This paper presents a change management and persuasion proposal recommending teleworking for eligible employees at Insurance Services Organization (ISO), a mid-sized firm headquartered in Jersey City, New Jersey. The proposal targets employees in the Communications and Marketing departments whose responsibilities are primarily computer- and communication-based. The paper outlines the economic benefits of reducing leased office space, the impact of remote work on employee morale and recruitment, and the alignment of the policy with ISO's stated commitments to family values and environmental responsibility. Findings from internal surveys and interviews with employees, supervisors, and legal counsel are incorporated to support the feasibility and design of the proposal.
This paper demonstrates the use of a multi-pronged persuasion framework: it combines quantitative justification (cost savings from reduced office leasing), qualitative primary research (employee and manager interviews), and values alignment (organizational mission and corporate social responsibility). This layered approach reflects best practices in organizational change communication, where proposals that address financial, human, and cultural dimensions simultaneously are more likely to succeed.
The paper opens with a description of ISO and the rationale for considering telework, then moves to a formal recommendation section, followed by a structured persuasion strategy with three distinct components. Two dedicated argument sections then elaborate on economic and human-factor benefits respectively. The paper closes with a brief evaluation framework tied to measurable outcomes. This structure mirrors a professional business proposal format and is well-suited to graduate-level organizational behavior coursework.
Insurance Services Organization (ISO) is a medium-sized firm headquartered in Jersey City, New Jersey (ISO, 2012). It provides a wide range of services for insurance professionals, including industry and market research, tools to maximize the value of insurance policies for customers and profitability for insurance underwriters on a national basis, as well as the creation and production of promotional marketing materials used by insurance professionals. A substantial portion of business operations at ISO relies on departments — such as Communications and Marketing — that involve work executed by individuals, typically working in small business units or teams, at their computer terminals. Employees meet regularly with the rest of their teams and with managers and supervisors, but their actual work does not necessarily require face-to-face, in-person interactions. Generally, most of their substantive communications are confirmed by email, largely to establish a written record of procedures and understandings about production schedules and the progress of individual projects.
If the organization began to allow teleworking for those employees whose primary operational responsibilities are conducted on computers and through online and telephonic communications, it would be able to reduce its overhead tremendously. The opportunity to work from home much of the time would also provide a powerful tool for attracting prospective employees, making the organization more competitive in recruiting and retaining the best available talent. Employees already value the privilege of working from home and rely extensively on the online medium for job searches and for evaluating prospective employers and working environments (Leader-Chivee, Booz-Allen, & Cowan, 2008). The idea has been suggested informally but encountered resistance, mainly from department heads who expressed concern that allowing employees to work from home might reduce the quality of their work and that it presents difficulties in the areas of team collaboration and supervision.
The recommendation consists of a proposal to allow those employees whose work does not actually require their in-person presence on the premises to perform as much of their work at home as possible. The benefits of this proposal include a reduction in the amount of office space the organization must occupy in its current building, improved morale among employees permitted to work from home, increased ability of the firm to attract new talent, and greater consistency with the social values featured in and promoted by organizational publicity materials. More specifically, the organization prides itself on supporting the quality of family life of ISO employees and on promoting and participating in local environmental responsibility. This initiative could support all of those goals, and the persuasion plan addresses each of them directly.
The persuasion strategy contains several distinct component elements. First, it provides a financial calculation of the amount of money the organization could save by reducing the amount of work space it leases within the Jersey City office building that it shares with Barkley Bank (ISO, 2012). Currently, ISO occupies twelve floors of the building (Floors 2 through 10 and Floors 18 through 20), of which two full floors (18 and 19) are occupied by the Communications and Marketing departments. This initiative would enable the firm to eliminate one of the two floors currently required for those two departments and consolidate them into a single floor.
Second, this persuasion initiative demonstrates through the available literature that teleworking opportunities increase employee morale and represent a powerful benefit from the perspective of prospective employees. This element of the persuasion strategy incorporates the results of interviews with ISO employees and business unit supervisors and managers to demonstrate the degree of employee appreciation and the confidence of managers in their ability to continue leading their teams through virtual interactions. Part of this element emphasizes the degree of control that managers — and the organization more generally — can maintain over the eligibility criteria (i.e., tenure, performance requirements, etc.) for determining which employees may work from home and how much time they must still spend on premises for team meetings and supervisory oversight.
Third, this persuasion initiative emphasizes the degree to which the recommended change supports values promoted by the organization both internally and externally. Specifically, ISO prides itself as an organization that fully supports family values and makes every reasonable effort to help its employees balance their working lives with their home and family lives (ISO, 2012). The proposed change allows the organization to increase its support of family and home life by reducing the amount of time employees must spend at the office for work that can be performed off-site. Similarly, ISO actively participates in numerous programs intended to increase public awareness of ecological responsibility and prides itself as an organization that takes its corporate responsibility to minimize ecological harm seriously, both globally and locally. This proposed change fully supports those policies and objectives by substantially reducing fossil fuel emissions from employee vehicles during the daily commute, in addition to reducing highway congestion and wear and tear on bridges and other infrastructure.
You’re 48% through this paper. Sign up to read the remaining 3 sections.
Sign Up Now — Instant Access Already a member? Log inAlways verify citation format against your institution’s current style guide requirements.