The AT&T Employee Telework Initiative provides information and support to all staff and management, corporate-wide, who would like to telework either part-time or full-time. Since 1992, AT&T has succeeded in developing not only a formal policy and telework program for its employees, but also a telework internet portal that acts as a model and guide for other companies interested in telework. AT&T believes that its telework initiative can be replicated by practically any company.BackgroundNote: To minimize site maintenance costs, all case studies on this site are written in the past tense, even if they are ongoing as is the case with this particular program.Created in 1992, the AT&T Employee Telework Initiative followed closely on the heels of the implementation of the Clean Air Act in the United States. Although AT&T had conducted a few telework pilot projects during the late 1980s, it was really the Clean Air Act which helped to legitimize the concept of telework.Telework is an umbrella term for a wide range of alternative workplace arrangements includingtelecommuting, virtual/mobile offices, hoteling, satellite offices and telework centres.The corporate culture of AT&T was considered a good fit with telework. As a telephone company, many employees were used to working over the phone long before 1992, and with the arrival of personal computers, it became that much easier to work with colleagues in other locations, both near and far. Through the leading efforts of a champion from its Public Relations department, AT&T developed a cross-functional team which then designed and implemented the formal telework program and policies.Setting ObjectivesTo increase, year over year, the total number of AT&T staff and management who telework.Compliance with the U.S. Clean Air Act (implemented in 1992.)It was also hoped that the telework initiative could:Help employees balance their work and family life; andProvide low-risk solutions for employers that would be appreciated by the employees.Getting InformedBeginning in 1994, AT&T conducted annual statistically valid random telephone telework participant surveys.Delivering the ProgramAT&T's Employee Telework Initiative was a corporate-wide program, managed cross-functionally, and intended for all staff and management to participate in. Although Human Resources "owned" the formal telework policy, Property Management oversaw the day-to-day operation of the telework program, while Security, Procurement, Environment, Health & Safety, and Information Technology Services played large, supporting roles.AT&T took a relatively "grassroots" approach to its telework initiative in that it actively encouraged its employees to contact their local managers and ask whether or not they could try teleworking. Although there was obviously substantial "top-down" support for telework as well, AT&T recognized that for telework to be a successful business model, the employees had to feel that they were an important part of the success of the initiative. In other words, the employees had to feel a sense of "ownership" over the program.At AT&T, no single manager or department ran the telework initiative; it was very much a networking" effort. Different departments operated different aspects of the program. For example, before an employee could begin teleworking, he or she would have had to have contacted:Procurement (for perhaps home office supplies or a computer);Security (to ensure that AT&T privacy