What's your thoughts on military "telecommuting?"

Col Private RallyPoint Member — Tue, 17 Dec 2013 19:04:34 -0500

Alright folks, how many of our awesome RallyPointers out there have actually 'teleworked,' 'telecommuted,' or worked remotely; whatever we choose to call it, who out there has actually done it? So, what are your thoughts on the practice... are you for it, or against it, and why?  If you're experienced with the telecommuting... what are the pros and cons? ...and how might it be made better, more reasonable, or more efficient?  The goal here is to have an open and informative discussion, raise awareness, improve practices & performance, and hopefully learn a thing-or-two in the process... just one rule, as always: respect for all members, of all ranks, all branches, statuses, ages, etc. That said, this should be a great conversation; I really look forward to hearing your thoughts and lessons learned, now grab those keyboards, and... see you all in the discussion threads! 

Response by SGT Private RallyPoint Member made Dec 17 at 2013 7:08 PM

SGT Private RallyPoint Member — Tue, 17 Dec 2013 19:08:55 -0500

never heard of it. what in particular is it?

Response by Col Private RallyPoint Member made Dec 17 at 2013 7:23 PM

Col Private RallyPoint Member — Tue, 17 Dec 2013 19:23:04 -0500

SPC(P) Johnson, thanks for your question, you bring up an excellent point, a definition is very likely in order to begin the conversation. There are many definitions out there and policies (to include the USG), to get us started here's a universal definition (paraphrased from about.com):

Telecommuting is a work arrangement in which the employee works outside the office, often working from a home office or an approved telework location close to home. Rather than travelling to the office, the employer “travels” via telecommunication links (keeping in touch w/ coworkers and employers via telephone, email, conference calls and VTCs).

I hope this sheds a bit of light on the subject; IMAs have had a telecommuting option for years now, I've also worked at agencies w both military and federal gov't that have telecommuting agreements. Hoping to hear a variety of experiences here... thanks again SPC Johnson for your question!

Response by SSG Laureano Pabon made Dec 17 at 2013 8:00 PM

SSG Laureano Pabon — Tue, 17 Dec 2013 20:00:44 -0500

<p>I have I use remote access to my computer at work to check my emails and fix issues that I currently have going.</p><p>I get ras access from my home built laptop to log in to my computer by hostname and ID and password into my work computer.</p><p>At the same time I also have Office communicator that shows every one when I log in and I'm able to communicate with other clients in the bank.</p><p><br></p><p>My opinion I think its rather good, only  at home that can be a task to work specially for more than 5 mins </p><p>No one has any idea what is in a 4 years olds mind when dad is trying to work and the baby want all your attention. Much less the young lady who always wonder how it I'm in a computer 24 hours a day. </p>

Response by LtCol Dann Chesnut made Dec 18 at 2013 9:37 AM

LtCol Dann Chesnut — Wed, 18 Dec 2013 09:37:10 -0500

After retirement, I became a contractor. Many of my contracts involved working remotely or "telecommuting". Basically there are responsibilities, deadlines, meetings etc... I have found that I must have a specific location at home for me to do my work. Sometimes I have a company computer, and occasionally, I use my own. When using my own, I need to ensure that it is of sufficient capability to do what is required. Currently, I travel to my work location, and when necessary, I work from home. Sometimes I have had to be on a 3 a.m. conference call. And, I have discovered that I need to have my phone "hotspot" enabled. So, my experience is: Make sure that I meet my responsibilities, deadlines, and meetings.

Response by CMC Robert Young made Dec 18 at 2013 4:54 PM

CMC Robert Young — Wed, 18 Dec 2013 16:54:02 -0500

We use it regularly to mitigate travel expenses. It definitely allows for the quick and cheap distribution of information, and provides an opportunity for real time dialog over long distances. The downside is that it typically has to be a scheduled event with a maximum allotted time for collaboration. This stifles productive work sessions when the time runs out before the good ideas do. The second issue is that while it brings together people who might not otherwise meet, it takes much more effort to develop the solid inter-personal relationships which most often produce the best results. All in all despite its limitations, it's worth the investment in time & technology.

