Telework Archives

The General Services Administration has contracted with AT&T to develop and manage telepresence centers at 11 federal buildings across the country, enabling agencies to hold virtual meetings.

The centers, scheduled to be operational early next year, are designed to help agencies cut down on travel costs by facilitating face to face meetings online. They will be built at each of GSA's 11 regional headquarters offices, which are located in Boston, New York City, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Chicago, Kansas City, Fort Worth, Denver, San Francisco, Seattle, and Washington, D.C. Four other Washington-area buildings also will get centers.

AT&T will develop and oversee the network of centers via an $18 million task order under GSA's Networx contract.

Here's the full announcement from GSA:

Oct. 25, 2010

GSA Moves to Establish Telepresence Centers for Government Use

Virtual meetings help federal agencies meet sustainability and cost-cutting goals.

WASHINGTON - In a significant step toward reducing greenhouse gas emissions and saving federal travel dollars, the U.S. General Services Administration announced today it will establish virtual meeting centers at federal buildings across the United States. When operational in early 2011, the centers will be available for use by all federal agencies at a fixed hourly rate, making it easy for federal employees to conduct important face-to-face meetings without the need to travel. The centers will also be made available to stateside military families so that they can meet virtually with service members overseas.

"As the federal government's workplace solutions expert, GSA is exploring new ways to create a more efficient, cost-effective, and sustainable government for the American people," said GSA Administrator Martha N. Johnson. "This includes incorporating innovative and collaborative technologies like virtual meeting centers to create seamless connections around the world. Availability of virtual meeting technology will help launch our government to the next level of productivity."

The centers will be built at each of GSA's 11 regional headquarters offices in federal buildings in Boston, New York City, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Chicago, Kansas City, Fort Worth, Denver, San Francisco, Seattle, and Washington, D.C., as well as four headquarters locations in the metropolitan Washington, D.C., area. The centers will be specially constructed and equipped to provide live, face-to-face, immersive meeting experiences to all participants across the network. Each room will contain high-definition video and advanced audio equipment, as well as state of the art collaboration tools to enhance the immersive experience and facilitate participant productivity. The network will allow any subscribing agency to meet with counterparts in any of these cities as well as with counterparts in other telepresence-type networks nationally and internationally.

AT&T will develop and manage the virtual network through an estimated $18 million task order under GSA's Networx Enterprise contract. The contractor's infrastructure costs will be rolled into a set hourly rate that is then purchased by GSA and customer agencies in a "pay as you go" model, avoiding the need for individual agency start up costs. Once the network is operational, agencies will be able to order and schedule virtual meeting sessions through a secure web-based portal as well as through a valet that will be available around the clock.

Federal employees may want to telework, but only a small number have access to the resources and support necessary to do so, according to a new survey.

A June 15 survey from Fedscoop, a government news aggregation site, revealed that the federal government lags behind the private sector in terms of telework opportunities. The survey was underwritten by Intel Corp. and Cisco Systems.

Of the 110 federal and 67 private sector IT executives surveyed, only 23 percent of those in government reported teleworking regularly or exclusively, compared to 64 percent in the private sector.

Few federal workers said they had been given the green light to telework. Even though 95 percent of federal employees surveyed held favorable views of the practice, 27 percent said they had not been permitted to work remotely, compared to just three percent of private sector employees. Almost a quarter of employees surveyed had never talked to their managers about telework.

The survey also found that for 22 percent of federal employees, their organizations did not supply them with sufficient technology to telework, while only 6 percent of those in the private sector had the same complaint.

The findings follow the Senate's passage last month of the 2010 Telework Enhancement Act, which would require all agencies to establish telework policies in consultation with the Office of Personnel Management.

The Office of Personnel Management conducted a survey of federal workers on telework habits and has begun to munch the numbers. While the survey findings haven't been released, Justin Johnson, deputy chief of staff at OPM, gave a sneak peek at some of the results during a panel discussion on telework on Thursday.

For the first time, Johnson said OPM asked federal employees directly about their telework experiences, unlike past annual reports that asked top-level agency managers to report telework statistics. What OPM found was that 10 percent of employees said they telework at least one day a week. That translates to 200,000 feds. That's "good news," Johnson said, because it means more federal workers are teleworking than OPM previously thought.

The 200,000 number compares with the 65,000 workers OPM said in 2009 teleworked once a week, according to a past survey in which OPM only asked managers to report telework numbers in their agencies. "There's a broad gap between what's happening and what's being reported," Johnson said during a panel discussion about telework at the Gov 2.0 Expo in Washington.

Johnson also said OPM found that 48 percent of employees don't telework because either their job duties require them to be in an office (say, a security guard) or they simply prefer not to telework. "So, 48 percent take themselves right off the table" to be considered for telework, he said.

Another 31 percent of employees said they would like to telework but are not allowed to do so because they do not have the technology (7 percent) or their managers do not allow it (23 percent). "That's a lot of room of growth," Johnson said.