Rural Bridges

Telework Collaborative

WSU is a founding partner of the Telework Collaborative, a team of telework experts from the states of Arizona, California, Oregon, Texas and Washington. Established in 1993, the Telework Collaborative's mission is to accelerate the acceptance and adoption of telework programs in public and private organizations by better understanding and addressing the needs of employers, managers, supervisors, co-workers and the teleworkforce.

The five Telework Collaborative partners collectively represent over 60 years of leadership and experience in the telework field. Areas of focus include: primary and secondary research, training and workshops, program implementation, telework center operation, shared facility arrangements, tax incentives and development of the tools necessary to support adoption of telework such as video and workbook kits and employer case studies.

Although WSU has focused work primarily in the area of rural telework (recruiting information based jobs for rural areas) in the recent years, we remain an active member of the Collaborative and contribute to current projects.

Each Collaborative partner hosts a comprehensive webpage and provides technical assistance to urban employers interested in implementing a telework program. These websites can be access through the Telework Collaborative website.

Current Telework Collaborative Projects

Teleworker On-line Training Course

The Telework Collaborative is developing on-line, interactive training courses to offer distance learning for teleworkers and managers. The courses are designed to help reduce the number of potential problems and increasing the probability that telework will be a positive experience for teleworkers, their managers and their organizations. The teleworker training provides tips for setting up and working from a home office. The manager's course focuses on the techniques necessary to effectively manage staff who work remote from the main office. The Telework Collaboration partners will serve as on-line faculty and provide interactive instruction to students. Both courses provide the opportunity to ask questions and raise concerns, to understand the techniques that can make telework successful and to develop telework plans.

The training courses will be provided through Washington State University as certificate courses and are scheduled to be completed spring of 2004.