Mobile Government and Telework Week 2014

Each year I pledge to telework along with thousands of others for the annual Telework Week.  Today, I worked from my rpod parked in front of my house.  My rpod is my personal smart work space and provides me everything I need to work at home or on the road with secure mobility capabilities that allow me to access all my meetings, applications, and collaboration tools to do my job.

In fact, I could have worked from anywhere and have been teleworking for the past several years.

The Telework Enhancement Act of 2010 (Act) was signed into law on December 9, 2010. The objective is to achieve greater flexibility in managing the workforce through the use of telework. Telework programs  and best practices provide agencies a valuable tool to meet mission objectives while helping employees enhance work/life effectiveness to:

• Improve Continuity of Operations to help ensure that essential Federal functions continue during emergency situations including snow storms
• Promote management effectiveness when telework is used to target reductions in management costs and environmental impact and transit costs
• Enhance work-life balance and allows employees to better manage their work and family obligations

This year, Telework Week 2014, was the fourth-annual global effort to encourage agencies, organizations, and individuals to pledge. A total of 163,495 pledges collectively saved $14,003,872 in commuting costs and spared the environment 9,066 tons of pollutants.

Mobile government is here – and growing. It’s quickly changing the way governments increase flexibility and respond to citizens, who also want 24/7 mobile access on their favorite device.

Mobile government provides the critical capabilities to empower workers and serve citizens. However, to support the transition to mobile government and provide mobile workers the flexibility they need within a secure and robust environment, governments organization must address these key requirements:

• Provide device choice and support
• Maintain secure access to the network
• Enforce usage policies
• Offer device visibility on the network
• Protect data and prevent loss
• Revoke access
• Ensure performance and reliability

Cisco BYOD connects and secures mobile devices for government organizations including tablets, smartphones, and personal computers with the Integrated Security Engine (ISE) to support this growing trend.

Citizens are also mobile and seeking mobile experiences to access government services.

Cisco Mobile Experience (CMX) provide capabilities to support government services for citizens including:

• Mobile “wayfinding” to help citizens locate places and things with mobile applications
• High-quality digital information and services delivered to citizens and mobile workers anywhere, anytime, on any device
• Improved quality of service for citizens by spurring innovative new applications