New group to promote telework

Congressional pressure has done little to spur agency managers to boost the number of employees who telework, according to a new study released this month by CDW Government Inc.The Vernon Hills, Ill., company followed up a telework study in January by surveying 287 federal workers. It found only a 1 percent increase among employees teleworking at least one day a week.CDW-G wanted to evaluate the impact of a provision in the fiscal 2005 Commerce, Justice and State departments’ appropriations bill to fine agencies $5 million for not complying with a federal mandate to give 100 percent of all eligible employees the option to telework. The survey took place three months after passage of the bill.The company’s survey coincided with federal and industry officials’ announcement of the Telework Exchange, a new program to promote tele- working.The exchange of- fers tools to illustrate the benefits for federal employees of teleworking. For instance, the exchange’s Web site has a calculator into which a worker can enter car type, total commuting miles, pay scale and number of commuting days per week. The calculator, at , will estimate how much the worker would save each year by telecommuting, how much pollution the car produces annually and the percentage of income spent on commuting.