Response by SSG Matt Murphy made Dec 20 at 2013 4:13 AM

SSG Matt Murphy — Fri, 20 Dec 2013 04:13:44 -0500

Have done it for over 5 years now.....technology being what it is today makes it not only possible, but highly efficient and effective. I "sit" over the shoulder of those I help, seeing exactly what they see when they see it. It is far better than sitting next to them after a one hour drive or 10 hour flight. I "work" alongside people in Australia, Japan, Indonesia, Philippines, China, Korea, New Zeland, Taiwan, US, Brazil, South Africa, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Thailand, Viet Nam and countless others. In any given week, at least 5-6 countries.

Best: I go to the office once or twice a year.....just so they know I am still alive.

Response by SFC Rory Kempf made Dec 20 at 2013 4:45 AM

SFC Rory Kempf — Fri, 20 Dec 2013 04:45:23 -0500

Worked for so long commuting that now I own my own business so I don't have to.

I starts with bathroom, kitchen and office with coffee

Got to be a self starter for this to work.

By the way I am hiring

Response by TSgt Phillip L. made Dec 20 at 2013 5:27 AM

TSgt Phillip L. — Fri, 20 Dec 2013 05:27:41 -0500

My wife and I live in rural Alaska, on the Kenai River. We both telecommute. We previously lived in Oregon, where we had a business which primarily worked on Alaskan projects. I've had home office based business in addition to other jobs for the last 6 years. It's often a good way to get a startup off to a solid financial start by cutting or sharing overhead. I believe the success of telecommuting is dependent on several things but there are many benefits as well. The nature of your business has to be one which is conducive to telecommuting also. Here's a few things which help in a home office situation:

Your office needs to be set apart, it should be a place where you go to work. Clear it of distractions, and make sure that family understands that when you're in the office with the door closed....you aren't to be disturbed. I've found that clients and co-workers don't take you serious...and can even get resentful when they find out you are working from home. In our previous home we converted our back family room into an office space because it was a separate wing of the house. Everything in that space was work related. It helps you to get into "work" mode. We even took our son to daycare in the morning, and returned to the office.

Setting up office hours is helpful. Going to work....is helpful also. Get up, shower, make coffee, GET DRESSED, then walk to your office. It's about a mindset. Productivity is vital to telecommuting. You are going to be expected by your employer to be MORE productive working from home.

This go around...up in Alaska, my wife has sectioned off a portion of our master bedroom suite to be her office. She loves working with a panoramic view of the river. It's also insulated from the rest of the house, so it's quiet. We have a 2 year old son, we take turns being "on-call" or primary, for watching him while working.We're saving over $1K a month in daycare expenses. I love it. My office is downstairs, but still has a view of the river. We're 45 minutes from the closest small town. We generally go to town once a week. Amazon provides most of what we need, and our weekly town run supplies the rest. I make my own hours, and my vehicle fuel bill has gone from nearly $1K a month down to $150. While I get dressed daily, I don't have to wear slacks & a tie (though I actually miss that), my clothing and laundry bills have dropped drastically. It allows us to live in a larger place.

There is definitely a stigma that surrounds working from home though....its assumed by many that you sit around, sleeping until 10, wear pajamas, watch tv and screw around. When my wife first started...she did just that. I had to step in and instill some discipline, which shot her productivity through the roof. She likes the big paychecks, so she's much more self disciplined now.

Watercooler talk takes on a whole different dynamic...but my office partner still steals the last of the coffee and doesn't make a new pot. Office politics spill over into home....lol. At least I don't have to worry about a sex harassment charge from my office partner.

