The word “telework” has been all the buzz around Kitsap lately, thanks in large to a pilot project spearheaded by the Kitsap Regional Coordinating Council and funded by the state Legislature. The results of the pilot, including a “telework kit” were in draft report stage in July — but your business doesn’t need to wait for official conclusions to consider telecommuting.

“It’s a different way of doing business and a little scary at first, but if you have good communication between the manager and the employee, and good accountability, it works great,” says Kellie Le Texier, senior vice president of Human Resources at Kitsap Credit Union, which has offered telecommuting options for a couple of years and also participated in the Kitsap Telework Project.

Sound Credit Union currently has four employees telecommuting, including a part-timer working remotely the entire time. Le Texier says each case is considered individually, since not every position is suitable for it, and there are policies and procedures in place. “We really want to maintain the ability to be flexible… You have to be sure there is a balance between what the employee needs and what the employer may like.”

This flexibility is one of the biggest advantages of telecommuting, says Ed Stern, a key player in the Kitsap pilot. Stern, Poulsbo city councilman, has been advocating for this type of opportunity locally for many years. Aside from the obvious environmental benefits like pollution and congestion reduction, telework has economic paybacks from overhead cost savings like parking and office space. But the less tangible benefits are just as important, Stern says — morale boosting, job satisfaction increase as well improved productivity, among other things.

The project has proposed various options for remote work, from home office to coffee shops and telecenters, but working from home is “the real key,” Stern believes. “The home office is the critical link, because without it, you still have commuting,” he says.

A survey of the Kitsap pilot study participants showed that the majority of telecommuters consider time savings from lack of commuting the most important benefit, and the majority felt that getting more work done from home was also very important. Many reported higher productivity due to fewer interruptions — though, ironically, many co-workers perceived their teleworking counterparts as being “on vacation” or not doing anything because they weren’t present at the office.

Although the Kitsap survey doesn’t necessarily represent the experience of all local teleworkers, let alone those on the global scale, it does give an idea of some of the hurdles for the concept. It’s what Stern sums up as “self-preservation”: Companies, and especially managers, are resistant to the idea because it’s difficult to manage someone you can’t see.

“You can always look at someone sitting at their desk and feel confident they’re working,” says John Clauson, service development director at Kitsap Transit. “This way (telecommuting), you have to call them at home and talk to them.”

Kitsap Transit has several employees telecommuting as part of its Commute Trip Reduction state mandate. Clauson, who is among the supervisors of remote employees, says it does take a different management approach. “It took a little bit of getting used to but it works out quite well,” he says. “It’s a little bit of a cultural shift for managers and supervisors.”

Clauson says it didn’t take a large investment to set up the telecommuters, who were able to use surplus laptops if they chose so. He himself has worked from home occasionally if a special project required undivided attention, and he says there are some issues for staff who work from home, but nothing that can’t be overcome.

“It’s tough to quantify the benefits but employees seem to be happier, plus there is reduced demand on parking,” he says. “The employee morale seems to be higher.”

Those comments reflect the recently concluded Kitsap survey. Telecommuters answered every week how satisfied (or not) they were at that particular point, and of the 480 total responses, 78 percent came as “very satisfied” and 21 percent as “mostly satisfied,” with about one percent being either neutral or not responding, and no negatives.

“It gives employees flexibility, but it also gives them a sense of responsibility,” says Art Castle, executive vice president of Kitsap Home Builders Association, whose staff telecommuted during the project. Castle, who didn’t participate in this case, has also worked from home or on the road for several years occasionally, and says the quality of work is as good or better than getting done at the office. But for his organization, the arrangement is somewhat difficult, because of the heavy public contact and meetings. “All our products can be done in a teleworking environment except one — interaction with people,” he says. “We think it’s a real benefit for the association and the employees.”

Castle says he had to think about the workday a little differently, since he couldn’t just walk over to a telecommuter’s desk to ask questions. They also had to work around scheduling issues with meetings. He educated himself about how to manage workers remotely. “I had to make a slight change in habits,” he says. “It’s different to manage, and sometimes the fear (of implementation) is based on that difference.”

Statewide, businesses and organizations in a variety of industries have given this thought the thumbs-up. Washington State University Extension, along with Washington State Department of Transportation, have been integral participants in the Kitsap Telework Project along with KRCC. WSU Extension, which has been a local leader and nationally recognized for promoting telecommuting, stated in a funding proposal for another project recently that the state is well-positioned in the “new economy” with its high number of knowledge-based jobs, and the numbers of teleworkers have been growing: Between 1993 (when the commute-trip reduction law was passed) and 2005, the number of employees choosing the option grew five times. The largest number of telecommuters, not surprisingly, is in the IT sector — 15 percent — according to those stats. But other industries with high numbers are less obvious: education, public utilities and manufacturing.

If the Kitsap Telework feedback is any indication, it will be a while before telecommuting enters the mainstream. As one participant wrote in the survey, “It’s truly a win-win program, just need to get over the hump of people being stuck in the old paradigm.” Another wrote that the board of directors didn’t approve participation because “they couldn’t see the benefit.”

But some local businesses are already realizing the benefits, tangible or not. Kitsap Credit Union’s Le Texier says telework can be a great retention tool. In the credit union’s case, one employee was actually able to continue her employment — remotely — after having to move out of state temporarily due to her husband’s work. “In today’s economy, this could be a good value-added benefit,” Le Texier says. “The business world is not 8 to 5 anymore.”

For more information about the Kitsap Telework Project, see www.teleworktoolkit.com. The complete report on the outcome is expected to be released soon.