Community and Economic Development

WSU Rural Telework Project

Telework off to a Great Start in Stevens County

The Stevens County Cooperative Extension office has been an active player in the Washington State University Rural Telework program. Participation in this initiative was a major factor in persuading Washington Dental Service to locate a satellite office in Colville. This information technology based enterprise currently employees about thirty individuals and is expected to double that number in the upcoming months. The WSU Rural Telework program is funded by a grant from the USDA Fund for Rural America. The program is centered on four rural counties in northeast Washington and in Clallam County in northwest Washington.

Telework may become one of the primary means for developing and diversifying employment in rural Washington. Telework is the use of telecommunications and information technology to allow people to work from a location other than the central office. Telework is effective for a broad range of jobs from word processing and data entry to software engineers and writers. The number of teleworkers nationwide jumped from 4 million in 1990 to 19.5 million in 2000. While the majority of these teleworkers are in urban areas, today's technology makes it possible for work to occur anywhere.

We are working with the WSU telework program to identify companies in Spokane that may wish to explore the telework option for some of their employees and work. We know that more than 15% of the workforce in Stevens County commutes outside the county to work. Many of these individuals are driving Highway 395 to Spokane. It may be possible to work with these Spokane companies to allow some of their employees to work closer to home. We encourage anyone who is currently commuting and believes his or her job would be suitable for telework to call the Extension office in Colville.

Rural telework takes advantage of technology advancements and enables businesses to offer jobs outside of urban areas. Teleworkers can either work for these companies as employees or under contract. Although some businesses may chose to develop a facility to house operations, telework does not require extensive relocation or expansion costs. There are a variety of models of telework. It could mean the expansion of current operations into rural communities such as the Washington Dental Service office in Colville. It could be telework centers where multiple employers have employees working in a shared facility. Perhaps the most interesting model for rural communities is where individuals work out of home-based offices. We have a software engineer working for Boeing out of his home office in Arden and a hardware engineer working for IBM out of his home in Malo.

The WSU telework program is working to create opportunities for employment in rural areas. Researchers are learning what employers need to make rural telework attractive. The objective is to find work for local citizens, to encourage urban employers to hire teleworkers from rural Washington. Please contact our office at anytime for additional information or to indicate your interest in participating in this program.

509 684-2588; akowitz@wsu.edu