Wouldn’t it be great to start 2012 with a new way for companies to save money, while at the same time increasing productivity and going greener? Creating a telecommuting option plan can result in all three.
The Bottom-Line Benefits of Telecommuting
Employers often overlook (or perhaps more accurately, choose to “look the other way” from) the option to offer employees the option to telecommute, even though it can reduce overhead costs by as much as 42 percent and save companies potentially millions of dollars. Sun Microsystems (News 
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Additionally, by having a telecommuting plan in place, companies can also minimize productivity lost due to typical winter issues that often cause employees to miss work, such as flu sicknesses and bad winter weather. According to the Telework Research Network, unscheduled absences cost employers $1,800 per employee per year, adding up to $300 billion per year for U.S. companies.
And of course there are the greener aspects of reducing carbon emissions by cutting back on commuter traffic. In fact, 2.9 million U.S. telecommuters save 390 million gallons of gas and prevent the release of 3.6 million tons of greenhouse gases annually. So where to begin?
Take Telecommuting One Step at a Time
First, employers should consider their perceptions on telecommuting. Many managers still hold on to the antiquated belief that employees need to be physically in the office to be watched in order to be productive. However, the negative stigmas associated with remote work are generally stem from a time (to be fair, not so long ago) when we didn’t have the abundance of technology enabling people to work from anywhere, anytime. Now we do, and the old beliefs really don’t hold up anymore.
With that in mind, companies can consider how telecommuting would work best within their offices. Here are 6 steps to get started with:
1. Have employees assess what components of their job are performed primarily on a computer, the Internet, or E-Mail, and ask them to estimate how much time that represents per day, week, or month. These are the potential tasks that could be done remotely.
2. Ask employees if they’d be interested in trying a telecommute option plan. By starting a plan with the people who are genuinely interested, they’ll be more committed to making it work and providing useful feedback.
3. Look at the overall information on what tasks could be remotely for any trends (for example, project management, customer service, research, etc.), and evaluate which ones would work best trying out for remote work.
4. Ask managers how they measure productivity in the areas they’d like to try, and find out if those tools or processes would be successful in managing the productivity of someone working off-site.
5. Check with the IT team and ask them their thoughts, concerns, or ideas. IT people are generally very accustomed to working remotely, and will be helpful in foreseeing any issues, suggesting products to help, and supporting those telecommuting.
6. Choose a telecommuting option and give it a try! To start, try setting a particular day as the weekly telecommuting day, which will provide more organization, commitment, and perhaps even excitement around it.
As it gets rolling, it won't take long to find out what works best, which ultimately will evolve the plan. Within months, companies can find a telecommuting option plan that provides them savings, reduces employee “absences” and associated loss of productivity, and provides a more greener, flexible, happier, healthier workforce overall.
Sara Sutton Fell is an expert in the online job market with 15 years of experience. Sara is the CEO/Founder of FlexJobs, the leading career website for telecommuting and flexible job listings, and her first business, JobDirect, was sold to Korn|Ferry International in 2001.
Edited by
Stefania Viscusi
