Teleworking in the ATL taking off! (move, estate, office)

[arjay57]

Originally Posted by Born 2 Roll

New ARC survey shows telecommuting rates nearly doubling between 2007 and 2019

A new survey shows that teleworking rates nearly doubled from 22% in 2007 to 41% in 2019 within the 10 metro Atlanta counties that make up the ARC (the Atlanta Regional Commission).

From What's Next ATL:


Ditching the Commute: New ARC Survey Shows Big Rise in Teleworkers (What's Next ATL)

ARC Regional Commuter Survey Shows Big Rise in Teleworking... Survey Sheds Light on How Metro Atlanta Residents Get to Work (Atlanta Regional Commission News Center)

This is good news. Telecommuting is the single biggest thing we can do to address work-related transportation, and implementation doesn't require billions of dollars or decades of delay.

[Born 2 Roll]

Originally Posted by sedimenjerry

I honestly think traffic would be worse than it currently is if not for telework. Even part time. A few weeks ago, I think it was a Thursday, we were allowed to leave at 3 instead of 5 to go and work from home the remainder of the day due to weather. I think it ended up just being a ton of rain but I was happy to avoid the normal 5 pm rush. I figured it would have been extra bad but when I looked on Google maps, traffic was actually better than normal despite the rain and I suspect a lot of people worked from home that day. The weather wasn't severe enough to cause everyone to skip work like an ice day, but probably bad enough that people said screw it I'll work from home.

We have certain days when we work from home. But, if there's a special situation like weather, or someone has to fix something and you need to be home, sick, etc., you can work from home. It doesn't have to be a full 40 hour work week to make a difference.

Originally Posted by arjay57

This is good news. Telecommuting is the single biggest thing we can do to address work-related transportation, and implementation doesn't require billions of dollars or decades of delay.

YES.

These are all excellent points (especially in the bolded).

The rising popularity of telecommuting/teleworking has been (and continues to be) a Godsend to a metropolitan area like Atlanta, which struggles with a sparse arterial road network and limited regional transit options.

Were it not for telecommuting/teleworking, Atlanta's road network probably would be impassable during peak hours.

[sedimenjerry]

Bringing this back. With all the Coronavirus shutting down (I promise this isn't virus-centric) everything. A lot of people have been working from home. My company was supposedly close to going to 3 days WFH nationwide (I was doing one day). Well, with this, we pretty much forced everyone to WFH with very few exceptions and so far it's worked out well. My sister has been WFH for 2 weeks. My dad did today, and my mom has the stuff just in case.

Does anyone think this has accelerated the adoption of at least partial WFH policies? There are some things that will revert back to the office, but I think a lot of companies are seeing a lot of work can be done well at home. And at this point, those working from home have the materials needed. I would be shocked if once this is all done, we don't go straight to 3 days WFH. I think that at this company at least, I'm done going to the office 4 days a week. We have nearly 25,000 people nationwide using the VPN and accessing systems that are hosted in a few select offices (a lot of processing is done on these servers vs our laptops).

Now obviously the cut down in traffic isn't just people WFH AND some will go back to the office for meetings and the like, but I would think a lot of companies are (or should) taking this time to reevaluate their WFH policies, if it's working well.

[markjames68]

Good time to reinvigorate this thread!

I think it’s going to open many “traditional” leaders’ eyes because people are being forced to WFH en masse. VPN and other enablement technologies are a lot cheaper than paying for commercial real estate, which could take a hit.

I’m a paying Zoom user and for $35 a month I get videoconferencing and a business number. A decade ago that would have cost hundreds at a minimum.

[DaBurgh]

This is our 2nd week - I feel more productive thanks to less interruptions.

I hope they let us continue at least on a partial basis.

[markjames68]

Originally Posted by DaBurgh

This is our 2nd week - I feel more productive thanks to less interruptions.

I hope they let us continue at least on a partial basis.

My guess is you’re not juggling kids and schoolwork. It’s a definite challenge.

[DaBurgh]

Originally Posted by markjames68

My guess is you’re not juggling kids and schoolwork. It’s a definite challenge.

truth lol

[sedimenjerry]

Originally Posted by markjames68

Good time to reinvigorate this thread!

I think it’s going to open many “traditional” leaders’ eyes because people are being forced to WFH en masse. VPN and other enablement technologies are a lot cheaper than paying for commercial real estate, which could take a hit.

I’m a paying Zoom user and for $35 a month I get videoconferencing and a business number. A decade ago that would have cost hundreds at a minimum.

We use Skype for business for most things. We actually switched from landline phones to using Skype entirely. Well, I'm sure they're glad now cause we haven't lost any phone functionality.
We do use Zoom for any sort of training session. It definitely has a lot more features than Skype that makes it useful for remote classes. If a Fortune 500 is willing/able to train people on Zoom (as opposed to flying them to CT), you can believe it's a useful tool.

[Need4Camaro]

Admittedly I haven't seen a softening in the tech market despite the virus yet...although I have been called for alot more WFH positions.

[arjay57]

Once more of the big dogs see that WFH is effective and cost-saving, maybe they will go with it.