Human Resources
Telecommuting Grows
By: Deborah Stoutamire
With telecommuting on the rise, organizations of all sizes and industries are discovering a new way to improve employee retention, increase productivity and reduce their need for office space.
Telecommuting, often referred to as telework, occurs when paid employees work away from their normal place of work, usually from home. Such employees can telecommute full time, or on an occasional or ad-hoc basis. Most telecommuting takes place a day or two per week.
In a recent appearance before the House Committee on Government Reform for the Federal Workforce and Agency Organization, William Mularie, CEO of the Telework Consortium, said many workers spend more than two months of their take-home pay just commuting to work. “At $3 a gallon for gasoline, it takes nine weeks and three days of net pay for federal workers to pay for driving to and from work,” he said.
As fuel prices surpass $3 a gallon, employees are revaluating their finances and commuting habits, since it is increasingly costly to fill up their gas tanks every week. Employers who allow telecommuting offer their employees an added money-saving benefit.
According to the Telework Exchange, employees typically spend more time commuting than they do on vacation. Every year, a typical employee who commutes five days per week spends $10,580 on commuting costs, disperses eight tons of pollutants into the environment, and spends 245 hours commuting.
A typical employee who works from home two days a week saves $4,372 off commuting costs, spares the environment 3.6 tons of pollutants, and gets back 98 hours of free time.
The number of businesses adopting telecommuting alternatives for their employees continues to grow. Experts expect the trend to continue to grow. According to a study by the research firm Cahners In-Stat, more than half of the U.S. work force performs jobs from remote sites. Nearly 60 percent of the work force will be considered remote in the next year, the firm said.
Kentucky Water Co. employees participating in a telecommute program like the sense of empowerment and productivity that comes with telework. One employee said it was like having her own business. Another said the highlights of the program “are the simple feelings of empowerment and trust. It is truly amazing how much more focused I can be in the quietness of my home, and I am proud of the productivity that I have achieved.”
“Telecommuting is beneficial to employees, as it enables them to work from their homes, allows them to more easily balance family and work, and eliminates most commuting,” Kentucky Water Co. said in a report on its telecommuting program.
For many organizations, business continuity is becoming an increasingly important factor in support of telecommuting, especially for those that have felt the direct effects of catastrophic events such as the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 or Hurricane Katrina.
A few days after the levees in New Orleans burst, the U.S. Office of Personnel Management sent out a government-wide memo urging, “telecommuting as a way to alleviate a post–Katrina gas shortage.”
Telecommuting helps save energy, reduce pollution, increase productivity and save time and money. It also has important safety and health benefits, said Richard Johnson in an article, “Ten Advantages to Telecommuting.” Johnson said telecommuting takes vehicles off crowded highways, saving fuel use and energy in the areas of vehicle highway and traffic materials. It reduces automobile emissions and land-use requirements for highway expansion; reduces highway use by people rushing to get to and from work; reduces stress related to compromises made between family and work; and is a valuable, flexible work option that makes companies more desirable employers.
Telecommuting allows employees to better balance the demands of today’s hectic lifestyles. It allows employers to retain employees whose circumstances make commuting to the office difficult, thereby eliminating the costs associated with employee turnover, hiring and training new employees. It allows companies to react immediately to catastrophic changes (terrorist attack, natural disasters) in its employees’ or business circumstances; gives employees the freedom to choose an environment that is more suitable from a social and economic standpoint; and saves time by allowing companies and employees to operate seamlessly, even when storms, construction or other unforeseen events make traveling to the office difficult.
Culture remains the biggest barrier to telecommute adoption, said Joseph Roitz, AT&T telecommute director. “For 200 years, we’ve operated an industrial economy with—almost unconsciously—these assembly-line patterns where we have to watch our workers, and we all commute like lemmings into the office at 8 a.m. and leave at 5 p.m.” However, work today is much different. It is global, more around-the-clock and more conducive to telecommuting, he said. “As much as anything, it’s fear of the unknown that holds us back.” The biggest factor for a successful telecommute program is for management to trust employees.
A key part of the telecommuting arrangement is that it makes employees feel trusted. “Trust is something you really can’t buy,” Roitz said.
Deborah Stoutamire, Ph.D., is vice president for administration of the American Public Power Association and an expert on organizational management.
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