleworking is becoming a more widespread work option because both employers and employees see benefits from it.
In the past year alone, more than 1,000 employees and employers requested teleworking materials from the department. We have held more than 40 seminars for organizations that wanted to learn if teleworking would be appropriate for them or that wanted training on teleworking.
Much of the push for teleworking is coming from employees. Particularly for those who drive long distances to work, one of the main reasons employees give for wanting to telecommute is to eliminate the commute and the stress that goes with it. They cite other benefits as well: the opportunity to work in a quiet environment, the freedom to determine their own work schedule and the flexibility to attend to personal matters.
They also believe that the improvement in working conditions will enhance their work performance. The 66 telecommuters participating in the department´s survey on average reported improvement in the following characteristics of their jobs since they began teleworking:
the work environment
communication with their supervisor
job satisfaction
quality of work
work output
productive use of time
clarity of work objectives
supervisor´s trust
For "the work environment," "productive use of time" and "job satisfaction," employees expressed considerable improvement. For "the work environment," the average rating increased 37 percent; for "productive use of time," the rating increased 30 percent; and for "job satisfaction," it increased 27 percent.
Employers see teleworking as a way to keep valued employees and recruit top-quality new staff. Employers also are looking at its potential for boosting their organization´s productivity. Employers in Portland may consider teleworking as a way for them to comply with the ECO rule. Other reasons sparking their interest in teleworking are the potential for minimizing office space requirements, reducing sick leave costs, meeting requirements of the Americans With Disabilities Act and enhanced public image.
4. The perspective of unions should be recognized in the creation of teleworking programs.
Unions represent about 250,000 Oregon employees - 20 percent of the work force. Two teleworking issues that most concern unions are equity and productivity. First, unions consider teleworking an employee benefit, and view as inequitable that some employees may be allowed to telecommute and others may not. Second, they worry that teleworking will become a high-tech version of sweat shops where productivity is minutely measured and production goals are set at ever-increasing levels.
Most organizations that have labor agreements and are introducing teleworking programs credit their success to working with their unions from the beginning to resolve any issues.
5. Teleworking is not without its problems, but many of them can be alleviated if teleworking occurs on a part-time basis.
teleworking is a work option that requires adjustments by the telecommuter, the manager and coworkers. For now, teleworking one to three days per week is the most likely arrangement to be successful for most telecommuters.
One of the biggest problems for teleworkers is the loss of human contact - both work-related and social. The impromptu meetings and casual conversations that are common in organizations are often the source of new ideas, creative problem-solving and information-sharing. This is not only necessary to getting the job done, but the camaraderie and trust that develop between employees promote a healthy and productive work environment. Email, faxes, telephone calls and more regularly scheduled meetings can help the information flow continue, but they cannot fully replace spontaneous, face-to-face communication. Other problems telecommuters report are difficulty in adequately planning and scheduling, lack of proper equipment, jealousy of coworkers and inadequate work space.
For managers who are results-oriented and who evaluate the performance of their employees in those terms, managing employees at remote sites is not much different from managing employees in the office. Managers who are used to managing employees by directly observing them encounter more difficulties supervising telecommuters, particularly in evaluating their performance. Regardless of management styles, supervisors of telecommuters must develop new office routines that account for the absence of the telecommuter and the added workload for coworkers.
Coworkers must often perform extra tasks that cannot wait for the teleworker´s return to the office. Some of the extra work by coworkers can be avoided by good planning and scheduling, but spur-of-the-moment demands may have to be handled by someone in the office. As a consequence, some coworkers may feel teleworking is unfair to them and may be jealous of teleworkers.
If employees telework one to three days per week, these problems aren´t likely to become unmanageable. As the telecommuters, the coworkers and the managers gain more experience, many of these problems will dissipate. In the department´s teleworking survey, 58 percent of the telework, 60 percent of the managers, and 49 percent of the coworkers described one or more problems they experienced with teleworking. These problems have not dampened their enthusiasm for teleworking, however. In response to whether they thought teleworking was good for their organization, 94 percent of the telecommuters and managers and 78 percent of the coworkers said "yes."
6. Formal teleworking programs are the most likely to succeed.
Many Oregon employers already allow some employees to telecommute - at least on an informal basis. Of the 32 organizations the department surveyed, only six reported that they had written policies or agreements.
Some employers feel there´s no need for a formal program because only a few of their employees telecommute. Even so, issues arise sooner or later - particularly the perceived inequity of allowing teleworking for only selected employees. If too many issues come up that have to be addressed on an ad hoc basis, the employer or the teleworking employee - or both - may simply give up on teleworking because it seems too troublesome.
