Telework Savings Calculator™ – Research Approach

We have synthesized over 2,000 case studies, research papers, government reports, books, and anything we could put our eyeballs on that had to do with workplace flexibility, telecommuting and alternative workplace strategies such as office hoteling, desk sharing, compressed workweeks, time shifting, etc.

It’s important to note that we didn’t come at this with any particular bias. It was what we learned in the research process that turned us in to advocates.

We interviewed the nation’s largest and smallest virtual employers and their employees, the  advocates AND the naysayers, the top researchers, leaders of successful programs, and even venture capitalists who have invested in companies that use the remote work model.

One of the things we found missing in the research, was any real analysis of what companies, employees, and communities could save, in real dollars, through telecommuting and other strategies, so we  set out to fix that.

Using the latest Census data, and assumptions from dozens of government and private sector sources, we developed a model to quantify what telecommuting could do for the economy, the environment, and society in general. It’s been used by hundreds of company and community leaders throughout the U.S. and Canada and – because the numbers are so convincing – has been quoted in a wide variety of publications.

Telework Savings Calculator™: The Assumptions

As skeptics at heart and our approach has been to base our assumptions on highly credible research and to err on the side of being too conservative, rather than too aggressive. A list of the primary sources behind the assumptions in our Telework Savings Calculator™ and Workplace Savings Calculator™ is provided below.

A few are worth mentioning specifically because they tend to draw the most questions:

1)  Our standard telework model assumes half-time telecommuting – which is roughly the national average for those who do on a regular basis. While that obviously doesn’t have the impact of full time telework, it does mitigate some of the employer and employee concerns about issues such as company culture and employee loneliness.

2) Regarding who can work from home, we assume 40% of the population hold jobs that are compatible.

That’s based on a very thorough study done by Mathews & Williams, a couple of PhDs, who went through the Bureau of Labor (BLS) Statistics data and evaluated the jobs that met their criteria for telework compatibility. Only 4 categories of jobs made the cut: professional, technical support, administrative support and a fraction of sales jobs. Management level jobs, even within those categories, were not considered eligible.

Unfortunately, that study was done more than 5 years ago – ancient in terms of the current state of technology, so we revised Matthews & Williams assumptions to reflect the existing rate of participation among those categories that they excluded.

3) Recognizing that you can’t take you kids to school just on the days you head to the office, we relied on a synthesis of a number of respected studies by groups including the Reason Foundation, the Air Quality Board, and private company surveys to estimate how much driving is reduced on telework days.

4) Not everyone wants to, can, or should work from home. Our estimate for those who want to is based on a synthesis of studies by WorldatWork, the federal government, and private company surveys.

Primary Sources of Assumptions: U.S. Model

• American Community Survey / Census
• The Reason Foundation
• U.S. General Services Administration
• US Bureau of Transportation Statistics
• US Bureau of Labor Statistics
• U.S. Department of Energy
• US Federal Highway Administration
• US Environmental Protection Agency
• Colliers International
• Cushman & Wakefield
• WorldatWork.org
• Society for Human Resource Management

Primary Sources of Assumptions: UK Model

• UK Office of National Statistics
• UK National Travel Survey
• UK National Travel Survey
• You.gov
• The Work Foundation
• Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development
• HM Revenue and Customs
• Cushman & Wakefield
• Digest of UK Energy Statistics

Primary Sources of Assumptions: Canada Model

• Statistics Canada
• Conference Board of Canada
• Public Works and Government Services of Canada
• Transport Canada
• Environment Canada
• Canadian Automobile Association
• University of Oxford
• Cushman and Wakefield
• Colliers International
• WorldatWork.org
• Society for Human Resource Management

Telework and Workplace Savings Calculator™: The Variables

Over four dozen customizable variables allow us to build complex corporate and community models. You can view the customizable variables here.