Atlanta the most tele-work friendly city in the U.S. (Boston: gated, living)
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One of the issues with teleworking is that you are always going to have a certain percentage of people who will goof off. For all you know they're sitting around in their underwear playing on Facebook while still drawing a paycheck. You could require employees to give the boss a key so that he can pop in and check up on them. He can obviously do that at the office, so it strikes me as a fair trade-off for the privilege of not having to come in.
Location: Mableton, GA USA (NW Atlanta suburb, 4 miles OTP)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by arjay57
One of the issues with teleworking is that you are always going to have a certain percentage of people who will goof off. For all you know they're sitting around in their underwear playing on Facebook while still drawing a paycheck. You could require employees to give the boss a key so that he can pop in and check up on them. He can obviously do that at the office, so it strikes me as a fair trade-off for the privilege of not having to come in.
Depending on the nature of the work, it could be very easy to tell, or it might not matter. Sometimes people are hired to be there in case something goes wrong, and during down time they're pretty much on their own. Sometimes scheduled deadlines or quotas or similar measurements exist to measure productivity.
I work from home 1-2 days a week as well. I actually tend to get more done at home because I have less interruptions. When I'm at home people from all the offices either tend to email me or scan documents to my share folder on the server. I have noticed more and more people in the accounting and finance fields going to a home based office.
We used to have folks who's drive 45 minutes to the office and the first thing they'd do is spend another 45 minutes heating up their breakfast and gabbing around the coffee machine. Them they'd go to their desk and spend the next hour reading Drudge and forwarding email or checking in on Facebook.
People seem to think that companies can just flip a switch and automatically have the majority of their workforce telecommuting. It isn't that simple. There's lots of internal infrastructure in most businesses that would be cost prohibitive to upgrade to allow for a vast majority of their employees to telecommute. Other companies can't allow it at all -- I worked for a defense contractor who, bound by certain regulations, couldn't allow certain things to be transmitted remotely, wirelessly, etc.
Also, if I'm working from home everyday, is my employer going to pay for my internet access? Seeing that Comcast is throttling network speeds if you transmit over your limit and I have to send video and large files that counts towards work, not home use... why should I be penalized for that?
Then there's the HR and comp & ben ramifications. For example, if you're paid hourly (i.e., the type of job you do is non-exempt) your job would most likely need to be re-evaluated under FLSA guidelines -- you'd technically be at work all the time so you could essentially be paid your hourly rate 24/7, 365.
It makes me laugh when I read posts where people quip, "All businesses should allow their employees to work from home." It doesn't work that way.
One of the issues with teleworking is that you are always going to have a certain percentage of people who will goof off. For all you know they're sitting around in their underwear playing on Facebook while still drawing a paycheck. You could require employees to give the boss a key so that he can pop in and check up on them. He can obviously do that at the office, so it strikes me as a fair trade-off for the privilege of not having to come in.
Depends on the nature of the work as said. I'm in software dev and it's pretty easy to tell there. If someone has billed 8 hours on a particular day but hasn't committed any code that day, it's a pretty obvious red flag. We had a few people like that and they were found out pretty easily.
We used to have folks who's drive 45 minutes to the office and the first thing they'd do is spend another 45 minutes heating up their breakfast and gabbing around the coffee machine. Them they'd go to their desk and spend the next hour reading Drudge and forwarding email or checking in on Facebook.
You know some people are not at "work" to work anyway. Some people goof off as much as possible on any job. There are some employees out there that must have supervision at all times. There are examples people like this who ruin working from home for themselves or others as a privilege at some companies.
People seem to think that companies can just flip a switch and automatically have the majority of their workforce telecommuting. It isn't that simple. There's lots of internal infrastructure in most businesses that would be cost prohibitive to upgrade to allow for a vast majority of their employees to telecommute. Other companies can't allow it at all -- I worked for a defense contractor who, bound by certain regulations, couldn't allow certain things to be transmitted remotely, wirelessly, etc.
Also, if I'm working from home everyday, is my employer going to pay for my internet access? Seeing that Comcast is throttling network speeds if you transmit over your limit and I have to send video and large files that counts towards work, not home use... why should I be penalized for that?
Then there's the HR and comp & ben ramifications. For example, if you're paid hourly (i.e., the type of job you do is non-exempt) your job would most likely need to be re-evaluated under FLSA guidelines -- you'd technically be at work all the time so you could essentially be paid your hourly rate 24/7, 365.
It makes me laugh when I read posts where people quip, "All businesses should allow their employees to work from home." It doesn't work that way.
I don't think I've heard or read anyone saying "all businesses" should do anything. I think what you've read is that many businesses do allow and rely on employees teleworking, and for many companies it's not a big deal, and it allows them to hire experienced talent who might not otherwise be available to them. It also allows folks like me to work more conveniently, and I tend to put in way more hours from home than I would at my office if I had to show up each day. I start earlier and end later, and when I need to take time to attend to a personal matter, I can. My work/life balance is superior in many ways.
Some of your points about Internet access aren't valid. My employer did pay for my broadband access up until 2008, and at that point determined that most people had it anyway and stopped paying for it. They would be correct. How many household today do not have some form of high speed Internet access? Not many, and if you do work from home, is $20 to $50/month more or less expensive than getting in a car each day and filling your gas tank. As a Comcast user for many years, you are absolutely incorrect about them throttling or doing anything else to interfere with data. I use voice and video routinely in my daily routine, and never have a single issue. In fact, the 250GB cap has been lifted and Comcast is in the process of reevaluating whether or not caps will be used.
As has been stated, not all jobs can be done remotely, and that's fine, but many are being done and can be done. As has been shown, if we can increase teleworking by just a few percentage points of the workforce, it will have more impact than a huge expenditure on transit.
You know some people are not at "work" to work anyway. Some people goof off as much as possible on any job. There are some employees out there that must have supervision at all times. There are examples people like this who ruin working from home for themselves or others as a privilege at some companies.
Yep. It would't surprise me a bit if there are a lot of people these days who think putting in a few hours a day entitles them to a paycheck.
And who can really blame them? They can look around and see millions of other people getting a check for doing nothing.
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