Category: Telework

Holland America Line Westours Inc.,
Seattle

• CEO*: A. Kirk Lanterman, Chairman and CEO
• PM: Wendy Miles, Project Manager
• ETC: Missy Peterson, Human Resources Administrator

Teleworking increases employee productivity

In 1994, Holland America Line Westours Inc. encouraged five reservations agents to begin working from home. The decision was made to comply with the Washington Commute Trip Reduction Law and to test if teleworking could increase employee productivity. After one year, data confirmed productivity was higher for the teleworkers than those working from the office, and the program was expanded to 10 agents. Two years after the project start, statistics showed that nine teleworkers could do the work of 10 in-office reservations agents. Chairman and CEO Kirk Lanterman took notice and enthusiastically gave the okay to make telework a standard work option.

Accepting a Diamond Award for Holland America's telework program are Human Resources Administrator Missy Peterson, Project Manager Wendy Miles, and Vice President of Human Resources Jerry Whitmore.

Holland America also learned retention of trained employees is another benefit of teleworking. The average length of employment for a reservations agent is just six months. But telework is becoming a huge benefit in high-burnout travel industry jobs where it is expensive to lose agents so quickly after investing the cost of interviewing potential employees and training.

Program continues to grow to help alleviate space crunch

Holland America is growing, and the reservations center already is close to full capacity. By involving more people in the telework program, the need for additional office space will be avoided.

Currently there are 26 full-time teleworkers, 20 employees who telework 1-2 days per week, and others who telework occasionally. By the end of 1999, Holland America plans to have 55 full-time teleworkers. While most of them are reservations agents, the sales and information systems departments also are testing the idea.

Another problem Holland America is dealing with is limited employee parking. The company has 215 parking spaces, none of them subsidized, scattered among five off-site lots. Employees desiring one of the spaces are put on a waiting list for an average of six months. While teleworking helps alleviate the problem, Holland America decided to promote carpools and vanpools as another way to ease the parking shortage. Carpools and vanpools that carry only Holland America employees, are moved to the top of the waiting list and receive a $25 per month discount on parking, as long as there are three or more co-workers in the vehicle.

*Some definitions: An “ETC” is the staff-level employee transportation coordinator responsible for the daily administration of the transportation program; “PM” is the transportation program manager; and “CEO” refers to the top management-level person at the worksite. “SOV” stands for single-occupant vehicle, and “CTR” for commute trip reduction.