Telework Now Offered By 88 Percent of Organizations

The latest casualty for telework occurred earlier in October 2013, when tech giant Hewlett Packard followed companies like Yahoo! and Best Buy in a decision to scale back its telework program. While efforts by these companies have certainly been high profile, a new study suggests that that these companies are in the minority.

A report released by WorldatWork, in conjunction with National Flex Day and National Work and Family Month, found that telework in some form is currently offered by 88 percent of organizations. Only 3 percent of companies -- including Yahoo! and HP -- have actually canceled telework programs over the past two years, the analysis found. There are differences in the ways organizations and employees use telework, however. Telework on an ad-hoc basis, for example, was the most common (83 percent), while telework on a full-time basis was only offered by 34 percent of organizations. Just more than half of organizations offer the flexible work option on a regular monthly (56 percent) or weekly (52 percent) basis. Most organizations also continue to believe telework and flexible work options like flex time and part-time schedules are yielding positive results, particularly in areas like employee satisfaction (73 percent), employee motivation (65 percent) and employee engagement (64 percent).