In his nomination statement before the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, United States Senate, in March 2009, before his appointment as Director of the Office of Personnel Management was confirmed, John Berry stated that ‘we need to provide competitive pay and benefits, healthy model workplace environments, and sensitivity to employees’ responsibilities to family and loved ones’.
The following month, Berry issued a news release announcing an ambitious and comprehensive plan to significantly increase the number of American federal workers who work from home. At that time, just over 5% of America’s 1.9 million Federal employees were teleworking (103,000 employees).
The news release states that ‘ Increased adoption of telework in Federal offices across the country…would have tremendous economic and social value. These programs would enable the uninterrupted delivery of government services if employees were instructed to work from home due to natural disaster or conditions that threaten human health, including concerns related to the spread of influenza. To facilitate agency business during emergencies, managers have authority to implement new telework agreements to the fullest extent possible’.
This obviously allows for improved Continuity of Operations Planning (COOP) .
Less than a year later, Washington D.C. found itself under several feet of snow, nick-named ‘Snowmageddon’ by President Barack Obama, as the dreadful weather conditions all but shut down the city.
On Wednesday 10th February 2010, John Berry was interviewed on 1500 AM Federal News Radio. It was his birthday that day, and President Obama had called him that morning to wish him a ‘Happy Birthday’. The conversation between President Obama and John Berry then turned to the hot topic of teleworking, because despite the fact that the Federal Government had been closed for several days, both men were delighted that approximately 30% of federal workers were managing to do their work remotely, from home.
Berry says during this interview that both himself and President Obama have realised that the snowstorms created a ‘watershed moment for the importance of teleworking….it will grow from here’, and also that ‘Technology does work…it does advance, and the government have taken advantage of that and it can only get better. Technology allows us to be unchained from our desk, and unchained from the office setting, and still get the job done’.
To listen to the entire interview, go to:
http://ow.ly/165TK
