Telework can work for you, too

An even larger contingent of managers falls somewhere in the middle, recognizing that telework can improve employee retention and work-life balance, but remaining concerned about employees working away from the office.

Recent studies have shown that resistance from management is one of the major barriers to telework adoption, and as a manager I understand those hesitations.

But the weight of evidence shows that telework is a cost-efficient business strategy with real bottom-line benefits.

Ultimately UPS decided that the only way to find out whether telework could deliver on those promises was by putting this strategy to the test. So last year, our company worked with the Clean Air Campaign, a Georgia nonprofit, to establish a pilot telework program at our Atlanta headquarters.

In considering telework at UPS, our goal was to adapt to the realities of a changing work force while better serving our employees, our customers and our community.

This meant balancing both flexibility and efficiency — and rethinking the concept of “work” more as something that gets done versus a place our employees go.

After the launch of our pilot program, the results spoke for themselves:

Productivity when working from home jumped by 17 percent, and 86 percent of UPS teleworkers agreed that job satisfaction improved when reporting to work without leaving home.

Thanks to the work-life balance benefits of working from home, UPS also found that our teleworkers save an average 87 minutes a day by eliminating their commute, and they use that time to get more work done, spend time with family and exercise.

But UPS quickly realized that the positive impact of a telework program is not only good for our employees and good for business; it’s good for Georgia, too.

A delivery company may not immediately come to mind when talking about employees working from home offices, but after UPS established goals for its delivery drivers to reduce emissions by eliminating truck idling and increasing fuel efficiency, we knew our office-based workers could make a positive environmental impact as well.

And they did.

By eliminating their commutes just a few times a month, the UPS teleworkers involved in the initial pilot program kept more than 46 tons of pollution out of the air we breathe over the course of a year.

Not to mention the more than 93,000 vehicle miles eliminated from metro Atlanta’s roads, reducing congestion — the void that costs employers in the Atlanta region nearly $3 billion annually in lost productivity.

With a recent survey showing that one-quarter of commuters in metro Atlanta do not telework, but believe that their job responsibilities would allow it, these programs can play an important role in relieving the strain on our region’s transportation resources and improving air quality.

So let UPS help answer the question of what telework can do for you. Telework can create happier employees, more efficient operations, a healthier environment and a better community.

But telework can’t deliver if employers don’t get behind it. With the availability of free telework consulting services from the Clean Air Campaign and $2.5 million in tax credits from the state, there’s never been a better time to ask, “What can telework do for me?”

Catherine Salvadore is a human resources manager at UPS corporate headquarters in Atlanta.