Description:
In 1999, PWGSC Ontario Region began planning a major co-location venture, designed to reduce local facility requirements and centralize departments at 4900 Yonge Street, Toronto. There was a compelling case to include telework as a key component of the Project, as it would solve three problems.

1. Act as a retention tool for co-locating staff facing long commutes into the central location.
2. Ease overall space deficits as virtual staff could share work stations- reducing needs for 1:1 ratio space.
3. Control costs. The budget for swing space was estimated at $837,500. By substituting Temporary Telework for market rate swing space, costs to house staff during construction would be reduced to $72,751, or less than 1/10th the cost.

Pre-construction, PWGSC and TCI deployed almost 100 staff and managers to home and satellite offices.

To capture of proof-of-concept, both onsite and teleworker populations were tracked before, during and after deployment. The captured data was compared to the TCI normative data base. On all Key Measures the program was judged to meet or exceed comparative data norms.

Selected Key Findings

Benefits of Telework

Cost Saving:

1. Total Estimated Swing Space Costs $1,200K
2. Estimated Swing Space Avoidance $ 837K
3. Cost TTW $ 285K
4. Retained Investment $ 212K
5. Net Cost TTW $ 73K
6. Gross Savings $ 764K

A number of important professional and personal benefits were more pronounced in practice than expectation.

Effects on Work
Incidence of known work-related complaints decreased between Pre and Post deployment.
Teleworker job satisfaction increased over pre-deployment levels and proved higher than levels among staff who remained onsite.

Effects on Space Sharing
100% of teleworking staff agreed to share or give up Head Office space to qualify for telework.

Effects on Family
100% of telecommuters claimed Families adapted well to telework

Effects on (Reduced) Absenteeism
75% used Telework at least once during deployment, to help out on family need/sick days, to avoid absenteeism. 51% used it in the last month they telecommuted to avoid 2.1 absent days per capita.

Effects on Commute Patterns
Average daily commute time per Teleworker = 1 hour 44 minutes.
Average daily distance commuted per Teleworker = 52 kilometers

Effects on Commute Avoidance
In the last month teleworked, drivers avoided:
A total of 427.2 hours in commute = 12.2 hours per capita = almost 2 x 7 hour work day.

Environmental Considerations
Each Teleworker saved 1,361 kilograms of carbon dioxide and 756.4 litres of gasoline per year.

Background
Industry Canada has two Toronto facilities. In addition, the Ministry maintains three, small, shared satellite office sites, in the outlying cities of Burlington, Aurora and Pickering.

30 Industry Canada staff use these satellite offices as a primary or alternate work location, attending the Toronto offices only as required. The intent was to retain qualified staff while better serving clients.

PWGSC Ottawa funded a TCI research project to assess the value of these satellite office sites based on the following data-set objectives.

1. Capture commute time, method, distance, patterns, vehicle size, types
2. Establish a map of emission patterns, energy consumption, avoidance or savings
3. Measure staff retention, recruitment, determine effects on job satisfaction, performance and work-life balance

Selected Key Findings

Satellite offices significantly reduce staff commute times.
Satellite worker travel patterns fall well below the range of a typical Toronto area commute.
The commute time avoided per employee is the equivalent of 1 to 1 ½ x 40 hour work weeks per month, or between 12 and 20 x 40 hour work weeks each year.

Satellite office staff tend to use transit.
66% revert to transit for trips to Toronto Head Office.

Use of transit versus a vehicle, for trips to regional, is influenced by:
Cost, Reimbursement Policy, Access to Crown Vehicles, Location, Function, Status, Gender

Satellite staff do not encumber duplicate space at Regional offices.

Satellite staff maintain high levels of Client service.

Team cohesion does not deteriorate.

Retention stabilizes and recruitment improves.
There has been little staff turn-over. New staff have been hired.

Work-Life balance is enhanced
75% of respondents say that they would consider changing jobs, if they were unable to continue to work from a satellite site.

In 2005, TCI will deliver virtual workplace information and implementation expertise, as part of Transportation Demand Management (TDM) strategies to reduce congestion and tail pipe emissions in Canadian OTC communities.

The Ministry maintains a number of shared satellite office sites, in outlying Ontario cities. Members of the Industry Canada staff use these satellite offices as their primary or alternate work location, attending the main offices only as required. The intent of this Alternative Work Strategy was to retain qualified staff, to better serve clients in the respective areas, and to enable staff to avoid long, daily commute times, into the main offices. The research project was developed to deliver the following core objectives:

1. Capture commute time, method, distance, patterns, vehicle types
2. Establish information to allow capture of emission and energy consumption, avoidance or savings.
3. Determine contribution to human resource issues like staff retention, job satisfaction, work-life balance
4. Assess effects on job performance, cost-benefit analysis.

Post – merger, TCI acted as Program Coordinator, working with HR and Facilities to combine the policies of the CQ-HP Virtual Office Programs.

In 1999, PWGSC- Ontario region began planning a major co-location venture, designed to reduce local facility requirements and centralize departments. The undertaking would involve renovations, upgrades to base building systems, as well as present an opportunity for revitalization of the workspace.

