Supervisor

Telework A Pandemic Strategy

Arizona's agencies widely accept telework as a business practice and remote connectivity tools are commonly available, yet a large proportion of State employees with critical functions remain unfamiliar with both the tools and practice of working remotely.  We are not talking about the practice of taking work home or borrowing the office laptop, but learning to use remote connectivity to do a normal days work from a remote location. 

The Arizona Department of Administration (ADOA) is leading an effort to begin preparing the State's workforce to perform critical functions remotely as one of its pandemic planning strategies. The agency defined "Critical Functions" as those functions that must be restored within 0 and 14 days of an incident (Pandemic outbreak, flood, fire, power outage, etc.).  ADOA began a Critical Function Telework Program and began taking the following steps. 

Phase One:

1. A comprehensive Intranet site was designed to help train selected ADOA employees to work out formal telework agreements with their supervisors and learn about all of the available remote connectivity options currently available to them.

2. ADOA division heads were briefed on the pilot and asked to develop division specific security policies and identify those employees with critical functions who could perform their functions remotely.

3. The identified critical function employees were instructed to log on to the agency's Critical Function Telework Pilot website, begin the process of working out a formal telework agreement with their supervisor, receive instruction on all available remote connectivity services, request the appropriate remote connectivity accounts, and begin to practice using their connectivity services by doing their critical business functions from home on a regular basis to remain prepared to work in the event of an emergency.

4. All  Critical Function Employees were tracked through the training and equipping process to assure that each employee was successfully prepared.

5. Critical function employees were instructed to work with their managers to identify and resolve any barriers they found to enable them to work remotely.

6. The agency used HRIS Pay Code 110 On Demand Reports to track the frequency of teleworking among pilot participants and reported the results to agency management.

In Phase Two of the ADOA Critical Function Telework Program, those employees who are considered critical but do not work on a business process that must be restored within two weeks of an event will be added to the program population.  These employees will also follow steps taken by the employees in phase one.

Next, ADOA Human Resources and Management Services divisions will evaluate the program and make recommendations on how to help additional State agencies to implement similar programs.

For more information on the ADOA Critical Function Program, contact the Telework Program Administrator at 602 542-7433.