John Halamka, the vegan-rock-climbing smart-beyond-words if-it-makes-sense-I'll-try-it CIO at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (and Harvard Medical School to be precise) has a great report on his telecommuting initiatives. It's so good that I'm stealing most of it. Execs, telecommute up! Saves carbon, money, time, and releases the emission most treasured by those in charge, productivity. And, friends, John's up for "The 2008 Medical Weblog Awards Sponsored by Epocrates: Best Medical Technologies/Informatics Weblog Category" - I just voted for him. You can too (hint):
Some staff members are working from home on a full-time basis and others are doing so only one or two days a week. We have about 10-15% of the IT workforce (35 of our 350 staff) who work at home on any given day.
What is the impact? 35 people x 260 workdays = 9,100 days per year saved in commuting. That's 9,100 car-days off the road. This reduces the demand for parking, office space, and most importantly the employee stress/strain of fighting traffic.
From a management perspective, the past year has been very successful. Employee turnover is at 2%, employee satisfaction is high, and productivity has improved. Employees spend 2-3 hours a day working instead of preparing for their workday, commuting, and returning home.
Costs of the technology to empower home workers has been low - a partial subsidy of home internet connections, a fixed amount of prepaid cell phone time added to employee paychecks, and the use of the Juniper SSLVPN for secure remote access/desktop sharing.