As a swing space cost avoidance strategy, Temporary Telework was a key component of the Project. Essentially, all full-time staff and or managers who had appropriate functions and reasonable tenure would be eligible to adopt telework as a temporary work option during the necessary construction period.

The core objectives supporting the use of a Temporary Telework strategy were:

• To find effective, alternative workspaces for staff on renovation targeted floors, while minimizing project exposure to the costs of local market rent costs for nearby swing space.
• Redirect the cost savings from swing space avoidance to equipment upgrades for staff, enabling a migration from desktop to laptop technology.
• Shorten the start to completion dates of the construction, by shutting down target floors during renovation, and reducing need to stockpile materials.
• Reduce disruption and stress among staff, and prevent exposure, especially for sensitive staff, to noise, dust and gas-off typical during construction.

Laptop technology is expanding rapidly and now outpaces desktop sales. Toshiba wanted to examine how virtual teams and telework will affect development and sales.

TCI and strategic alliance partner CSA Climate Change collaborated to develop the first Canadian Telework Registry and TCI lent its assistance to PWGSC and CSA in the development of the new Canadian emission tracking tool, teleTRAC.

TCI was retained to develop the first and most comprehensive “Manager’s Guide to Telework and the Virtual Workplace´. This unique, fast-paced interactive, electronic Guide includes the tools and resources that a manager needs to investigate the potential for application of remote work. It offers guidance as well as live support to those branches that want to move toward commute reducing telework with dispatch, and as a logical response to Kyoto, Federal House in Order and Business as Usual reduction targets.

Pre – merger, TCI acted as Program Coordinator, working with HR and Facilities to combine the policies of the CQ-HP Virtual Office Programs.

In 1999, TCI was retained by Compaq Canada to re-develop the digital Equipment Telework Program, (TCI – 1994). The Compaq Canada Virtual Office Program was developed to offer a common, cost-controlled standard for “virtual work” within the three merged cultures of Compaq, Digital and Tandem.

Virtual Office Program Track
In March 2002, Compaq Canada decided to test the Virtual Office Program, for proof-of-concept. Specifically, the objectives of the review were to:

1. Capture the experiences of end- users as well as non-users of the Program
2. Investigate the effects of the Program
3. Determine where the Program needs to be ratified and or improved

Based on the approval of the Ontario Region Co-location project, Telecommuting Consultants was retained to determine the potential for telework within the staff population. Projections would form the basis of cost analysis for swing space, and stack & block requirements in final space. A collection tool was developed, which included built-in filters, designed to capture which staff could effectively work from home, versus those who would “like” to. The filters allowed identification of those staff able to meet the three following policy conditions for the adoption of Temporary Telework.

1. Operational feasibility: part-time, administrative and support staff were not eligible.
2. Willingness to personally absorb the slight, extra costs associated with working from a home office. (Hydro, heating and or premise insurance costs.)
3. Willingness to relinquish personal space at the 4900 Yonge facility, in favor of a home office, for the duration of construction.

The survey identified 80 staff and managers, who met criteria, and were hence eligible for Home Office, or Satellite Office deployment. They would be deployed pre-construction, giving them time to acclimatize to the new work environment, so they would be prepared for full-shut down, when they would be expected to telework most of the days of the week.

TCI was Retained to develop and deliver Directors-Managers’ Education Training Module on how to actively incorporate integration of Virtual Work into Federal Government Departments. Objective – to create a mechanism that allowed for intelligent, barrier free discussion of virtual officing and to provide three pronged support in the form of tools, community of practice and consulting expertise to ensure adoption and maintenance of virtual work.

TCI was retained to track the efficacy of the Canada-wide sales force-based telework program.

Program Upgrade – Remote Skills training
On the basis of the track outcome, TCI was retained to develop and deliver Remote Work Skill Sets Training to managers and teleworkers across Canada.

In March 2002, Compaq Canada decided to test the Virtual Office Program, for proof-of-concept. Specifically, the objectives of the review were to:

1. Capture the experiences of end- users as well as non-users of the Program
2. Investigate the effects of the Program
3. Determine where the Program needs to be ratified and or improved

Policy, market development research and position paper, assessment of bylaws restricting use.

In 2001, the Ottawa Technology Branch - Architectural & Engineering Services of PWGSC approached the Ontario Telework Project Team and offered to co-invest in a comprehensive tracking of the Telework portion of the Project. Specifically, the intend of such a track, was to assess the effectiveness of the Temporary Telework strategy, as well as to capture the demographics, work and commute patterns, output, equipment use and expectations of staff and managers at three points in the telework deployment process.

Phase 1> BEFORE the deployment of staff and managers to Temporary Telework.

Phase 2> DURING the time staff are Temporary Teleworking from home or satellite offices.

Phase 3> AFTER the construction is complete and Temporary Telework staff and managers have returned to 4900 Yonge.

Co-Ax cable competes with HSC. Rogers wanted to know how the growth of the Remote Worker would affect cable demand and expansion.

Orient, Train and Deploy Staff to Home & Satellite Telework

Julian Sales of Dupont headed up one of the first telework programs in Canada. In exchange for data, Dupont encouraged remote and teleworking staff to participate in a Canadian Telework Study.