March 21, 2014— Mobile Work Exchange (formerly Telework Exchange), a public-private partnership focused on demonstrating the value of mobility and telework, recently launched its Telework Return on Investment (ROI) Toolkit to help federal agencies meet the challenge of accurately measuring the success of their telework programs, and to serve as a model for agencies in different stages of telework implementation.
The Toolkit is comprised of a snapshot of federal agencies’ telework ROI best practices to date that was composed in partnership with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management’s (OPM) Human Resources Solutions (HRS), as well as the Telework ROI Calculator.
Mobile Work Exchange worked with OPM and key government telework stakeholders to develop the tools in response to The Telework Enhancement Act of 2010. The Toolkit comes on the heels of OPM’s 2013 Status of Federal Telework Report to Congress, which reveals significant gains in eligibility, agreements, and teleworking.
The Telework ROI Calculator enables agencies to estimate ROI for the most commonly identified telework and mobility value factors: transit subsidies, environmental, continuity of operations (COOP), productivity, employee retention, and real estate/utilities. To use the calculator, agency telework leads can enter basic information about their employees, agency telework agreements and telework frequency, office closures due to emergencies or inclement weather, employee turnover, and transit subsidy figures.
The calculator draws from industry standard information, such as the average cost per workstation for a federal employee, to calculate agency savings for each value factor. Agencies can use the complimentary calculator to estimate ROI for actual scenarios or use it as a tool for outlining hypothetical scenarios.
The associated best practice snapshot report sets the stage for measuring ROI by defining telework roles, frequency, and goal setting. It establishes guidelines for what to measure and how to measure telework ROI, as well as outlines agency tools, resources, and best practices for measuring ROI for the most commonly identified telework and mobility value factors. Mobile Work Exchange and OPM leveraged agency telework managing officers to capture agency best practices for measuring ROI.
“To present a strong business case for telework and mobility, agencies need to identify specific, measurable value and cost factors to demonstrate how these programs either reduce current costs or avoid future costs,” said Cindy Auten, general manager, Mobile Work Exchange. “The ROI Toolkit not only provides concrete examples of agency best practices based on specific successes, but it also provides a way for agencies to easily estimate hard numbers for actual and hypothetical scenarios.”
To download the telework ROI analysis and access the ROI calculator, visit the Telework Return on Investment (RoI) Toolkit Web page on the Mobile Work Exchange site.