Many employers are reluctant to formalize teleworking because they are uncertain of the results if it became a companywide work option. Some fear that everyone would want to telecommute, that the commitment in training and equipment would be overwhelming, and that their managers would lose control of their work force. Ironically, a formal teleworking policy is the mechanism for ensuring that teleworking is smooth-running. Problems can be minimized or avoided altogether if organizations craft policies that clearly articulate how their programs will work.
Teleworking policies should include, for example, who can telework and who can´t, what the course of action will be if an employee is injured while working at home, who is responsible for buying and maintaining equipment, who is responsible for damage or loss of equipment, how childcare will be treated, how confidentiality issues should be handled, how telecommuters will communicate with the main office, how extra work placed on coworkers will be minimized, how and how often the teleworking arrangement will be evaluated, what kind of training is required and who must be trained, and what the formal agreement between the supervisor and teleworker should contain.
7. Teleworking may offer as much or more potential for reducing auto travel as mass transit, biking or walking.
Nobody really knows how many Oregonians are teleworking now, let alone how many will telecommute in the future. If national estimates can be applied to Oregon, then somewhere between 25,000 and 100,000 Oregonians may be teleworking today. Those numbers represent 2 to 8 percent of the work force. If teleworking expands to just 10 percent of the work force, say, for an average two days a week, that would translate to 4 percent of the work force not commuting to work on any given weekday. For comparison, these are the percentages for how Oregonians usually commuted to work as reported in the 1990 census:
Drove alone in a car, truck or van 73%
Carpooled 13%
Public transportation 3%
Bicycle 1%
Walked 4%
Other 1%
Worked at home[1] 4%
In contrast to other strategies to reduce auto travel, however, the success of teleworking does not depend on huge outlays of money by government because the costs of teleworking - computers, modems, extra phone lines, home office space and furnishings, etc. - are borne directly by the employer and the employee.
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| Future Direction |
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Teleworking has the potential to become one of Oregon´s most effective strategies for reducing auto travel.
The success of teleworking as a strategy to reduce travel, however, hinges on its becoming a success as a work option. Some organizations are offering teleworking to some of their employees now, and to the extent they are successful, other organizations will follow suit. If teleworking is to make a significant reduction in auto travel, however, it must occur on a large scale and endure over the long run. That will require organizations to
(1) understand what teleworking is and how it can benefit their organization;
(2) develop formal policies; and
(3) train telecommuters and managers in effective teleworking practices. If organizations continue to offer teleworking informally to only their most valued and trusted employees, teleworking will peak at a small fraction of its potential.
The department seeks to further teleworking by providing information and education to employers on what it takes to get successful teleworking programs up and running. Following is the department´s two-year teleworking strategy.
1. Target employers in the Portland metro area to set up teleworking programs. Offer the department´s services to the approximately 2,000 Portland metro area employers affected by the ECO rule.
With nearly half of Oregon´s employees, the Portland metro area experiences the most traffic congestion and faces the most difficulty in meeting clean air standards for ozone and carbon monoxide. With the establishment of the ECO rule, the time is opportune for employers to consider establishing teleworking programs as one of the ways to reduce their employees´ travel.
2. Continue to educate employers and employees on teleworking by offering onsite training, video tapes and publications, teleworking seminars, and presentations to professional organizations and chambers of commerce throughout Oregon. In particular, we will continue our work in Deschutes County, the state´s fastest growing area, and in Jackson County, which has had trouble meeting clean air standards for carbon monoxide and ozone.
The department also will continue to provide tax credits to businesses for purchasing teleworking equipment
3. Develop more models of teleworking for people with disabilities. Assist Oregon employers to increase opportunities for Oregonians with disabilities to telecommute.
teleworking can bring more people with disabilities into the job market. teleworking also can improve working conditions for those already working. For employees with disabilities whose work commute is a struggle, teleworking is an obvious remedy - at least for a few days a week. For those who may not be able to work a straight eight-hour day, teleworking allows them to work a less rigid schedule.
4. Track the development of new options for off-site work, including employer-operated satellite offices that are nearer to telecommuters´ homes than the main office; telework centers set up by a group of employers where employees work in their own neighborhoods or at a site nearer their homes; and televillages - community centers where communications facilities are set up for the public. Look at opportunities to expand teleworking through these new off-site options.
Options besides teleworking from home on a part-time basis already are proving successful. They have the potential to serve more employers and employees and, in the long run, may better facilitate full-time teleworking.
[1] These are largely full-time home workers.
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