Telecommuting, a good solution if business wanted it. (sales, attorney, agent)

[tallrick]

With commuting being a horrible pain and expense for many people, I am surprised that telecommuting is not more widely used. I see office buildings full of people who sit at a desk using a telephone and/or computer. In my own business that is a good portion of my job. As an experiment I set up my own link from the office to my home and built a home office. Although my 15 x 20 home office is 50's style, I have all the amenities of the real office, phone system, two computers, file server, scanners, fax server, printers, tech equipment and product samples. I go to the regular office about once a week. Believe it or not my productivity has increased, and my stress level significantly decreased. Occasionally I have a tech-issue to deal with but I keep spare parts and am extremely resourceful and get things running quickly. Even when I was hit by a hurricane and had no power, and the phones were not running I used the fixed point wireless internet and was able to get my work done on generator power. A nation-wide high speed network would make office worker commuting less necessary. Perhaps many workers would not be able to work from home, but for me it has been a time-saving enterprise that has also given me a better work environment and saved me thousands of miles of travel. Anyone else with telecommuting experience?

[cdelena]

I telecom muted on and off over the last ten years and gave up my office for the last five years I worked. With two computers and two phone lines I could do 99% of my job from my home office, with only the need to travel a few times a year.

Although enlightened businesses are doing this more often I can say it is less satisfying for the employee much of the time. The lack of social interaction and pressure to work longer hours makes it a pretty demanding existence.

If I went back to work I would still do it but would want to have a little more time in the office.

[dgz]

I find it surprising too that telecommuting is not more commont. I telecommuted for a few years and I loved it. As long as I had my phone, PC, VPN connection, Sametime, IM, etc., I was able to do 95% of my work from home--the 5% being for when it was more helpful to have face-to-face meetings. I didn't lose lots ot time having to get dressed for work, drive to/from everyday, run home in the middle of the day to get my cable or plumbing repaired or wait for furniture delivery, etc. If I had the flu, I could work from home with the flu instead of bringing it into the office, which would then affect several other people. Costs for gas, clothing, and eating out for lunch were a lot lower. I could've made less money with the telecommuting job and would've been fine with it.

When I consider how much money companies spend on lighting, equipment, cubes/offices, etc., I think it would be very profitable for them to let people with specific job functions telecommute. (For many companies, their lighting bills alone are in the tens of thousands!) Also, in cities like Dallas, where I live, telecommuting would relieve a lot of traffic congestion and cut down on fuel consumption and C02.

[tallrick]

I am convinced that telecommuting is a vast untapped potential. The only bad thing is that a lot of today's jobs are service work which cannot be telecommuted. But an alternative I have thought of is neighborhood-based work from home. Would have to sue many cities and get the zoning ordinances changed, but hopefully oil prices keep rising and the tide turns against zoning, which is the source of most of our problems. As for expenses I have determined that is is much more expensive to pay the utilities on a single office building than individual home offices. As a customer I would be just fine with using the services of a sales associate, real estate agent, attorney, doctor or any professional who works from home. Imagine not having to drive to a downtown facility and struggle with parking, and waste time when going to a nearby home works just as well. The same could be done with computer techs, plumbers, electricians etc. The best part would be calling tech support for a company and finding an American to talk to! Software development and even web servers could be set up at home, and uploaded to central servers. Just one person, myself would have used 4 gallons per day of gasoline to commute, and reduced it to 8 gallons per week, saving 624 gallons in one year. Imagine if a million people did this?

[goodtype]

Business is about relationships and communication and being at home trying to do assignments that involves working and interacting with others-- does not work. In promoting telecommuting, they try to say all the interaction can be done by email and phone calls. I find it easier to just walk over to someones office and iron out the issue. Telecommuting causes memo wars and missed phone calls.

I do see the energy saving advantages to telecommuting.

[tallrick]

In my office I have found videoconferencing a viable alternative, and we do get together 2-4 times a month. Cameras are used at the office and warehouse, and also at a telecommuter site. Most of our sales calls are from dealers nationwide, but if a local dealer needs personal time, I will either meet him at the office or at his place of business, which ever is more convenient. Phone calls are no problem as the phone system we use is VOIP based and shows the status of every extension either by PC or phone indicators. When I speak to someone face-to-face in the office it is often less effective as there is no record of it, and if forgotten can cause trouble. All suppliers today are overseas, making traditional meetings all but impossible. Most can't speak English, so e-mail is the way to go thanks to translation software. The only way I can see telecommuting becomming less of an advantage is if the US starts manufacturing again.

[GreenMachine]

I do all my work over the phone and internet, however, nothing can replace that face-to-face contact, which is especially important if you want to get promoted in your company. You need to shake hands with people, sit in meetings, and join them for lunch.

Greenie

[macroy]

For the last 7 years, all of my jobs (two companies) allowed for telecommuting. For the most part, its not a strict policy - however, we are basically allowed to make our own schedules. I'm not sure how common this is, but its basically how much you produce, not where you are or how long you took. Meetings were still scheduled and I still am in the office when necessary, but I pretty much come and go as I please. I am connected at all time either via my computer or my PDA... but I also chose when to respond.

It like a "in between". I have an office - but I would really be able to get by with just a common cubicle.

Cisco does that with their sales force (I have a buddy that works there) - you can walk into any Cisco office, sit down at a cubicle, log in, and the phones, data, and email are automatically routed to that cubicle. This way, you would only need a subset of office/cubicle for your staff (saving on energy) ... but still maintain that face time if necessary for meetings, etc.

[aaauger]

I worked in IT for years in positions that were mostly heads-down (i.e. minimal interaction). Several times, management tried tele-commuting and there were absolutely no abuses. For many of us, productivity increased. We were always reachable by email, IM and phone. We attended all meetings. We rotated so that there was always a representative from our group in the office. But the privilege was always retracted. Possibly management was being challenged by those who weren't being allowed to tele-commute (even though it's not grounds for a discrimination claim). Possibly management felt uncomfortable walking through an empty building. The professionalism, productivity, and technology existed - but the management support did not.

[Lethal_Poison]

Originally Posted by goodtype

Business is about relationships and communication and being at home trying to do assignments that involves working and interacting with others-- does not work. In promoting telecommuting, they try to say all the interaction can be done by email and phone calls. I find it easier to just walk over to someones office and iron out the issue. Telecommuting causes memo wars and missed phone calls.

I do see the energy saving advantages to telecommuting.

Walking over to someones desk is largely an interaction dying out with the baby boomers. The whole younger generation routinely communicates almost exclusively by email, and expects to be communicated with by email unless its an extremely urgent or out of the ordinary item.


By the way, almost all companies who have brought on telecommuting report an increase in productivity.