Business benefits:
• Enhanced job performance; effective work tool.
• Increased retention of key staff.
• Fits organizational ethic to promote health and environmental stewardship.

Statistics:
• 15-20% of staff telework at least once a month.

"Telework has been of tremendous benefit to the FHCRC.... We have been able to maintain research and operational issues smoothly because of employees’ access to telework."
–Leland Hartwell, Ph.D., President & Director

Mission possible
The internationally acclaimed Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center has a crystal clear mission—to fight cancer. The gravity of its mission helps staff from the top down set priorities and keep a laser focus on decisions that support its ultimate goal. While work options are a valuable employee benefit, they primarily address business needs at Fred Hutch. The option of working at home is used both formally and informally to help staff work more effectively and has been instrumental in retaining key staff. Each department or study has the flexibility to provide support for telework based on the needs of the group. Additionally, telework closely fits Fred Hutch's organizational ethic to promote health and environmental responsibility.

Work at home increases
The 2,800-employee research center houses hundreds of principal investigators and scientific teams. The center’s management is focused on tasks accomplished and results obtained rather than hours worked. Because of that focus, management's goal is to create an environment that is the most conducive to scientific research while attracting and retaining qualified and talented staff. These goals have been key drivers in Fred Hutch’s telework program. Vice President of Human Resources Han Nachtrieb estimates that the percentage of staff that work from home one day a month or more has increased from 10-15% in 2000 to 15-20% in 2005. He attributes this change to a higher level of comfort with telework-enabling technologies and a greater need for flexibility. “While it is somewhat informal, we have a very solid telework support system here,” Nachtrieb says.

Telework, a customized solution to varied needs
Fred Hutch has several scientific divisions, each with a distinct work culture. Public Health Sciences (PHS) is the prevention arm of the center. PHS gathers data from community clinics, prepares statistical models and educates the public. Its reliance on statisticians, computer programmers and staff with highly specialized knowledge, plus an abundance of tasks that emphasize heads-down analytical thinking and computing time result in the highest level of staff working from home among the divisions.

Each PHS work unit determines its need for telework based on the autonomy of the task and the staff involved. Besides serving as a productivity tool, telework has retained a number of Fred Hutch staff that otherwise would have left for other opportunities, to avoid a lengthy commute, resolve work/life issues, or would not have been recruited in the first place. “I am so pleased with the Hutch’s VPN (virtual private network) setup,” says Reginald Clift, who joined the center in 1967 and retired 10 years ago. “I still work a few hours each month for the Hutch maintaining a couple of databases on site and some subset databases at home using connections to the server in the Clinical Division. Even though I still have an office that I usually visit once a week, if it wasn’t for the VPN that I began using 4-5 years ago, I probably would not be doing this work at all.”

Karen Syrjala is an Associate Member and Director of Biobehavioral Sciences, having been at Fred Hutch for 20 years. She does research, sees patients, and lectures at the University of Washington. Karen supervises one teleworker and averages one day of telework per week herself, adapting her schedule to projects and work needs, especially writing, lecture preparation and data analysis. “Telework is the same as being in the office, but without the interruptions and traffic,” she says. Karen still has access to her peers and files and finds the VPN makes her remote connection transparent.

Telework for doctors and scientists
24/7 computer access for its highly paid scientists and knowledge workers is a valuable asset to Fred Hutch. While laboratory experiments and bedside visits cannot be conducted from home, grant applications and report writing can be accomplished less stressfully and more effectively on a telework day. Mohamed Sorror, a post-doctoral fellow at Fred Hutch, has worked at the center since August 2002 on stem cell transplant research. Since January 2005, he has been on clinical rotation at the UW Medical Center and works weekends via VPN. Eliminating trips into the Center has greatly simplified his schedule and provides him with much more efficient use of his time.

Project Manager Michele Wurl of the Clinical and Human Immunogenetics Programs has been with Fred Hutch for nearly ten years and supports 6-7 clinical research doctors. Her work includes budget review and editing a soon-to-be-published book. Since June 2004, she has been job-sharing (working half time) completely from home, only going into the office every 3 to 6 months. She says the hardest thing about telework has been getting doctors to change old habits and remember to email or call her. Michele finds telework particularly compatible with her book editing duties. Many of the contributors are overseas so there are no face-to-face visits to coordinate and she is able to focus on the material at hand without the normal interruptions of an office. Working remotely requires that she plan out the work more thoroughly than if she was in the office. She takes almost no sick time, gets to spend more time with her child, and still provides Fred Hutch with 20 hours of valuable work every week.

Planning for success
A formal program framework helps managers who want to implement telework by giving them examples of how other groups have successfully implemented their programs. At Fred Hutch, telework needs are addressed on an individual or work group basis. Supervisors are provided with a set of telework instructions, training materials and a cost worksheet that help them decide when and how employees should work at home. The instructions and training materials also provide baseline continuity for the resulting customized arrangement. A telework plan is filled out jointly with the teleworker to determine what hardware, software and support is needed; what costs, if any, the division will cover; and an appropriate communications plan. Managers also get help setting up terminal server access for teleworkers from the IT department.

Included in the requirements for telework is the supervisor's willingness to invest the necessary time to help the telework arrangement succeed. The instructions also include a notice that the Center owns all copyrights and has an interest in all inventions and discoveries that result from work performed by employees of the Center, irrespective of whether the inventions were made using Center facilities, supplies or equipment. “By having a formal telework program, managers who have a staff person requesting to telework can easily see that it works for other groups,” says Employee Transportation Coordinator Shelly DaRonche. “In fact, the results from our most recent CTR survey show telework use is up 1% among all employees and during the survey week, 114 Fred Hutch employees teleworked for a combined total of 323 telework days among them.”

Long-distance employee
Kris Nelson is a Systems Analyst/Programmer and Technical Lead for the Arnold Digital Library and Internet Services. A Fred Hutch employee for the past 5 years, Kris moved to New Orleans in July 2004 so that his wife could attend law school. His managers at Fred Hutch valued his contribution to the organization and found what might seem to be an insurmountable geographic obstacle worth overcoming. Kris has continued his participation on the library team, content production team, technical team, and also maintains the Fred Hutch website. He has only been back to Seattle two times since moving, once for a planning project and once in conjunction with a family holiday visit.

Kris says that in his view, successful “extreme” telework is contingent upon the kind of work the employee does and is ideal for projects similar in nature that can be bundled together. He finds that supervising remotely can be challenging at times and that employees who report to a remote supervisor must work well independently. The technology Kris uses to stay connected includes a VPN, 24/7 DSL, VOIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol), a cell phone and pager. He is even available on-call, though this is rarely exercised.

The flexible organization
“Flexible” is a word often linked with work options that describes the benefit to employees and increased employee satisfaction. Telework, however, also provides an incredible amount of flexibility for a large organization such as Fred Hutch to address work needs and respond to employee retention issues. “Telework has been of tremendous benefit to the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center,” says President and Director Leland Hartwell, Ph.D. “It ensures uninterrupted communication when staff members not only choose to work from home, but also for those who have extensive travel or when illness or injury require staying at home. We have been able to maintain research and operational issues smoothly because of employees’ access to telework.”

Revised July 2005 by Commuter Challenge. Original version © 2000 Washington State University Cooperative Extension Energy Program. This publication contains material written and produced for public distribution. You may reprint this written material, provided you do not use it to endorse a commercial product. Please reference by title and credit Washington State University Cooperative Extension Energy Program and Commuter Challenge.

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