Great Reasons to Telecommute
Associating Suitable Careers withTelecommuting
Because of the technological advances that have taken place in the 21st Century, there are many careers and businesses that can operate successfully and perhaps even be enhanced, financially and globally, by having employees telecommute. For example, careers such as marketing and sales, writing, language translation, accounting, engineering and computer programming can be done from anywhere in the world because the information can be easily be shared via computer and telephone communication. The challenge, however, is to ascertain how telecommuting can benefit both the employer, and employee.
Benefits to Employer
There are virtually dozens of solidly-researched reasons as to why an employer would benefit from telecommuting. There are tax credits and benefits offered by the government; money is saved on office space and equipment; productivity, morale and global competitiveness increase. However, the employee who is attempting to build a case for telecommuting needs to also learn what their employer’s experience, and success, has been with telecommuting.
Benefits to Employee
The employee must consider how telecommuting could influence job evaluations, promotions and raises as well as their relationships with coworkers who remain physically at the workplace. The employee must come to terms with whether they benefit more by being physically at the workplace or by telecommuting.
Research and Testimonials
Research that has been done on this topic is offered by Joan Pratt. In Lisa Shaw’s 1996 book Telecommute! : go to work without leaving home Pratt states, “Currently, the American workplace is going from being a static, moored work force where everybody’s in the same place at the same time to a highly mobile work force that enables companies to operate globally.” Pratt is excited and in favor of telecommuting.
Emily Bassman, part-time telecommuter and director of virtual-office development at Pacific Bell indicates that “Some of the work I do I can do much better at my home office because it requires concentration (i.e., writing, thinking, information integration). My office is eighteen miles from my home, and I work with a lot of other people, but we’re basically a virtual team, since they don’t work directly for me and are in other departments. We all get together once a month and talk about our issues.” She clearly believes that it is possible to have effective contact and communication with those who are part of a team to achieve job-related goals.
Another concern mentioned previously is addressed by author Lisa Shaw, “Telecommuters are evaluated more by what they produce than by how or where they produce it. Their work can be measured in a number of different ways. If for instance, a telecommuter spends a majority of the time on the phone making sales calls, a manager might evaluate his or her progress by looking at the dollar amount of the employee’s phone bills and the number of sales that came in as a result of these calls.”
