What problem does it solve? It will address absenteeism, employee morale, and will help improve work quality and customer service. What is your solution and who does it apply to? Allow employees the option to work from home, one rotating day weekly. This will apply to all employees whose job duties can be partially and/or fully facilitated at an alternate location. In my department, most duties are already done electronically; I am no longer required to interface with clients directly as certain services are already implemented by contracted agencies, and remote supervision has been in place for years. We provide our guidance and support via telephone and email. What is the anticipated impact? Working from home can serve as a stress reducer for overwhelmed employees; some people can be more productive in an environment controlled by them. Having the flexibility to create a working space that fits my everyday needs would certainly give me the ability to block out any factors that may interfere with job performance or inhibit my ability to concentrate. Employees that are focused and well-relaxed ultimately may become better employees by producing high quality work and render efficient and superior customer service. Employees, if stressed or under the weather may be less apt to use vacation or sick time knowing they have an option to perform work duties at home at their own pace. The state of NJ can directly reduce the amount of money spent on maintaining office space, equipment, and eliminate funding for parking; if the state fronts the cost for employees to park their cars, there could be significant savings there as well.
The State is behind on this topic, most of my neighbors work from home primarily and go to a physical office 1-3 times per week.
There are many possibilities
Challenges could be when there is not enough of cars readily available for field staff. Inexperience staff not feeling comfortable to work independently, maybe stipulate years of experience needed to work from home. This manner still saves overhead space (appear to be lack of at this time), utilities, parking fees for state cars and staff parking and high pay for Specialized Unit.
DCF staff gets paid time in half for after hours and holidays. Eliminating SPRU and staggering work shifts similar to SCR would save lots of money. Staff is supplied with Venues/tablets which allows documentation to be completed anywhere as long as internet connection is available. Most of the work is field work. Staff can be assigned cars/car pool, staff can respond from intakes being routed from SCR/SUP to staff. Incentives could be for third shift and/ or major holidays (time in half ).
This should happen! But, we need the infrastructure in place. Remote working requires deliverable based accountability & digitization. Digital data / real time analysis are KEY to work culture change. We first need a rapidly deployable digitization strategy at least effective cost. Post #283 achieves that, check it out, which can make modernization of working culture feasible and actuate cost savings of remote working without sacrificing productivity & service delivery timeframes.
Most general business can be done from home, ncfs, macse, njstart, email, etc mix in a move to paperless/digital you can reduce traffic, office space requirements, cost to maintain state facilities, energy bills, etc. Laptops equipped with webcams, a state email/messaging system and we would be golden.
Managers looking to create a flexible work culture should avoid a one-size-fits-all approach; dictating exactly how these policies may be used can make them less effective. Talk with your team about your expectations, so there are no surprises later on. For example, if you set a policy that employees may arrive late or leave early when they need to, do you want them to give you advance notice? Of course, trust is going to be a big factor. you should trust them to get the work done.
Field work is ok. But work from home for State government employee not possible until we go totally paperless and ready to work with face time and allow State OIT to take over (Control) your home computer.
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