Driven by financial, sustainability, technology, and social trends, the traditional service delivery and operational aspects of the local government workplace is changing. Working with Runzheimer International, ICMA has started a new initiative on “employee mobility” for local governments. The goal of this effort is to provide knowledge resources about employee mobility as part of the association’s commitment to more sustainable communities.

What’s Driving Employee Mobility?
In the earliest years of the twenty-first century, local governments are finding themselves hostage to shrinking budgets and searching out new ways to solve old problems. Fuel and energy prices affect virtually every item in the budget, from the cost of operating fleet vehicles to expenditures for heating and cooling government buildings. Understanding the financial impacts and opportunities of strategically managing employee mobility holds the potential of alleviating some of the fiscal duress experienced in most, if not all, local governments. 

Dramatic changes in technology are challenging old ways of doing business. Wireless and portable devices allow field workers to input and receive information away from the office, thereby increasing efficiency by saving time and money. The impact of technology can not be overstated. Technology—cell phones, laptop computers, wiki software, video conferencing, Webcasts, wireless infrastructures, GPS and GIS tools, PDAs—has been a tremendous enabler for employee mobility. With these new tools, there are more options than ever for how and where people get the traditional work and service functions of government completed.

Quality of life issues are impacting the local government workforce in new kinds of ways, as a generational shift continues to evolve. Graduates from the 1980s and 1990s are moving into leadership positions, and the first millenials—the text-messaging, social networking generation— are entering the workforce in increasingly large numbers, just as the baby boomers are starting to retire. Many managerial as well as first or second job employees in this new wave are looking for flexibility, so they can spend quality time with family members, cut down on time and money spent commuting, reduce their carbon footprint, and increase their production.

Underlying each of these drivers is the desire to create more sustainable communities. Local government executives and employees are implementing new strategies, policies, operations, and programs that can realize tangible and measurable benefits for the environment, economy, and social fabric of their communities.

ICMA members, as both leaders of their government organizations and the community, can play a critical role in developing strategic approaches to maximize the benefits of a mobile workforce. Implementing best practices as well as developing innovative approaches for managing the mobile and telecommuting employee can result in increased productivity along with reduced emissions and traffic congestion.

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Management Perspective (pdf, 322 KB)