Telecommuting: A Growing Phenomenon
While most employees travel to their employer's facilities to work, evolving information technologies are enabling more and more people to work effectively from home. With proper equipment, many functions associated with sales and service positions can be accomplished without the necessity of traveling to the central office. The vast number of employers who have benefited from implementing a telecommuting program has created a ripple effect. Each year more and more companies are either implementing a program or expanding an existing one. In fact, AT&T, one of the first major American companies to formally promote telecommuting, now has over half of its U.S.-based managers working out of their homes. Moreover, a study of Fortune 1,000 companies reveals that twenty-five percent of big businesses employ workers who regularly telecommute.
Ten years ago the number of nationwide telecommuters was less than 5 million. Now that figure approximates 15 million and is expected to double in the next ten years. Technology and increasing support by companies are the two major reasons for the steady increase in telecommuters. With a booming job market and high employee turnover becoming commonplace, employers are taking seriously concepts such as telecommuting.
Although telecommuting has a number of important benefits to employers, employees, and society in general, there are pitfalls and traps as well. Employers should carefully consider the advantages, disadvantages and risks before implementing a telecommuting policy or program. This section outlines some of the more important items of consideration.
Reaping The Benefits
The advantages that telecommuting offers has caused it to become increasingly prevalent in the American workplace. Specifically, employers have found that telecommuting:
Increases Productivity: Many companies report productivity increases with telecommuting, reasoning that work schedules can be arranged to take advantage of the employee's most productive work periods.
Reduces Overhead: By requiring sales and service personnel to telecommute, organizations have actually reduced their office space requirements, and, consequently, their rents.
Improves Recruitment and Retention: The labor market today is tighter than ever, particularly in the technology industry. The expense of recruiting a new employee, including direct recruiting costs, personnel administration and payroll costs can be very high. Employees benefit from the flexibility that telecommuting provides. In fact, it creates incentives for employees to remain with the company, thereby increasing the retention rate and decreasing recruiting costs. Moreover, telecommuting allows the company to increase its base of potential employees, since the geographic location of available candidates greatly expands. Finally, telecommuting is also a mechanism for recruiting persons with disabilities. Many individuals who are excluded from the work force solely on the basis of their inability to commute to and from an office, can work very effectively under a telecommuting arrangement.
Decreases Absenteeism: Many absences occur due to an employee not being able to come to work for reasons including illness, pregnancy or emergency. A Wall Street Journal article estimated "that a day's absence of a clerical worker costs, in addition to wages, "up to 100 dollars in reduced efficiency and increased supervisory workload." Considering the number of absences that occur in the workplace over the course of a year, these costs are far from trivial. Telecommuters are less likely to use sick days for their own minor illnesses. Rather than take sick time and be unproductive for the entire day, telecommuters often find that the opportunity to work at home allows projects to proceed (without risking the health of their office mates).
Telecommuting is also useful in minimizing the impacts of other uncontrollable events such as extremely inclement weather, highway construction, or special events (e.g., Operation Telecommute '96 was developed to provide relief to downtown Atlanta's workforce which faced enormous traffic congestion during the Olympic games, and after some of California's major earthquakes many companies established telecommuting arrangements for employees because conditions physically prevented or hindered travel to the corporate center).
Decreases Payroll Costs: There are a number of obvious savings a teleworker has most directly the cost savings from not having to travel to and from the workplace. Savings are also realized by the avoidance of the expense of midday meals at work and having to buy expensive clothing, such as business suits.
Benefits Society: Telecommuting can be an important means to reduce air pollution and traffic congestion and to reduce the high costs of highway commuting. In addition, relocating work into the home means that many families who now see each other only a limited number of hours each day could benefit from the arrangement.
Murphy's Law: If There Can Be A Disadvantage There Will Be
Despite the many advantages of telecommuting, some disadvantages also exist. In making a management decision about whether or not to implement a program, consideration should be made to the disadvantages which could arise:
Monitoring Problems: The most common concern expressed by managers is that if they can't see their employees, they have no way of knowing if they are actually working. One response to that is
