The Human Services and Public Health Department (HSPHD) for Hennepin County, Minnesota, has allowed its employees to telework on a case-by-case basis for more than five years, but agency officials now believe that a more structured telework program is essential to realizing several high-priority operational and strategic goals.

These include several initiatives that are supported by telework, including: 1) an ongoing regionalization project, which will move 1,350 HSPHD staff from central downtown office sites to six community-based hub offices throughout the county; 2) a major "Going Green" initiative; 3) establishment of a Continuity of Operations (COOP) plan in the event of a pandemic flu or natural disaster; and 4) the County's desire to be perceived as an employer of choice.

"Before now, telework has been more of an exception than the rule," explains Kara Terry, HSPHD telework project manager. "Now we would like to shift and go the other way, where we're expecting teleworking from our employees as opposed to not teleworking."

Currently, approximately 300 - or 10 percent - of HSPHD employees are teleworking on a full-time, part-time, or occasional basis, but officials would like to increase that number to 50 percent by 2011.

Cathy Lindberg, a human services program manager for HSPHD, says that telework is particularly critical to its regionalization strategy, since the cost savings officials expect the work arrangement will help fund the project. "Our focus groups say that having more services based in the community is really important to our customers," she explains. "We need to have telework in order to make this feasible."

By transitioning 50 percent of the workforce to telework arrangements, the agency will be able to cut its amount of office space and related office expenditures. Employees, too, will save on time and commuting costs.

Despite previous success with telework arrangements, HSPHD officials say that moving to a structured program will not be easy. The agency currently is revamping its telework policy, procedures, and training to prepare for the major cultural shift that the new program will introduce into its daily work environment, which will change everything from how the agency manages and measures employee tasks to how clients are seen.

"We're actually struggling a bit with this, because it's so big," admits Terry, noting that the agency has been visiting the Federal telework.gov site for best practices and resources. "We actually are looking at taking a step back from where we are now to go back to the leadership and managers in the department to make sure that we have their complete buy-in, further educating them on what the project is, why we are doing it, and what's in it for them."

Separate training sessions are being planned for supervisors and employees, because their concerns and requirements differ from those of management, according to Terry. Employees, in fact, generally are an easier sell on the program, since many already have, or know someone who has, had a positive experience with telework.

"We've conducted several focus groups and found that employee satisfaction with teleworking was pretty high," Terry states. "They were pleased with the flexibility, the hours they could work, and the fact that they didn't have to drive downtown and pay for parking. They can be more productive because they don't have to deal with the typical office interruptions."

Lindberg says that though HSPHD officials have a major job ahead of them, they are committed to doing whatever it takes to enable the telework program to succeed. "We know it is good for the agency's mission and for our employees," she says. "It's just going to take a little bit of time to implement across the department."