Washington, D.C., the city with the largest single concentration of State employees, is also saddled with the United States' second most congested highways. Some spend three to four hours a day commuting to and from work. Their commutes take a toll on the highways and the air quality. But they also take a toll on the commuters themselves in terms of their pocketbooks, their safety and, most significantly, their mental health. That's why the President's Management Council wants more federal employees to telecommute to work.
Telecommuting means working outside the traditional office.
Simply put, it's moving the work to the workers, instead of the workers to the work. The concept would have been unthinkable just 30 years ago. But the explosion in home computers and telecommunications technology means that many workers no longer have to be physically in their offices to do their jobs. Telecommuting has caught on like wildfire in the private sector, where some 9 million employees telecommute one or more days a week. But the federal government hasn't embraced it quite so readily and has fallen far short of the President's Management Council goal of boosting the number of federal telecommuters to 60,000 by September 1998.