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July 2007
Home Is Where Your Work Is
Talk to Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley about biking to work, and the avid cyclist is likely to give you a passionate answer. Talk to him about city employees working from home, and the answer is hardly enthusiastic.
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The Managing Technology Letter is edited by Governing's Mark Stencel. Got an idea? Contact us at techletter@ governing.com. |
Attitudes are a bigger obstacle than technology when it comes to allowing remote work. Doubts persist, especially in the public sector, despite evidence that telecommuting can be a great way to reduce pollution and traffic, decrease costs, increase productivity, boost job satisfaction and retain talent. When done right, that is.
Arizona has been doing telework right for a long time. A revamped Web site for the 14-year-old program, which is run by Arizona's Administration Department, is practically a how-to manual for state and local leaders who want to implement similar initiatives in their own jurisdictions. (Web site: Telework Arizona)
Working remotely has had strong backing from three consecutive gubernatorial administrations, with results to show for it. More than 19 percent of the state's 21,000 employees in Maricopa County are at least occasional telecommuters -- very close to the state's 20 percent goal. (PDF: Gov. Janet Napolitano's current executive order)
But the program is not open to everyone. As the Web site emphasizes, "Telework is a management option, not a universal employee benefit."
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Telework (Continued) Those employees whose answers suggest they might be good candidates can take the matter up with supervisors. Workers and managers both get training and make a formal Telework Agreement that spells out what is expected and how it will be measured. One key, the Web site says, is for supervisors to "shift the focus from how much work the employee looks like he or she is accomplishing to how much he actually is accomplishing." (No GPS-linked "employee detector" required.)
Arizona's process not only improves the chances that remote office arrangements will work out, but it also helps address some of the fairness questions that make some supervisors reluctant to offer such opportunities to some employees and not to others. To see how the state answers that and other concerns about working remotely, the Telework Program has assembled questions and answers for employees and for supervisors; a glossary; and a rundown of common myths. There also are worksheets for making a business case in your organization, advice for implementing telework policies and a comprehensive set of links to other government programs and resources. You also can talk to John Corbett, the administrator of Arizona's telework programs, directly at Governing's 2007 Managing Performance conference, where he will be speaking on issues related to managing a mobile workforce. The conference is in New York City in October. (Conference agenda) Working from home has been much on our minds lately at Governing, where a major office renovation has displaced much of the staff for the summer. After years of working in loud, bustling newsrooms, I'm still acclimating to my home office -- shaving and putting on work clothes to get in the right mind set before sitting down at my laptop and placing as many obstacles between me and the refrigerator as possible. Are you a teleworker? What works for you? What doesn't? Which technology tools have helped, and which have not? Send your ideas and advice to techletter@governing.com and I'll share them in a future newsletter. Connecting the Dots for Citizens The panel emphasized that the city's plans for building a WiFi network are only a starting point, and that a comprehensive strategy -- with a heavy emphasis on computer training and Internet literacy -- is needed for Chicago to become a center for "digital excellence." Another community that already has such a holistic plan in place is Miami, where Mayor Manuel A. Diaz told me he sees his city's digital inclusion efforts as a key "part of an overall strategy to address poverty." (Web site: Elevate Miami) Municipal officials who are interested in this subject should take a look at a recent Microsoft whitepaper that surveys some of the best thinking on the subject from experts around the country, including Miami tech chief Peter Korinis, Chicago CIO Hardik Bhatt and Wireless Philadelphia chief executive Greg Goldman, among others. It's a useful overview, especially for those who are just starting to grapple with concrete ways to address these challenges. Just how wide is the digital divide these days? New numbers on U.S. home broadband access from the Pew Internet and American Life Project show that gaps remain -- though the survey also found big increases in the past year among African Americans, in rural communities and among low-income households. (PDF: Pew Poll) Those changes help