BCPA – April Meeting: Applying Telework for Fiscal and Operational Performance

How Does a Strategic Business Continuity / Disaster Recovery program benefit from a Strategic Telework Program?

Continuity planning is one of the fundamental keys to an organization’s Strategic Deployment Plans.  In order to remotely support a total facility disaster, every role must be identified and analyzed to determine how that role is fulfilled.  To ensure that all of these roles are sustained remotely, a significant staff deployment is required.  The level of continuity-assigned remote workers, defines the facility right-sizing process, the greater the number of staff deployed, the greater the demand for space is reduced.  This facility reduction requires a plan.  In addition, the products and services that employees would need to accomplish their COOP assignments modifies the configurations provided to other remote employees in the same occupation.  This also provides another set of training modules.  The Continuity Plan consists of different deployment levels based upon the levels and types of disaster deployment.

John Sanger’s career has evolved in response to his ever-increasing concern about the viability of “Community”; two principles have remained constant, his project outcomes must first of all be economically sustainable and secondly, the benefits must be applied to all stakeholders.

Before forming Tele-Commuter Resources (TCR) he supported city planning efforts and performed the largest EIS at the time for Cedar Riverside and Jonathon; the experience defined the benefits of strategic integration.  Developing several MIS projects defined the challenge of strategic vs. transactional system development.

In 1991, John convened a group of colleagues to determine how to best apply information age technology to address rural degeneration. They formed Tele-Commuter Resources in 1992 as a non-profit, dedicated to “Building Stronger Communities through Telecommuting”.  Over the years, reports to the legislature included a Checklist for Action that focused on 27 suggestions about how to prepare the state for the Information Age.  This led to passing two laws, one establishing the state’s telework program and the other applying strategic telework to the bonding process to “right-size” state office facilities.  TCR’s first 2 years conducted extensive research which concluded that corporate telework was the fundamental application to achieve TCR’s mission and that the dominant ad hoc approach was woefully inadequate to fulfill it. The magnitude of the telework potential was demonstrated by the 25 telework assessments TCR conducted; they found an average of 60% deplorability and that no organization knew how to achieve it.

In 2020, TCR received a patent for its Workforce Virtualization Program, an integrated software/consultant process that:

1. develops a deployment plan based upon business continuity, facility right-sizing and a comprehensive staff deployment process
2. supports the creation of the Regional Monitor which:

1. a)establishes the first national database for telework policy and best practice research, and
2. b)generates a data collection and analysis process to support community decision-making

1. provides for an urban partnership to support transportation and infrastructure forecasting, emergency management planning, and which offers a significant climate change impact, while laying the groundwork for
2. implementing the Smart Region Concept (patent pending) which rebalances the demographic profile in our rural communities, integrates the urban-rural economies, establishes the first state-wide comprehensive plan, establishes a powerful political role for “community”