Sun is revolutionizing the way we work. Our Open Work program is streamlined to suit a modern business world that demands 24x7 action — and ever faster response times. We're taking full advantage of our technology to make our workforce truly mobile.
More than half of our employees don't have an assigned office in a fixed location. We provide the tools and technology that allow them the freedom to work wherever they want — at home, at one of our offices, or in a coffee shop near a customer's office. They no longer need to spend time, money, and emissions commuting — the whole world is their office. With the help of this program, employee satisfaction has risen and productivity remains high.
Open Work also offers significant cost advantages and environmental benefits.
This new way of doing business has been so successful that we've turned it into a revenue generator for Sun. We now offer consulting services to our customers to help them transform their global workforce.
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Leslie Harrison,
Senior Communications Manager
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Over half of Sun people work outside the office, as part of Sun's groundbreaking Open Work Pprogram. For Leslie Harrison, this enables her to work from Sun offices or from her home in Chicago.
"I'm a single parent and I've adopted two children while working for Sun," says Leslie. "The Open Work Pprogram gives me the flexibility to get my work done and to find time for family life and childcare.
"I work with employees from different parts of the world. I really don't mind being called late or early, and in general my colleagues understand there might be some child noise in the background.
"The program affords me the flexibility and Sun provides the benefits that have helped me adopt my girls and provide them with the necessary childcare while I'm working. I could never have achieved this without the support of Sun.
"We have a very supportive leadership team. But I work to very tight deadlines demanded by the business and the leadership team. I have to manage my time well to ensure that these deadlines are always met.
"The drawback is that I am always on, and Im not sure how this affects my daughters, who see me at a computer much of the time. The other day my four-year old asked if she could check her emails when she checked in at the childcare center."
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Open Work Locations
- 139 flexible office space locations: 70 in the Americas, 25 in the APAC region, and 39 in the EMEA region
- Five standalone drop-in centers: Campbell, San Francisco, and Pleasanton, California; Marlboro, Massachusetts; and Nashua, New Hampshire
- Reservable drop-in centers: in selected buildings worldwide
- Two Open Work cafes: Menlo Park and Santa Clara, California
- 306 office locations worldwide
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Environmental Impact of Open Work
Open Work enables us to cut our carbon emissions by reducing energy use from employees working in our facilities and decreasing our real estate holdings. We also recognize there are some additional emissions from people working at home — using their home computer(s), lighting, heating/air conditioning, and more.
We're developing a methodology, in partnership with the University of Colorado, to calculate the overall carbon footprint of Open Work. We expect this methodology to be ready to use in fiscal 2008. Using the first version of this methodology — created in fiscal 2007 — we estimate that the average Open Worker emits 1.25 fewer metric tons of CO2 over the course of one year than a typical employee assigned to a particular location. On this basis, Open Work helped our employees avoid emitting 23,868 metric tons of CO2 in fiscal 2007. We also estimate that Open Work reduces employee fuel consumption, and that each employee without an assigned office avoids 135 gallons of fuel consumption each year. That means Sun employees avoided using 2,577,825 gallons of fuel in fiscal 2007.
Calculation Assumptions
Home-Assigned employees average 1 day per week commute to the office
Flexible employees average 3 days per week commute to the office
Average commute is 28 miles roundtrip (per the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT))
Average commute speed is 32 mph (per DOT)
Average commute duration is 52 minutes roundtrip (per DOT)
Average commuter vehicle fuel efficiency is 20 mpg
These assumptions equate to avoidance of 3.2 gallons of fuel per week
Assume 19 lb of CO2 emitted per gallon of fuel
Assume 43 work weeks
Financial Savings
We've saved millions of dollars over the last six years by cutting our real estate overhead and IT support costs. In all, due in large part to the Open Work program, Sun was able to reduce our real estate holdings by more than 15% (2.6 million square feet) in fiscal 2007.
Performance
At the end of fiscal 2007, a total of 19,095 employees (more than 55% of the workforce) were participating in the Open Work program — working away from the office at least one or two days a week. This included 15,508 flexible workers and 3586 home workers. This is an increase in participation of 8.8% from last year.
With more than 55% of our employees participating in the program, Open Work is at a critical point in its development. We're currently in the process of developing the next generation of Open Work and reevaluating our participation goals for the program. Our #1 priority is to make sure that Sun employees are properly categorized-Flexible, Work-from-Home, or Assigned — for their job function, work style, and lifestyle needs. We're fully committed to ensuring a continued culture of collaboration and innovation throughout Sun's workforce — and we know Open Work will help us do this.
Goals
We're in the process of developing the next generation of Open Work and are evaluating our goals for the program. We commit to sharing an update on this information and our associated goals in our fiscal 2008 CSR report.
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