Technology

Telework lesson learned from Snowmageddon

Teleworkers worked hard during the snow storms. Many worked hard just to be able to telework.

Federal News Network Staff

February 22, 2010 1:34 am

< a min read

While the rest of the DC area is looking at how to have more employees telework after the Blizzard of 2010, Jack Belcher, chief information officer of Arlington County, Virginia, is thinking about his “lesson learned.”

“We need to make it simpler,” he tells Federal News Radio.

There was a lot of single, point-to-point. [Employees] would come in [virtually], take over their desktops …and have all of those services that they have at their desktops available to them at home. Until this time, I think there has always been the thought that, “well, how many people have that high speed, broadband access to make that happen?” In reality, a huge number did.

Belcher said his goal now is to push the technology side “to make it so simple that when people come on, they have a portal to come to and everything is there for them, and they don’t have to go through — ‘What’s my password? How do I get this file?’ We’ve got to have it simpler than it is today.”