Calgary teleworking program spreads across Canada, U. S.
CALGARY — Calgary Economic Development’s WORKshift program, which promotes flexible work practices and telework, is going national, Postmedia News has learned.
Robyn Bews, director of WORKshift which was launched in Calgary in May 2009, confirmed the organization is in discussions with most of the major cities in Canada and some in California to adopt the leading- edge program. In fact, Ottawa is on board to adopt the name, brand and method of the program.
“The response is very positive,” said Bews, adding Calgary would remain the “head office” for the program. “Calgary is an international leader in the workplace movement. I think the appetite for this is huge.”
One of WORKshift’s challenges in 2013 and beyond is maintaining an awareness of scalability. “With inbound requests from international markets, particularly the U. S., we are acutely aware of the necessity to build an organization and product that is both scalable and applicable to the growing U. S. marketplace,” said Bews. “Right now the roadmap has us expanding our offering to the U. S. marketplace sometime in 2014.”
Nancy Schepers, deputy city manager of planning and infrastructure for the City of Ottawa, said the nation’s capital is expected to launch WORKshift in the second quarter of this year.
“The City of Ottawa is looking to advance our transportation demand management measures, and in particular to support an aggressive construction program that will be happening over the next coming years,” said Schepers.
“We worked at the WORKshift and saw that that tool fits some of our needs and could be adjusted for the City of Ottawa. We certainly don’t believe we should recreate when something exists that we can easily adapt to the City of Ottawa’s needs ... They seem to have thought through how to approach it ... the kinds of things that employers might be looking for and employees in terms of the kinds of things that will help to encourage people to make different choices. Shift their work, start at different times, work from home.”
Bews said WORKshift will do for the workforce what LEED ( Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) did for buildings — create best practices and a certification program.
“Fifteen years ago people were scratching their heads: how do we collaborate to start designing and creating ‘ green’ buildings?” said Bews. “They knew it needed to be done, it was the trend but there was a lack of standards, benchmarks. The same is true today for the workforce. You talk to almost any employer and they will tell you that they understand the changing nature of flexible, remote work but they lack the tools, process to help them achieve it.”
She said WORKshift is collaborating with thought- leaders and industry experts to define this and will be establishing a process by which employers can adopt a WORKshift culture/ program, measure it, benchmark among peers and then become certified as “WORKshift friendly” so that job seekers know where to find them.
Bews is also collaborating with three other international experts to write a book on WORKshift, which is expected to hit the market in early 2014.