BACKGROUND
The COVID-19 pandemic had a significant impact on day-to-day workplace operations at state departments of transportation (DOTs). Quarantine orders and requirements for physical distancing required shifts in business processes, including modifications of telework policies that allow more employees to work remotely and allow employees with existing telework agreements to increase their remote work. This helped maintain business continuity through the pandemic disruption and may prove to be an effective way to respond to future disruptions. In the wake of the COVID-19 experience, the increased use of flexible work arrangements is becoming a permanent feature of the future of work.
Flexible work arrangements allow employees to work all or part of the workweek remotely from alternative locations (e.g., home office, co-working space, or satellite office), and/or on an alternative schedule. While often viewed as a reward offered to strong performers, flexible work arrangements can be a strategy to improve the performance of employees who thrive on a schedule and situation different from the typical, 9-to-5 office setting.
As agency leadership, managers, and employees consider longer-term and wider adoption of flexible working environments, they must consider the benefits and risks for the agency as well as for individual employees and their supervisors.
OBJECTIVES
The objectives of this research were to (1) conduct a rapid review of the recent experience of state DOTs in increased use of flexible work environments; (2) synthesize the recent experience to identify successful practices and key considerations; and (3) develop a template for managers and employees to assess their suitability for a flexible work environment. The template is designed to inform decisions about remote work and modified work schedules for a wide range of state DOT job types. The information collected using the template can support the aggregation of assessments for reporting to agency leadership.
STATUS: Research is complete. The final report, template, and related resources are available at DOI: 10.17226/27167
