Industry embraces telework

Private-sector information technology employees were almost three times as likely as their counterparts in the government sector to telework exclusively or on a regular basis, according to a report released today by media and marketing firm FedScoop.

Only 23 percent of federal workers surveyed reported telecommuting exclusively or regularly, as opposed to 64 percent of those respondents in the private sector, according to FedScoop. The report also revealed that 27 percent of federal IT employees who responded to the survey said they weren’t allowed to telework, compared to 3 percent of industry-employee respondents.

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FedScoop polled 110 federal and 67 industry IT workers about their thoughts on telework using both online and paper questionnaires. FedScoop reported that 93 percent of all managers surveyed were satisfied with work done remotely. The report added that 93 percent of federal government sector employees said the opportunity to telework would make working for an organization more desirable; 95 percent of the feds surveyed have a generally favorable opinion of telework.

FedScoop said the results showed that agencies aren’t “capitalizing on telework opportunities to the same extent as private sector organizations, and perceived organizational values may be affected.”

The report was underwritten by Intel Corp. and Cisco Systems.