While many state jobs are located in and around Madison, last month Superior Days delegates asked for more state jobs in northern Wisconsin. Jessica Hamilton reports.

Delegates want studies to see what could happen in just 10 of those jobs were able to telecommute. Washburn Mayor Scott Griffiths says it would be fair to the north.

“We have technology advancing very rapidly to be able to work from just about anywhere. If you have work that’s basically conducted from a desk or at computer, it doesn’t really matter where that desk or computer is located anymore.”

Bayfield County UW-Extension 4-H Youth Development Educator Ian Meeker says allowing these jobs to telecommute would benefit workers.

“The main goal would be to provide some economic impact on a small town. That was the intention of asking them to consider it, but the other impact would be that it would allow people to live, if they truly would be interested in relocating, would be allowing them to live in a place that they are interested in. It’s not unusually to hear people up in this area say ‘Gosh this is beautiful, I’d love to live up here.’ How do you find work, that’s always been one of the puzzles up here.”

During the Department of Transportation meeting, DOT Executive Assistant Steve Krieser agreed with the delegates.

“There is a lot of benefit to it. There’s a lot of benefit for us, the employer, there is benefit for the employees. They like it, it’s a perk of the job that’s intangible but it really is an anchor that holds people. You know they don’t want to leave once they have it because it’s nice. I mean all those are things we are investigating.”

Kreiser says even things like teleconferencing and Smartboards, interactive whiteboards, are making telecommuting more attractive to employers.

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