What if there was a way you could increase workplace productivity, reduce absenteeism, and make your employees a lot happier at the same time?
According to SuiteWorks , a company that is creating Canada's first telework complex, these are only a few of the benefits to be gained from starting a workday closer to home.
With construction starting in Barrie (north of Toronto) this spring, SuiteWorks is planning to launch its first remote workspace in late summer. The finished product will be a 22,000 square foot office space that will allow tenants to provide employees with all the perks of a professional office and secure network connections with their Toronto-area head offices, without the commute.
For company president John Cameron, who himself commuted the daily 180-kilometre round trip Barrie-Toronto for 15 years, the journey is a personal one.
"I spent 17 workday weeks a year sitting in my car, travelling from Barrie to Toronto. When you line that up against the hit that companies take on holidays, it's significant," he said.
Besides chopping commuting time, teleworking will also reduce the amount of time needed for personal errands such as visiting the doctor and dentist. It allows workers to enjoy a shorter commute while avoiding the distractions and even liability (think health and safety issues) of working from home, too.
The project has garnered an enthusiastic response from the city of Barrie itself, whose mayor declared February 6, 2004 "Stop Commuting Day."
When his business partner proposed SuiteWorks in late 2002, Mr. Cameron knew that telework was an idea whose time had come. In searching for models for their own centre, he visited teleworking operations in Washington, D.C., which - though used primarily by government rather than private companies - are functioning well and increasing in occupancy every year.
In making the pitch for SuiteWorks, Mr. Cameron has approached everyone from FP 50 companies to small organizations like accounting firms, from local entrepreneurs or those interested in a Barrie satellite office to GTA employers whose employees are just plain sick of commuting.
Far from being a "satellite office," SuiteWorks aims to match the quality of workspace that employees are used to at a head office setting. The site can accommodate 120 workers in several types of workspace arrangement, starting from a hotelling set-up where companies can have office space for up to two days a week at an approximate cost of $400 (Cdn.) per month, to larger and more permanent spaces such as six-by-six or eight-by-eight-foot workstations at $800 per month. Private offices and even sectioned floors can also be accommodated for larger groups of employees.
Packages are all inclusive, providing services such as reception, message management, administrative support, Web conferencing, and electronic whiteboarding. Sophisticated printing, and imaging suites will also be available, allowing employees to manage all of their operations on site. Six meeting rooms, including a fully equipped boardroom, and six telephone rooms for making private calls are also available.
Having technology up to speed is also important for SuiteWorks. Internet connections through a fibre ring will give tenants the advantage of high-speed access, and phone service using Voice Over IP (VoIP) will mean employees will be able to keep in touch with head office without long distance charges.
Tech support will also be provided within the office, with technology services provided by Compugen. Security between the SuiteWorks centre and individual companies will likely be accomplished via the company's own virtual private network (VPN), while the office system will run on a regular local area network (LAN), the company said.
Besides the perk to his clients of having the very latest equipment, Mr. Cameron anticipates that SuiteWorks' technology associates themselves will benefit from the arrangement, with an opportunity to demonstrate their latest wares in front of potential buyers.
"We will be the office of the future all of the time, because as we choose these technology providers, there's a lot of interest because they will be showcasing their technology in front of perhaps forty different GTA-based companies," he says.
Maintaining overall security is also important for SuiteWorks. The entire Barrie site will be camera-monitored at entranceways by a third party security company, with additional protection provided by a receptionist who will greet visitors at the front doors. Admission to the building itself will be by way of a smart-card turnstile, which will only allow workers to enter the building one at a time. This also provides added security for evenings and weekends.
For companies with several teleworkers that want to set up their own office within an office, SuiteWorks will allow them to enclose people within their own individual security system. More subtle confidentiality issues have also been considered — employees at the SuiteWorks facility will be required to wear nametags clearly identifying their company, so that each employee will know exactly who they're talking to around the water cooler.
Following the first SuiteWorks centre in Barrie, Mr. Cameron plans to launch other offices in Burlington, Cambridge and Whitby or Ajax, and then move on to other cities in Canada. He says he's pretty sure that telework is the kind of idea that will show itself to be profitable in terms of employee retention, morale, and money.
"We're very confident that the commuter, once they stop commuting, will absolutely invest part of that time back into the organization. They will be less stressed, they will probably be much healthier, and they'll be much happier with the company," he said.
Along the bottom line, Mr. Cameron also expects good results.
"The increase in productivity is significant. If I can just increase my productivity by 20 per cent and there's five of me doing that, I've just saved a new hire," he says.
