BUENOS AIRES, Argentina, May 12, 2009 - Cisco and the Argentinean Ministry of Labor, Employment and Social Security announced that Cisco will participate in the Private Companies' Remote Working Follow-up and Promotion Pilot Program (PROPET, in Spanish). This project is part of a series of initiatives developed by the Remote Working Coordination Area of the ministry with the goal of providing new technology tools and best practices to improve Argentineans' working environment.

Remote working helps employees to carry out their tasks productively when away from the office. Through the use of information and communication technologies (ICT), remote workers can collaborate with other people and perform their jobs from their own homes or while on the move, reducing the requirements for common physical workspaces. The benefits of remote working include achieving a better balance for employees between family and work environments, reducing the number of employment-related accidents and diseases, maximizing employees' time management, generating equal opportunities for groups with disabilities, reducing costs, and enabling employees to be more productive.

As businesses look for flexible and cost-effective work options, particularly in the wake of rising energy costs, remote working enables them to provide highly secure collaboration amongst a more distributed workforce. This agility helps maintain business continuity and can generate cost savings on real estate by eliminating the need for additional office space. Furthermore, remote workers can enhance their productivity by accessing the same communications and collaboration technologies available to their office-based counterparts.

Highlights / Key Facts:

• During the initial phase of the project, Cisco will select 50 of its own remote workers, who will perform their daily activities from their own homes.
• The workers will use the Cisco® Virtual Office solution to take advantage of highly secure mobility and will collaborate from their home environment. The Cisco Virtual Office addresses the growing trend among midsize and large enterprises with increasingly distributed workforces who need access to collaborative business applications and services outside their corporate offices. The networking solution packages routing, switching, security, wireless, IP telephony and policy control technology into a centrally managed office-grade solution that provides highly secure video, voice, data and wireless service.
• The Ministry of Labor will monitor the remote workers to evaluate the characteristics and results of this way of working.
• Through this program, Cisco will continue to drive remote-working initiatives that enhance employees' quality of life and to promote the use of new mobility technologies in the country's private and public sectors, in order to optimize costs, improve productivity and strengthen business collaboration.

Links / URLs:

• PROPET: Argentinean Ministry of Labor, Employment and Social Security
• Cisco Virtual Office: Extends the enterprise, increases productivity and provides highly secure collaboration for remote workforces

Supporting Quotes:

• Horacio Werner, managing director Cisco Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay

"We consider remote working to be part of Cisco's corporate philosophy, since this practice helps employees to maintain a balance between their work and personal lives, and to interact and collaborate effectively with other employees, partners and customers while away from the office. As a company that promotes and develops solutions that adapt to new ways of working, we are pleased to be part of the Ministry of Work project, and to contribute both our experience as users and our technical understanding of of the most appropriate teleworking technologies."

• Dr. Carlos Tomada, minister of labor of Argentina

"We are working to promote a law because we believe that telework should have a regulation and a framework that transcends volunteerism, where everyone knows what their rights and obligations are."