Telework
King County is a welcoming community where every person can thrive and as an employer is committed to:
- Attracting and retaining a diverse and talented work force that reflects our community;
- Reducing operational costs without sacrificing quality of service or employee productivity;
- Reducing its carbon footprint; and
- Promoting the health, safety, and wellbeing of its employees.
The County supports telecommuting as a work arrangement that strengthens the resiliency of our workforce and connectivity to our customers and stakeholders. At the same time, because of the breadth and depth of King County’s services and responsibilities, telecommuting levels will vary across the county and may not be an option for every department, agency, line of business, team or individual.
Definitions:
Telecommuting: An arrangement where an employee works one or more days each workweek from a remote location, usually the employee’s home, instead of commuting to a predetermined assigned county worksite. King County uses the terms telecommute and telework interchangeably.
County worksite: The King County worksite where the employee would be required to work if they did not telecommute.
Why telework?
Working some of the time from home can provide more flexibility for employees seeking to balance their work and personal lives.
Can every employee work from home?
It doesn’t work for everyone. Note that telework must be discussed with and approved by your supervisor and is a voluntary arrangement, not an employment benefit.
How do I know if telework is for me?
Check out the resources below to help employees and supervisors decide where telework is a viable option.
Required steps for employees to start or continue teleworking:
- Read the HR Telecommuting Policy (PDF)
- Review the:
-
Sign and submit the Telecommuting Agreement (PDF).
Please follow your departmental process to complete the submission of the Teleworking Agreement. This document must be signed by the teleworker and the supervisor. Supervisors should conduct periodic reviews of an employee’s Telecommuting Agreement with the employee to evaluate the effectiveness of the agreement.
All existing King County work policies apply to employees working at the County worksite or remotely.
Additional recommended resources
Technology setup
Make sure your computer is set up for telecommuting before your first telecommute day. The applications you use will depend on the type of work you’ll be doing from home. You may use a combination of the applications described below, depending on the work you’re doing on any particular telecommute day.
Many work tasks can be done via cloud-based applications—in other words, using your web browser. NOTE: KCIT supports Internet Explorer only. Other browsers may work, but you should use Internet Explorer if you are experiencing any issues.
- Outlook Web Access provides access to your work email account and, if you have archive folders set up, to your personal folders.
- You can use SharePoint to manage and share files.
- To participate in meetings from home, you can install Skype for business on your home computer or join Skype meetings by phone. You can learn more about Skype on King County’s Skype help page.
- You can also access PeopleSoft and King County’s online training site through your web browser from home.
The good news is that nearly everyone can access all the tools necessary to telecommute without needing VPN access by using a web browser to check email, process documents and manage files with Microsoft Office 365 (Online services you can log into from your browser.)
AnyConnect (VPN) may be the solution for you if you need access to personal email folders and they are set up as .pst files, complex editing of files, managing files that are kept on a shared drive or using other applications that cannot be accessed via the cloud (for example, Adobe Suite).
Setup instructions and support for using AnyConnect can be found on this KCIT Networks SharePoint site.