Telework centers offer free month to federal workers

The temptation for federal workers who have not yet tried telework to do that just got more appealing.

Fourteen Washington-area telework centers are offering a free one-month trial membership to federal workers who have not previously signed up. The telework centers are located in Maryland, Virginia and West Virginia and are furnished with computers, high-speed Internet access, phone service, printers, faxes, copiers, conference rooms and break areas.

About 450 workers currently use the centers - 80 percent of whom are federal employees - and there is room for another 450 people.

The one-month free offer is exclusively for federal workers; contractors and state government workers are not eligible. The offer expires Sept. 30.

The telework centers are funded and sponsored by the General Service Administration. After a free trial is completed, the worker's agency would have to reimburse GSA if the worker continued to use the center.

Jennifer Thomas Alcott, program director of the Fredericksburg Regional and Woodbridge Telework Centers, said the promotion was part of an effort to encourage federal managers to allow their workers to telework at a center with no financial obligation.

"Once they see how productive their employees are, we are hoping they allow this on an ongoing basis," Alcott said.

The centers charge agencies based on the number of days in the work week the employee schedules to work at the center. The average cost is $150 per day, but the price varies depending on the location of the center.

Recent studies have shown that federal workers are interested in telework, but less than half of the federal workforce has been given the option to work away from the office.

Members of Congress and labor unions are strong supporters of programs that allow employees to telecommute, and the fiscal 2005 appropriations bill imposes a $5 million fine for agencies that do not make telework available to eligible workers.