Of course,
this is the ideal:
With gas prices so high, Ferrum College is allowing some employees to telecommute one day a week.
...[Natalie] Faunce [Director of Public Relations for Ferrum] said it was easy for Ferrum to switch to the telecommute plan because the college is on a flex work schedule for employees.
In a flex schedule, employees adjust their arrival and departure time to suit their individual needs rather than working a traditional 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. day, or a 5-day week.
There is an extent to which our congestion and consumption rates are driven by adherence to an outmoded idea of a work schedule, where "being in the office" is equivalent to "getting work done." For a number of employees and jobs, technology has made the need for an office almost obsolete, and with advances in speed and image quality of teleconferencing software, even important meetings can be held without getting in the car.
Virginia's Telework!VA program is, in the targeted areas of Northern Virginia, Hampton Roads, and Richmond, trying to help employers implement telework programs not only by subsidizing equipment, but also training managers how to manage teleworkers. It is this last part that I think scares many traditional supervisors, but I don't think it should. Training teleworkers tends to create measures that focus much more on outcomes than on work hours; this can both invigorate employees who thrive in outcome-based work, as well as identify low-producing workers who have gotten by on face-time alone. It's certainly not perfect - there is a lot to be said for the ideas generated in a vital, social workplace - but there is no reason that the traditional 9-5 can't be modified, as it has to great success in Ferrum.