Your Tax Dollars Harder at Work: Mobile Makes Federal Workers More Productive

While these days many are looking at ways to economize household spending and reduce the amount of cash going out—as well as find ways to increase the amount coming in—many of these people are looking at the federal government and wondering why it doesn't seem in a hurry to do likewise. A recent study from MeriTalk, meanwhile, recently discovered there's a fairly simple way to get a lot more productivity out of federal workers: going mobile.

The MeriTalk study, underwritten by Brocade and entitled “Feds on the Go: Network Needs for Maximum Mobility,” revealed just how federal workers were putting mobile devices to work. The study showed that, indeed, federal workers were putting mobile technology to work, but that there was quite a bit of room to improve. For instance, the study found that 81 percent of workers connected remotely at least once a week, and fully 54 percent connected at least once a day. Forty-five percent of workers, meanwhile, connected several times a day via remote. Overwhelmingly, federal workers turned to laptops for connectivity at 88 percent, but smartphones were also well-represented at 53 percent, while tablets came in at 19 percent.

But while these numbers were interesting enough, what else these numbers meant was all the more impressive. Federal workers estimated that, thanks to all these remote connections, an additional nine hours a week, on average, was put into work beyond the normal schedule. Further benefits on a wide scale were also realized, as 45 percent of respondents felt more efficient, while 34 percent felt more available to respective teams. In both cases, 28 percent of respondents—though not necessarily the same individuals—said that they felt more “tuned in” and more frequently collaborated with others.

Perhaps the centerpiece of the study, however, was the revelation that, should federal workers have access to a seamless remote connectivity system—as well as complete access to the agencies in question—said workers would gain about seven hours a week in productivity. That turns out to be about an additional $14,000 in productivity every year.

But these gains won't come easily, or inexpensively. There are significant technological barriers in place that limit the amount of work federal workers are able to do remotely. The survey revealed that 65 percent of respondents were frustrated by slow connections, 57 percent found the security procedures involved onerous, and 43 percent cited limited overall network access. A whopping 70 percent, meanwhile, said that all the information necessary wasn't available via remote, and while 56 percent of workers say that greater productivity could be had working from home, 82 percent were required to spend most of the day away from home, showing that traditionalist attitudes were playing a part in things.

To see such a study come out about remote working in the government isn't much of a surprise; these are all rather familiar themes across much of the work environment. The remote workforce is catching on in a lot of places, however, and the bring your own device (BYOD) doctrine is behind a good chunk of that. Of course, it raises some issues of its own, like workers putting in extra time off the clock, but these are issues that can be addressed. Indeed, many workers feel more productive when alone to work, and with the kind of money that could be at stake here, it's no small wonder that more people would want the government actually saving taxpayer dollars and letting the workers get in on the increased mobile working trend.