ALT-8 How to Build a Case for Telecommuting
With specific exceptions, such as factory piece-workers, for the price of a telephone call, most employees are readily capable of performing their jobs from the comfort of their homes, if their employers will simply permit them to do so. Such employees include Accountants, Office Clerks, Secretaries, et al.
In order to most effectively broach the subject, carefully construct a GENERAL case for telecommuting for formal presentation to your immediate supervisor; subsequently, you can help other employees, help your company to generate a Public Relations miracle, and earn a raise and promotion for yourself, as well.
I do not ascribe to the "human resources" theory that the average employee cannot be trusted to work within such a private environment. Why did they hire someone, in the first place, whom they did not even trust with the company's assets?
Nevertheless, your company needs sufficient incentive in order to make ANY changes within it's current system, yet, the fact that you find it more convenient to slip out of the shower and sit at your computer in your robe does not qualify as "sufficient". Yet, not only can you, with relative ease, convince your company that it is time to shift toward increased telecommuting, IN GENERAL, in so doing, you can help your company to turn such an elective into a Public Relations coup.
In fact, all of the following incentives possess bottom-line value:
. Heavily over-crowded highways. Extreme pollution and the concomitant ozone-related global warming issues, such as the increasing, permanent depletion of our precious fresh water as it evaporates into outer space [NASA]. Diminishing oil reserves. The rising costs of steel and energy, and. Shifting corporate energies within an increasingly global economy, resulting in increasing outsourcing and adjusted strategies, in order to minimize overhead expenses.
If you take a close look at the news videos being broadcast from South Africa, Beijing, Los Angeles, Rio, Paris, London, et cetera, you will see a disturbing global trend - extreme traffic congestion enveloped by gray skies of acidic smoke while the glaciers are melting all around us. Black and brown acid rain coating arctic ice, polluted fresh water sources, dying cities, drying Great Lakes - the world is gagging to death upon consumerism and upon commuting to work.
Any company executive who swiftly takes advantage of this current opportunity to shift to maximized telecommuting for any and all company employees who do not absolutely NEED to be AT the facility in order to perform their given jobs properly, can become a "hero" for the world's corporate executives to emulate. Earth is choking to death and just waiting for an heroic company to publicly announce that, in order to cease polluting unnecessarily, "the company" is actively pursuing permitting telecommuting for as many of it's employees as possible, thereby diminishing company costs while maximizing efficiency and, thus, profitability.
If, within your proposal, you present a skillfully-organized transitional program and the proper management system for telecommuters, including a listing of essential fixed assets, peripherals, and office supplies, and a Management Oversight strategy, you might find that you are asked to manage the transition, on the company's behalf, or maybe even to manage all of the new telecommuters.
The key is to design as much of the program in advance of your proposal, as possible. Corporate executives prefer to have the system thoroughly considered in advance, and presented as a complete package, rather than to have to accept, merely, a brief summary which they must develop themselves - it saves the company, and it's executives, money, time, and energy, which they will appreciate.
I will grant you that it is unfair to have to perform so much work without advance payment! Nevertheless, if you present YOUR IDEAL PROGRAM, wisely and enthusiastically, at the very least, you might be able to work in the leisure of your favorite easy chair, at home, as a telecommuter, with an increase in salary as a bonus.
