Page 121 - Managing the Mobile Workforce

100 � mAnAgIng the moBIle workForCe

piloting, . . . get to the point that people in the pilot say that they love
it and the rest of the organization says, ‘We want it. When can we
get it?’ That is one of the best ways to overcome resistance—to turn a
bunch of pilot testers into evangelists.”
OPM’s vision is that “The Federal Government will Become
America’s Model Employer for the 21st Century.” Moving to a Results-
Only Work Environment (ROWE) , which we discuss in Chapter 6,
6
is one way to give workers options. In a ROWE environment “people
can do whatever they want, whenever they want, as long as the work
gets done.” It’s a mobile workforce strategy: employees can work at
home, on the road, or in the office—wherever they choose to do so.
That sounds pretty radical for government work, doesn’t it? Berry has
set up a ROWE demonstration project in one of the federal agencies.
If it is successful, it will open up opportunities elsewhere. Pilots—
experiments, really—are a low-risk way to move an organization
forward. According to Berry:

If we achieve half the productivity increases that the private sector has
done with this—which is upwards of 40 to 50 percent—the taxpay-
ers are going to be impressed. As long as we are putting solid results on
the board, taxpayers will support it. We’ll be the first ones in the federal
government to do this. I think this is the future, and it is all connected
together. If we do this well, then flex-schedule, telework, women in the
workplace, mothers in the workplace . . . all of these things start to dy-
namically change, and we end up with a creative workplace that is fo-
cused on delivering solid results that the taxpayers demand.

Fifth, Berry has put resources and focus into achieving the goal of
increasing telework by 50 percent in just a couple of years. One of the
strategic “wolf packs” he created upon assuming office is “work–life
balance,” which is intended to create “more flexible, responsive work
environments supportive of commitments to community, home, and
loved ones.” The telework initiative is a part of this overall effort. Re-
viewing this Web site shows OPM’s commitment goes beyond stra-
tegic advantage—it extends to nurturing the people who spend their