Goodbye pool parties, vacations, and dinners on the grill. Soon we'll feel the cold air sweep in and see the streets covered in leaves. Fear not though -- we did have one other holiday, but it was nothing to celebrate -- last week we had Terrible Traffic Tuesday. Research indicates that commuters had an extra 10-15 minutes added to their drives. So if you are in the D.C. area, that's on top of the average 34.5 minutes the Census estimates.
Before you hit your horn, let's think about what you can do to ease your terrible traffic woes - for you and your company. Telework can make it easy to turn those commuting hours into productivity hours, but exactly what kind of return on investment (RoI) can your agency or organization expect to see?
Mobile Work Exchange launched a new tool today to help organizations calculate RoI for the most commonly identified telework and mobility value factors: Commuting, environmental, continuity of operations (COOP), productivity, recruitment/retention, and real estate/utilities. Take that Terrible Traffic Tuesday (and Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday...)
Mobile Work Exchange developed model from Federal agency data as well as industry standards, such as the average cost per workstation for a Federal employee, to make its calculations.
Instead of hitting every red light on your way to the highway, start by entering how many employees your agency has, the number of employees that have signed telework agreements, and information about employees' telework frequency. You'll also need the number of days your agency was closed during the past year due to emergencies or inclement weather (if you don't know, we've got the average) and approximately how many employees have left the organization in the past year.
If you don't have the information, you can make an educated guess to calculate a reasonable estimate. The calculator can also estimate the RoI for a hypothetical scenario, if you choose to enter numbers for projected telework program growth, for example. Like taking a back road to avoid the rubber-necks, it doesn't have to be the exact route to see results.
As you avoid the fender bender to the left and the five-mile backup to the right, the results page reminds you of the many reasons to offer employees the option to telework. The results show the RoI for each value factor divided into weekly, monthly, and yearly totals. Telework program leads can leverage these results to demonstrate agency savings and make a solid case for telework and mobility.
Visit www.mobileworkexchange.com/measuingRoI to start calculating your organization's telework savings today. If you want to find out how much an individual can save on a commute by teleworking, visit our end-user telework calculator. Happy teleworking.
Cindy Auten is the General Manager of Mobile Work Exchange and dislikes traffic more than the people who leave shopping carts out in the parking lot.