Response by Col Private RallyPoint Member made Dec 27 at 2013 10:15 PM

Col Private RallyPoint Member — Fri, 27 Dec 2013 22:15:16 -0500

<p>For information and general situational awareness, below are just a few links with government telecommuting-related information, first an article highlighting the top agencies for telework, along with the GSA page and federal government telework page with links to policy, guidance, etc. </p><div class="pta-link-card"><div class="pta-link-card-picture"><img src="http://i.huffpost.com/gen/374946/thumbs/s-GOVERNMENT-WORK-TELECOMMUTE-small.jpg"></div><div class="pta-link-card-content"><div class="pta-link-card-title"><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/12/government-agencies-telecommute_n_1007403.html" target="_blank">Top 13 Government Agencies For Telecommuting</a></div><div class="pta-link-card-description">The battle between the public and private sectors to attract top talent often boils down to workplace intangibles such as work/life balance. And few efforts to improve that balance have attracted more...</div></div><div style="clear: both;"></div><div class="pta-box-hide"><i class="icon-remove"></i></div></div><div class="pta-link-card"><div class="pta-link-card-picture"><img src="http://www.gsa.gov/resources/images/GSAlogo.gif"></div><div class="pta-link-card-content"><div class="pta-link-card-title"><a href="http://www.gsa.gov/portal/content/105192?utm_source=OCM" target="_blank">Telework</a></div><div class="pta-link-card-description">Telework encourages employee productivity and work/life balance, and it reduces green house gas emissions by cutting down on commuter traffic.</div></div><div style="clear: both;"></div><div class="pta-box-hide"><i class="icon-remove"></i></div></div><div class="pta-link-card"><div class="pta-link-card-picture"><img src="http://www.telework.gov/images/spotlights/spotlight_2.jpg"></div><div class="pta-link-card-content"><div class="pta-link-card-title"><a href="http://www.telework.gov/" target="_blank">Telework.Gov</a></div><div class="pta-link-card-description">Welcome to telework.gov</div></div><div style="clear: both;"></div><div class="pta-box-hide"><i class="icon-remove"></i></div></div>

Response by Maj Walter Kilar made Dec 28 at 2013 4:19 PM

Maj Walter Kilar — Sat, 28 Dec 2013 16:19:12 -0500

I wish DoD would use more telecommuting, not just for the civil servants, but also for the active duty members. 50% of my job could be done more effectively at home, with 40% of it being classified work that belongs in a secure area and 9% being face time with contractors wanting an official government decision and 1% being face time reading PowerPoints to the Colonels and Generals in order to elicit a decision. I would love to work from home just two days per week and focus office time on classified and story time for the Colonels.

Response by CW2 Private RallyPoint Member made Dec 28 at 2013 6:17 PM

CW2 Private RallyPoint Member — Sat, 28 Dec 2013 18:17:33 -0500

You almost have to here at Fort Bliss. Automation equipment is scarce and every minute detail about computer stuff is tasked to the garrison NEC and computer accounts take like a month to get. So when we first got back to complete all our tasks we had to send people home to work from there. My company was a ghost town.

Response by SPC Christopher Morehouse made Jan 6 at 2014 10:21 PM

SPC Christopher Morehouse — Mon, 06 Jan 2014 22:21:48 -0500

Isn't that what drone pilots do? Oh for the day an 11B can telecomute. I might reenlist from my xbox that day.

Response by PO1 William "Chip" Nagel made Apr 2 at 2014 4:04 AM

PO1 William "Chip" Nagel — Wed, 02 Apr 2014 04:04:41 -0400

If you can pull it off, why not. I don't think I will be seeing someone piloting a drone on an attack run from their home in the Near Future but that is almost within our grasp now.

Response by LT Jessica Kellogg made Apr 7 at 2014 7:19 PM

LT Jessica Kellogg — Mon, 07 Apr 2014 19:19:57 -0400

I wish I could. Even just for a half day, or one day a week.

My work computer is so slow, I could get so much more done from my personal computer than sitting there waiting for the computer to load.

