Background
Telework has been practiced throughout the United States and the world based upon the “ad Hoc” approach. It has enjoyed the unique support of the government. This model focuses on training volunteer employees to prove the concept within an organization. The method generally results in random individuals working random schedules from random locations throughout the organization. Typically there is not a long term plan, a set of numeric goals or even a comprehensive analysis of the employer’s workforce or facility reduction potential. For years, the telework community has been talking about Telework’s role in addressing continuity issues but whenever it snows in Washington, many of the 800 numbers go offline.
In contrast, the Strategic Telework approach was designed to address all of the shortcomings of the ad hoc program as originally conceived in the 1970’s. The Workforce Virtualization Program comprehensively evaluates all occupations; its Success Predictor profiles the opportunities and the concerns about a full deployment program. Most notably it incorporates:
- Facility Right-Sizing Program
- Accountability and Managerial Oversight Program
This session will consist of a Q & A style comparison of the existing and virtual approach to continuity.
- Profiling various approaches to Continuity
- Reviewing current costs of existing Continuity Programs
- Testing regime and Response/Recovery expectations
- Identifying the “triggers” and access to hazards (regional risks)
- Understanding where the ‘industry’ is relative to a Virtual Continuity Program
- Describing a Virtual Continuity Structure and Process
About the Presenter:
John Sanger Bio
An architect by training, a planner by vocation, and a community entrepreneur by default, John has adopted a Smart Region vision based upon a year-long Community Dialogue Process that asked individuals from across the state, “What does your community need to do to thrive in the Information Age?” Their answer became the foundation for his work plan over the last 25 years. Results of his research and development now define his SmartRegions.US concept.
It is increasingly clear that anything physically accessible will be available electronically. Thus, organizations of all types will live and die by how they integrate a virtual work model. John’s book, “Slaying the Status Quo” defines a vision and implementation process for this to happen using a mutually supportive, integrated effort that effectively unifies the community, public and private sectors across a region.
Because the future of productivity depends on the many applications of telecommuting to sustain an ever-growing global society, John challenges policy makers who dismiss the impacts of e-Shopping (Amazon), e-Meetings (optimally used in news broadcasts) e-Learning now forecast to dominate half of the higher ed marketplace “in just a few years” . He believes that the comprehensive deployment of virtual applications enables a freedom of residential choice beginning with employers implementing virtual work systems. By reducing facility costs and increasing continuity effectiveness, they satisfy needs of their workforce while also concurrently reducing congestion, addressing climate change all at a net reduction in costs.
John’s plan sets realizable expectations that help to revitalize a dying rural America by broadening the scope of today’s smart cities methods into a more integrated form of smart region. His community typology defines six types of community; three urban and three rural, each of which play vital roles in supporting improved economics and cultural diversity created by a defining broader multi-state regional plan.