explain why "anchor tenant" governments may actually end up making more use of citywide broadband services than citizens, as Christopher Swope reported in Governing's May cover story on municipal WiFi. (Governing article: Working Without Wires) Finding One's Way in a GIS World The school's Master of Geographic Information Systems and Public Administration Program is an interdisciplinary combination of on-campus and online classes taught by faculty from three departments -- Geography and Geosciences, Political Science, and Information and Decision Sciences. Students also take three online courses in the University of Baltimore's Master of Public Administration Program. The program is designed for working professionals and can be completed in 13 to 25 months. (Salisbury program details) So where exactly is the Salisbury campus? Here's a map. Deals The Tucson, Ariz., Unified School District and the Russell County, Va., Public Schools have contracted with Tyler Technologies for the company's Education Management Solution, a suite of school-information applications. Harris Stratex Networks has completed the initial segment of a three-year, $42 million project to overhaul Kentucky's Emergency Warning System, involving deployment of an IP-based network based on the company's Truepoint digital microwave radio system. GIS Solutions will be the prime contractor, with team members Avineon, EMA, Electronic Knowledge Interchange and Scarfe Consulting, on a Chicago project to expand an ESRI geographic information system to include the city's entire water-distribution system. Claraview has been selected by the Kentucky Education Department to develop a data warehouse for the statewide longitudinal data system to help meet requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act. Georgia has implemented Oracle's PeopleSoft enterprise financial management and enterprise human capital management systems, upgrading from applications that it installed in 1999. Unisys has upgraded the e-commerce system it hosts for the Illinois Tollway, adding functionality that allows motorists who drive through an I-PASS lane without a transponder to pay the toll online and providing a violation-enforcement system. Under a three-year, $18 million contract with the Kentucky Retirement Systems, Bearingpoint will integrate its pension-administration system with imaging and workflow technologies from FileNet. The Texas Department of Information Resources has chosen Lockheed Martin as a prime contractor for the state's five-year, $400 million seat-management program, which includes hardware and software upgrades and help-desk, asset-management and security services. GeoAnalytics' Varion Systems division has been selected by Cape Girardeau, Mo., to implement Azteca Systems' Cityworks system to oversee the city's street, water, stormwater and sewer assets, tracking materials for service requests and work orders and scheduling preventive maintenance. The Texas Health and Human Services Commission has awarded Affiliated Computer Services a five-year, $19.6 million contract to provide call-center services to the state's electronic benefit transfer recipients. The Chicago Board of Education has awarded Maximus a two-year, $5.4 million contract to provide a Web-based special-education case-management system. Manatron will provide its property-tax technology, along with five years of annual software maintenance, to the Wyandotte County/Kansas City, Kan., unified revenue department under a $1.1 million contract. More Deals on Governing.com's technology page Interface ...
To qualify for Arizona's telework program, interested employees take an online Self Assessment Survey that asks probing questions about their jobs and work habits: "Will you remain focused on your work while at home, and not be distracted by television, housework or visiting neighbors? ... Will you miss the social interaction at the central office on your telework days? ..."
Chicago might not be leading the way on telework, but it has become a leader in promoting ways to extend access to the economic and educational opportunities of the Internet. For an upcoming article in the August issue of Governing, I've been looking over the recommendations from Mayor Daley's Advisory Council on Closing the Digital Divide. (PDF: Chicago Advisory Council Report)
The electronic maps generated by geographic information systems are vital tools for running government these days, whether you're monitoring pothole repairs, violent crime patterns or garbage pickups. Salisbury University on Maryland's Eastern Shore is offering a new degree program that aims to make the link between maps and management even stronger.
CivicPlus will design, develop and host the Web sites for the Madison County, Tenn., court system, Fruit Heights City, Utah, Pismo Beach, Calif., Dallas, Ore., Los Lunas, N.M., and Fairlawn, Ohio, and will provide the jurisdictions with its site content management system.
Have you made a deal? Tell us all about it. Contact the Managing Technology Letter at techletter@governing.com.