10 Sep 2010

Building the Business Case
If the implementation is to be organisation-wide,  the appointment of a Senior Steering Group ideally chaired by a main board Director (Head of Department in a local Authority) is recommended. This policy and decision making body will often need to be supported by specialist working groups especially in larger organisations.
There is a choice to be made also in terms of whether the project is implemented utilising internal staff or external vendor (consultant or maybe MATiSSE Knowledge-Exchange partner) assisted. For many SMEs, Business Link in their advisory business (brokering) role can play an important role in terms of advising the types of service provider best suited to a particular organisation.
To be able to present a convincing case to stakeholders, it will be necessary to have done your homework in the following areas
Step
Activities and (Purpose))
 
Date Completed
1.
Baselining – What are the current job outputs; building utilisation levels; Staff absence levels, attrition rates etc? (To provide a benchmark and improvement measure for the project)
 
2.
Visioning - What should the future organisation look like? (Clear Goal and Criteria)
 
3.
Business Process re-engineering – is there an opportunity to look at existing business processes. How might they be improved to maximise the benefits of Teleworking? Which roles are likely to yield the greatest increase in productivity and which ones the least? (Teleworking business case may be enhanced through  improved or changed working practices)
 
4.
Travel – What is the duration of and the actual commute and business mileage costs? What might be the reductions be if say 10, 20 or 30% of staff worked two days per week from home? (Reduced expense claims can help offset the cost to Implement Teleworking)
 
5.
Premises – What is the current situation in terms of numbers of buildings, their locations, tenure, occupation levels (%)  etc What will the premises of the future need to provide? (Often not immediately realisable, savings, but projections of future savings can still help ROI case)
 
6.
Parking – Is employee parking provided? What does this cost the organisation today? Could costs and the parking allocation be reduced? Is there a case to charge (in order to encourage more sustainable travel methods? (Could parking areas be more productively used?)
 
7.
IT Infrastructure – What investment will need to be made in order to achieve secure home and/or mobile connectivity? (Although there is an ICT cost to change/equip, home based Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) is likely to be significantly lower than Office based equivalent. Get these projections from your IT Staff, vendor or Business Link)
 
8.
Home Environment – What might be the cost to equip staff in terms of ICT, desk and storage? (Employer ‘duty of care’ including H&S responsibility and sustainability issues – bulk purchase & standard options may help reduce costs)
 
9.
People – What is the staff-turnover rate in the organisation? Is retaining and attracting staff a growing problem? What skills do managers have? What are the views of and what are the potential implications for staff and customers? Are they broadly in favour? (Recruitment costs are circa £2k per employee. Work out the savings for the organisation of a 5 or 10% reduction. Conduct a skills audit of managers to quantify the need and content of training programmes. You may wish to additionally consider the introduction of flexible working hours at the same time as then, potentially, virtually all staff can be part of the scheme)
 
10.
Profile – How important is it for the organisation to be perceived as a socially and environmentally responsible and caring employer? Will this help differentiate the organisation from competitors? (85% of FT Best Workplaces offer Teleworking and Flexible Working. These organisations also financially out-perform their rivals)
 
11.
Return on Investment - How can it be shown that the move to Teleworking will be a net benefit to the organisation and over what period of time? (This is why doing the research and base-lining are important)
 
12.
Policy and Procedures – What needs to be changed in order to ensure equable terms for office or Teleworking Staff? (Areas to focus upon include Home to Work Travel allowances, Insurance and scheme eligibility including length of service)
 
 
13.
Communication – How will staff and customers be informed; how can they contribute ideas; how will expectations be set and managed? (It is hard to over-communicate and timely, appropriate communication is critical. Use to set the right expectations, maintain momentum and encourage feedback/involvement)