Flexiplace allows employees to work from telecommuting sites between their home and office a couple of days a week, or more if involved in a special project. Others could work from home several days a week or full time. But despite all the talk and publicity, only a few thousand of the area's 340,000 feds are involved in regular flexiplace arrangements. Those numbers are expected to change fast, especially with Energy expanding its program. Energy Secretary Bill Richardson says he wants the department to exceed stated White House goals of dramatically expanding the flexiplace program in every agency.
Energy believes it already has the largest percentage of federal workers in flexiplace programs.
Under the White House plan, at least 15 percent of the government's 1.6 million nonpostal workers are supposed to be part of flexiplace programs by 2003. Energy, working with the National Treasury Employees Union, has been operating a pilot flexiplace program at headquarters downtown and in Germantown. The program will be expanded to department offices across the country and will encourage the department's thousands of contract employees to participate as well. A major goal of the program is to get employees off the highways or to shorten the amount of time they commute. Backers of flexiplace programs say that when properly managed, they boost morale, increase productivity and reduce the use of sick leave.