Benefits of Telecommuting

Posted on August 18, 2008 
Filed Under Chief Blogging Officer

Telecommuting is becoming more and more popular, and to me, it makes a lot of sense. With the prices of gasoline hovering around $4.00 a gallon and the earth warming due to greenhouse gas emissions, telecommuting saves workers time and money and it is good for the environment as well.

I have been able to work from my home for the last couple of years for the most part, and I have been extremely productive and virtually stress free. The last job that I had to commute to was on the other side of town, and it was about 15 miles away, but the traffic made it a 30 minute drive at best, and it would often take longer than that. So I had to leave for work almost an hour before I had to be there, and I would arrive every day rather stressed out from the commute. When you’re sitting in gridlock on a freeway with several thousand of your closest friends at 7:00 a.m. you really start to question the wisdom of the “system.”

So in a very real sense I committed nine and a half to ten hours of my time a day in order to earn eight hours worth of pay. Plus, I used about a gallon of gas a day. At today’s prices, that’s an extra twenty bucks a week, plus the wear and tear on my vehicle.

Allowing people to telecommute would seem to me to be good for most companies as well. I think that happy people are more productive, and when you are working in your own surroundings you feel completely comfortable and there are no distractions. The company doesn’t have to provide you with any equipment or space. You save them money while you optimize your own ability to produce for them.

I was reading a post earlier today titled “Working From Home” on a blog called Design For Learning, and in it the author, who telecommutes, was asked by his dad how the company can keep track of what he is doing. He said they do it the same way that they did when he was sitting in the cube farm. He said “They know I’m working because I get my job done.”

He also brought up an interesting point that I have considered as well. He estimates that he used to spend at least ten percent of his time filling out task-tracking sheets and status reports to prove his level of productivity, but in fact, he could have been producing during that time instead of filling in the sheets! If you multiply that time by all of the company’s employees, that is a significant amount of lost productivity.

At the end of the day, even if you are at work and being “supervised,” nobody is watching you do what you do. It is your production that they see, so telecommuting doesn’t really change that equation to any great extent.

Another positive for the company that allows telecommuting is that people won’t leave the company because they want to move, or have to move because of a spouse’s transfer or a family matter. You can also consider talented candidates who may not live in your area. For companies that are located in less populous areas, or areas without many candidates with the right specialized qualifications, this can be a major consideration.

Personality conflicts in the workplace are avoided by telecommuting. We like to talk about “culture fit,” but it becomes much easier to attain when all that is required is productivity, professionalism, and polite communication. In a sense, progressive workplace culture should involve looking for people who are savvy and self motivated enough to do what is necessary to be a successful telecommuter. I wouldn’t want to hire someone who I couldn’t trust to work independently.

Telecommuting is the wave of the future. It is more efficient on many levels and it provides people with the freedom to live wherever they want to and work in a manner that is ideal for their particular proclivities. It’s all about results; if you can get the job done from home, why not telecommute?

           

Comments

3 Responses to “Benefits of Telecommuting”

  1. Stop The Assaults » Saving Time and Energy on August 19th, 2008 12:03 am

    [...] presto, I get to work plus I am not tired anymore, same goes with the article I saw online about telecommuting. It’s not just me now, there are thousands of other companies that are doing it and I think [...]

  2. Aaron H on August 21st, 2008 2:04 am

    There are a lot of advantages, but the biggest downside I have experienced with telecommuting is lack of a kind of personal connection. You end up spending your days with your cat or dog if you have one, and you miss out on a lot of things… Impromptu hallway meetings, coffee breaks with co-workers, ping pong tournaments… :-) The expression ‘out of sight, out of mind’ applies as well. This could be good or bad depending on how you look at it. Sometimes work being distributed to team members tends to be lighter to telecommuters, but then again so do pay raises and bonuses.

    The jury is still out for me personally, but I’ll update this comment if I ever come to a conclusion one way or another (unlikely).. ;-)

  3. Fit Fuel Blog » ADI ARIFIN: Writing Life on August 22nd, 2008 12:18 pm

    [...] also the article about the benefits of telecommuting and the thought of some culture. You can read the articles in the log to open up your mind about [...]

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