Telecommuting

We all know that the daily commute can be very long and frustrating. Traffic can often cause long delays. These delays cause stress to you, your boss and the coworkers that have to cover for you until you make it into the office. Today there is a new highway that everyone can use to get to work. The delays on this highway are measured in microseconds rather than hours. It is the Information Superhighway. The Information Superhighway has the ability to connect together every computer in every part of the world. This kind of access allows individuals to do research, marketing, communications, sales and a wide range of other tasks normally completed at the office, from the comfort and convenience of their own home. This was the basic principle that started a new trend in business known as telecommuting. This paper will give you the information you need to have a good understanding of what telecommuting is and why it is becoming so popular. In addition, it will discuss how businesses design telecommuting jobs, how they work and how they are managed.

Telecommuting involves letting employees of a company complete part of if not all of their daily work in the convenience of their own home. In some cases this may involve connecting to the companies computer network through the Internet via modem. In other cases it may just mean they complete work at home and then send the completed work back to the office through the mail or by delivering it themselves. Although many people bring work from the office home with them at night to complete before the next day they are not necessarily considered telecommuters. A schoolteacher, for instance, brings students papers home to grade. She then takes them back to school the next day. This does not make her a telecommuter for the simple reason that her compensation is based on the time she spends at school not at home. "Telecommuting occurs whenever an employee is paid for work done at an alternate worksite and total commuting time is thereby reduced" (Mariani, 2000).

While being able to enjoy the comfort of your own home and still collect a paycheck may seem like a good reason, that is not what started the idea of telecommuting. State and federal government first began the research and promotions of telecommuting to help minimize traffic congestion, cut operating cost, and help protect the environment (Hawkins, 2001). The Clean Air Act requires employers in America's most polluted cities to cut commuting of its employees by 25% (Edwards & Field-Hendley, 1996). While many employers are attempting to accomplish this through the use of shuttle services and carpools, others are experimenting with or are already using telecommuting as the solution.

As it becomes more popular, companies are also finding other reasons to design jobs around telecommuting. For instance, research has shown that telecommuting reduces absenteeism and turnover while increasing employee production and satisfaction. As the following case illustrates, telecommuting enables businesses to spread all over the country without the additional cost of office space at each location. Development Counselors International, a 41-year-old economic analysis firm in Manhattan, watched its western business triple as the result of allowing two employees to telecommute rather than resign when they wanted to relocate elsewhere. One employee ended up working out of his home office in Denver, Colorado and another in Tuscan, Arizona (Coplan, 2001).

All these reasons make it beneficial for a company to work telecommuting into the job design, but remember, the employees like it also. This leads to one of the prime reasons for the recent popularity of telecommuting in businesses today, attracting high quality employees. An online benefits company, LifeCare, recently released a survey that showed that employees rate flexible work arrangements as the No. 1 coveted benefit. In the survey flexible work arrangements even beat out health care benefits (Coplan, 2001). A major factor in this is the drastic increase in women in the workforce. As the two-career family gains popularity many companies are changing their benefits packages and job design to accommodate this new source of highly qualified employees.

Although telecommuting can be very beneficial to a company, employers are often leery of the idea. Most often, the feeling of losing control over the employee discourages employers from even entertaining the idea. The phrase "Out of Sight-Out of Mind" often comes to them. Instead, it is often the employee that initiates the idea of telecommuting. The challenge is for the employee to present the idea correctly so the employer doesn't think the employee is just trying to get out of work. June Langhoff is a consultant who works with companies to help them plan and implement telecommuting programs. Langhoff has set up the website with the resources necessary for employees to properly prepare a case for telecommuting to be present to the employer. The site also has information for employers to use to help them choose what jobs are right for telecommuting and what kind of people to fill those jobs (http://www.langhoff.com/).

There are a number of different types of jobs that can be accomplished from a home office. Sales and services jobs, however, seem to be the most popular and well suited for telecommuting. These jobs work particularly well because it allows a company to expand to many geographical locations without having to buy or rent office space at each location. Customer service positions can also work well since it allows people to be in a more relaxing comfortable environment. When American Express began to see a decline in the productivity of it's customer service employees, it researched the problem and set up remote offices. American Expresses saw employee productivity soar when it launched this new telework program. (Hawkins, 2001)

Jobs that require you to interact with colleagues and customers on a personal basis or where you must access expensive equipment or sensitive information may not be right for telecommuting. The reasons for this are quite obvious. Security is a big issue for many companies. Hacking has become a major problem for U.S. companies. Systems that have highly sensitive information on them are often locked out from any outside access to prevent hackers from getting in. Opening these systems up to telecommuters also opens the door for hackers.

Research has shown that an employee working one or two days a week at home can save a company $6000 - $12,000 a year. This is because they are less likely to quit, they're more productive and they require less office space (Lundstrom, 1999). A company should use part of this savings to help equip the telecommuter with the resources they need to do their job. This can include