Response by Lt Col Private RallyPoint Member made Apr 7 at 2014 9:33 PM

Lt Col Private RallyPoint Member — Mon, 07 Apr 2014 21:33:46 -0400

I consider myself pretty open-minded about many things, but I just cannot get my head around anyone in uniform telecommuting as a standard way of doing business.  Don't get me wrong, I believe telecommuting has practical applications, for example during bad weather, kid's are sick, you are out for extended periods of time for whatever reason, but that's about as far as my mind will allow this topic to go. If you physically do not have to be present and you can work alone via laptop and telephone, then you should either be a civilian government employee or high-end, lone-wolf spook.  Either way, you should be a General Schedule wage earner and not a "Sarge" or "Sir".   Maybe I'm old fashioned, by for my money, the U.S. Military is a team sport and this team wears uniforms and we all show-up for work.<br>

Response by PO1 William "Chip" Nagel made Apr 7 at 2014 9:39 PM

PO1 William "Chip" Nagel — Mon, 07 Apr 2014 21:39:15 -0400

I don't see it happening but if possiible, why not. I don't know what else you would call some of our current drone programs anyway. Flying them from CONUS with the help of satellites. I think in some respects we are already there. Still a little hard to envision controlling a large combatant ship remotely.

Response by SPC David Hannaman made May 16 at 2014 1:23 PM

SPC David Hannaman — Fri, 16 May 2014 13:23:03 -0400

I have telecommuted for the Healthcare industry for the last decade or so. So I speak from experience when I say that it is incredibly hard to build a team in a "virtual" environment.

I suppose for civilian contractors this wouldn't be a problem, but if there's any chance of people deploying together, they'd darn sure better learn to work together shoulder to shoulder in garrison, rather than trying to figure it out in a theater of war.

Response by CPT Marc Serrá made May 16 at 2014 9:56 PM

CPT Marc Serrá — Fri, 16 May 2014 21:56:21 -0400

I don't know about for a regular duty day, but I could easily see it for some of the downrange stuff.

2nd tour in OIF involved approximately 4-6 hours computer based work (reports and the like) in a mandatory 13 hour day. This job could have been done remotely from my home base (Germany) without worrying about all the extra expenses of sending a troop downrange.

Oh yeah, and I was only 1 of some 300+ working for MNC-I. I'm sure many of them needed to be on site, but my job duties certainly didn't demand it.

Bottom line...I think this could be a viable option in certain conditions.

Response by MAJ Bryan Zeski made May 17 at 2014 1:26 AM

MAJ Bryan Zeski — Sat, 17 May 2014 01:26:31 -0400

I telecommute almost every day! First I go do PT around 0600, then I go in to the office from 0800-1700 or 1800. Then the Army graciously lets me telecommute from the time I get home until I go to bed - checking the mail, putting out fires. I'm all for that kind of telecommuting! (Except not really because I sort of like my family too). =)

Response by LTC Private RallyPoint Member made May 17 at 2014 1:34 AM

LTC Private RallyPoint Member — Sat, 17 May 2014 01:34:26 -0400

I have a few times by design due to weather or having zero connectivity at work at my battalion job. My wireless is faster by far even through VPN than at the battalion headquarters. However, I do not enjoy it as I feel out of place not being at my desk with the setup, phone, and files right there next to the scanner. I have my own scanner at home, but it is a pain as I have to scan into my personal computer and then email to myself in order for me to have that file on my work computer.

I also have "telecommuted" just because I am a DTS reviewer/approver for my battalion. In addition if I am on pass, leave, etc. I periodically check my email and DTS to ensure that nothing extremely important was emailed to me with no follow-through or last minute DTS. It is sad, but true that many people just send out emails with no follow-through and only send it to one person. Even after receiving an out of office expect the task to be completed within two hours.

During my stint at a brigade headquarters I did a lot of after hours work via my black berry. I had that everywhere on leave or not just in case units sent SIRs directly to me and not our EOC email address. I did not like doing emails through black berry as it is less professional looking but the CG understood that after hours SIRs come through and the need to push the information up and out is more important than formatting. In addition we made calls to ensure that we fully supported the units that needed assistance.

In all matters though I prefer to be in the office over telecommuting.

Response by MAJ Private RallyPoint Member made May 17 at 2014 4:25 AM

MAJ Private RallyPoint Member — Sat, 17 May 2014 04:25:39 -0400

I could do 99% of my job from home. I drive to work to mainly answer emails.

