New report details federal best practices in telework

What: "Measuring Telework and Mobility Return on Investment: A Snapshot of Agency Best Practices," a report developed by the Mobile Work Exchange in conjunction with the Office of Personnel Management. It was released with the exchange's Telework Return on Investment Calculator.

Why: The report comes on the heels of OPM's annual telework report to Congress, which states that telework will be increasingly important to federal agencies in the coming years. About 300,000 feds teleworked in fiscal 2012, a 24 percent jump from 2011.

The report and the calculator are designed to support agencies' telework mission success. The report shares the best ways for measuring the success of telework efforts, as outlined by telework managing officers across government. It offers measurement guidelines, describes tools and resources available to agencies, and provides formulas for calculating returns on telework investments through in-depth looks at commuting costs, transit subsidies, environmental impacts, continuity of operations, employee productivity, real estate savings, utility costs, and employee recruitment and retention.

Verbatim: "Conducting a comprehensive [return on investment] study requires setting the stage (e.g., defining telework roles, frequency, and outcome goals), determining the appropriate value factors to measure, calculating cost factors, identifying valid methods for measuring the value factors, obtaining and using a reliable telework tracking system, and controlling for other variables."

Full report: MobileWorkExchange.com