Distance Work Arrangements: The Workplace of the Future Is Now

Distance work arrangements—such as telework, remote work, and distributed teams— have been a growing trend in the workplace for more than a decade. For example, the federal government adopted the Telework Enhancement Act in 2010. And some private sector businesses have moved their operations completely online and maintain a virtual workforce that allows employees to work from anywhere in the world.

Lawrence Tobin, Major, US Army and IBM Training-with-Industry Fellow

Lawrence M. Tobin is a Major in the United States Army, serving 15 years as both Chemical officer and an Operations Research Systems Analyst. Currently Major Tobin is a fellow with IBM, learning industry best practices.

Post Pandemic Planning – Should the U.S. Go Back to the Office After COVID-19?

It’s been six months since a national emergency was declared as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. This past week, the US passed the grim threshold of 200,000 pandemic-related deaths out of nearly 7 million reported cases, and experts are predicting that it may be mid-2021 or even 2022 before a semblance of normal life will return.

Major, US Army and
IBM Training-with-Industry Fellow

Lawrence M. Tobin is a Major in the United States Army, serving 15 years as both Chemical officer and an Operations Research Systems Analyst. Currently Major Tobin is a fellow with IBM, learning industry best practices.

Major Tobin has worked in the US Army headquarters personnel division (HQDA G1), where he performed analysis on the United States Army Recruiting mission and most enlisted personnel policy decisions that impacted 1.1 million US Army Soldiers across the globe. While spending three years in the US Army headquarters operations/training division (HQDA G-3/5/7), he helped prioritize and lend operational perspective to the US Army’s budget cycle. Lawrence deployed to Mosul, Iraq during Operation Enduring Freedom (2007-09) with the 3d Armored Cavalry Regiment as a platoon leader and company executive officer.

Major Tobin holds a Masters of Computer Science in Computational Operations Research from the College of William & Mary (’14), a Masters of Environment Management from Webster’s University (’10), and a Bachelors of Science in Computer Engineering from Clarkson University (’03).