Response by LT Jessica Kellogg made May 17 at 2014 7:58 AM

LT Jessica Kellogg — Sat, 17 May 2014 07:58:57 -0400

Sometimes I'll try to do a half day in the office and half day teleworking.

My computer/internet is so much faster at home, that if I'm doing something that doesn't require access to NMCI it's more efficient to work from home.

Response by SFC Private RallyPoint Member made May 17 at 2014 11:27 AM

SFC Private RallyPoint Member — Sat, 17 May 2014 11:27:43 -0400

I regularly telecommute and also telecommute during snow days. In today's world of business technology, it's hard to imagine a professional who couldn't accomplish their job remotely.

Response by SFC Private RallyPoint Member made May 17 at 2014 12:05 PM

SFC Private RallyPoint Member — Sat, 17 May 2014 12:05:32 -0400

I can do about 85% of my job from my couch on my laptop.

Response by PO1 Greg Mitchell made May 23 at 2014 11:41 AM

PO1 Greg Mitchell — Fri, 23 May 2014 11:41:06 -0400

The vast majority of government work is done on secured networks and it would be a logistical nightmare to "telecommute" since every connection and home computer must pass the DoD STIG's, this would mean you can't install any program that is not DoD authorized - Ever! Then there are encryption standdards and the overhead of having that many VPN connections, if something happens to your connection or computer that would mean an IT or Computer Tech would have to drive to your house to fix the issue.

Take the Navy for instance - they just upgraded to Windows 7, that would mean your Windows 8 computer is not authorized on DoN networks.

I don't ever see this as being a possibility...sorry.

Response by PO1 Greg Mitchell made May 23 at 2014 10:01 PM

PO1 Greg Mitchell — Fri, 23 May 2014 22:01:29 -0400

Thank you all for your responses. I guess my concerns come from my 20 years if infosec and being a security engineer. Regardless if it is happening now or not, everyone knows that 1) sensitive information can be sent over unsecured media. 2) even the most secure network outside of the NSA net are in one way or another open to penetration from enemy states. It is just a huge risk to put this stuff out there when there is no need for it. Get up, go to work, salute the flag, make life long friends and go home.

Response by LTC Private RallyPoint Member made May 24 at 2014 6:39 AM

LTC Private RallyPoint Member — Sat, 24 May 2014 06:39:06 -0400

I had to telecommute a few times because the traffic was so bad that by the time I got to work it would have been time to go. So why waste time and fuel sitting in traffic when I can work from home and just save the SIPR work for the next day. But I don't see the Army doing this regularly, only for special circumstances.

Response by SSG Richard Stevens made May 24 at 2014 11:24 AM

SSG Richard Stevens — Sat, 24 May 2014 11:24:46 -0400

I am not surprised

Response by Cpl Private RallyPoint Member made Jun 16 at 2014 1:30 PM

Cpl Private RallyPoint Member — Mon, 16 Jun 2014 13:30:14 -0400

If your civilian job requires mostly organization and communication through email or phone, tele-commuting not only makes better use of your time, but saves the environment (less commuters on the road) and less overhead for a corporation.

However, I feel that anyone in a managerial position should be in the arena with their subordinates, else how are you able to manage them. I cold "trust" my employees, however, without direct interaction how am I to counsel them or review them. In the military I believe this is especially important for anyone in a command position. Therefore, I do not believe anyone in the military should tele-commute. As stated previously the military is about team as well and it is very difficult to build teamwork and Espirit de Corps, while not engaging actively, face to face with the team.

Response by Col Private RallyPoint Member made Jul 28 at 2014 10:53 PM

Col Private RallyPoint Member — Mon, 28 Jul 2014 22:53:16 -0400

All, FYI/SA the official request to telecommute/telework for the Department of Defense (DoD) is DD Form 2946, DoD Telework Agreement, December 2011. If you haven't viewed this it is worth taking a look as this will very likely become a much more common part of our working environment in the future. I'll continue to post more information on the subject as it becomes available. Wishing you all the best! V/r B