Jahi Chikwendiu/WASHINGTON POST - Danette Campbell is a finalist for the The Samuel J. Heyman Service to America Medals (Sammies), which pays tribute to the federal workforce of the United States by highlighting those who have made contributions to this country.
All teleworkers sign a contract setting out the ground rules for working independently. In addition to having few or no distractions, and being more productive, telework eliminates the daily commute.
Campbell teleworks one day a week from her century-old home in La Plata.
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“I’d rather not think about” a commute, she said, adding, “Working from home enables me to get online earlier and work later.”
The boost in efficiency also has a “small, but nonetheless positive effect” on reducing the office’s most stubborn problem, a backlog of 620,000 patent applications.
Telework is not for everyone. It can be isolating. Work and home life don’t always mix. But the Patent and Trademark Office is seeing its benefits: Faster work, better recruitment, savings in office space costs. And, advocates claim, better air quality with fewer cars on the road.
Elaine Ryan recalls Campbell’s first step into the new office culture in the late 1990s, running a federal telework program administered by the College of Southern Maryland.
“She’s shy and retiring,” Ryan, now provost of the college’s Graduate School USA, joked about Campbell.
Her former colleague, Ryan knows, is anything but. She’s a lively persuader.
“The idea is, ‘I’m not watching you right now, but you have a product you have to generate,’ ” Campbell said in her Alexandria office, where a malfunctioning webcam that loops teleworkers across the country into meetings was getting repaired. On her bookshelf sit titles such as “Managing the Telecommuting Employee” and “Managing the Mobile Workforce.”
The patent program started in 1997 as a pilot for 18 examining trademark attorneys around the country. Back then, telework was a scary word. But after a while, managers in Alexandria saw something astounding: The attorneys worked more. They were happier.
At the time, Campbell was in Southern Maryland, working with local officials and the General Services Administration on a novel effort to allow federal workers from the area to avoid commuting. They worked out of rented space near home — but not at home.
By today’s standards, the setup was crude. But there were conference rooms, desktops and high-speed internet service few employees had at home. They were called “telecommuting” centers.
Campbell calls it the “steppingstone” stage of telework.
“The local Chamber of Commerce said to me, ‘You know, Danette, this concept is never going to take off,’” she recalled. “ ‘Managers are never going to buy into it.’
“My whole argument was, ‘You wait and see. The technology is exploding.’ ”
The program did, too, but the challenge was clear.
“It was getting people to recognize their own mythology they’ve been living with,” Ryan said. “Just because you can see somebody at their desk doesn’t mean you know what they’re doing.”
Campbell had a touch for empathizing with their concerns, Ryan said, “then moving them to a different place.”
Campbell then took a job with the Council of Governments, where she pushed employers in the region to launch telework programs.
“It really was a sales job,” recalled Nick Ramfos, director of COG’s Commuter Connections program. “A behavior change is what you’re selling. You need a certain power of persuasion to get folks who are really skeptical to sign on. Danette was good at that.”
And the trademark program was noticing. Up in Alexandria, it was expanding to patent reviewers, who started giving up their offices. They “hoteled,” meaning that they had to book a desk when they came to headquarters. By 2006, 2,271 employees were working outside the office from one to five days a week.
“That’s when we realized we needed to have somebody to run this full time,” recalled Trademarks Commissioner Deborah Cohn.
The agency approached Campbell, who liked the idea of expanding one successful program for the federal government.
The biggest downside to telework is isolation, say Campbell and her colleagues. They’re working on solutions: lunches for employees who live near each other, other social events to keep them engaged. At meetings, everyone who needs to be there is webcasted in.
“I think that’s the biggest negative to telework,” Cohn said. “When you compare the negatives and positives, the positives come out ahead.”
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