Technology Could Make Telecommuting More Common

Technology could make telecommuting more common
Monday, February 08, 2010
BY DAN MILLER danmiller@patriot-news.com
Teleworking, also known as telecommuting, are terms experts use to refer to people whose employer allows them to work from home some or all of the time.

Telecommuting is growing nationwide and is expected to rise sharply, experts say.

Ted Schadler, an analyst for Forrester Research Inc., said a report done in March estimated that by 2016, 43 percent of all workers in the U.S. will telecommute at least some of the time.

Schadler said the trend will be driven by the spread of broadband Internet service, instant messaging and other technology that makes it easier to interact with people no matter where they are, and management becoming more accepting of telecommuting.

Sean Saffle used to work in Atlanta, helping companies set up telecommuting for their employees. Wanting to get back closer to his western Pennsylvania roots, Saffle took a job late last year with Commuter Services of Pennsylvania, a nonprofit that promotes car and van pooling and other transportation alternatives throughout the south-central region.

Saffle and Brandy Heilman, program director of Commuter Services of Pennsylvania, discussed telecommuting in the midstate with The Patriot-News.

Q: What is teleworking? Saffle: Telework is any time somebody is working in a remote location, typically their home when they could be reporting to an office. In our mind, you have to be eliminating a trip because you are working from home that day and you are not driving on the road.

Q: Is teleworking becoming more popular across the country? Saffle: It definitely is growing nationally. Employers are starting to realize that there are some real benefits, whether it's getting new talent or retaining talent. If you have a job where you can telework, a lot of times you are not going to take a job that pays a little bit more money because you have the flexibility and freedom to work from home. A lot of employers realize they can hold on to their talent that they have right now without having to give them any more money.

Q: To what extent do you think teleworking is catching on in our area? Heilman: I've been running the program for almost five years now, and it is definitely progressing.

We see a lot of companies that have informal policies right now, and they are looking to make them more formalized. We have some companies that have expressed interest that before said, 'That's just not an option for us.' The level is going up here.

There are ones that maybe let somebody work from home a few days a week. Now they are saying, 'That's working, so what can we do to actually adopt that as a policy and let more people take advantage of it and let the company benefit from it as well.'

Q: What do you think needs to happen in our area to encourage the growth of teleworking? Heilman: If we can just find some businesses in the community that can step up and be leaders and actually do these types of things, once other companies see they are doing it, they will be more likely to kind of jump on with that.

That is why we are encouraging some of our larger employers that if you can try this out we can do a pilot with you, see how it goes.

Q: What are the biggest challenges that must be overcome in getting a company to allow employees to work from home? Saffle: We always want to formalize a program with policies. If you are teleworking and you have your company laptop and you all of a sudden take another job, how do they get that computer back. We want to have some policies behind that. Heilman: A lot of people think that when they do a policy like this it has to be all or nothing and it's definitely not that way.

It's usually something that we try out as a pilot for the top performers, people that would be able to still produce when they are first trying this out. It also doesn't have to be an all or nothing as far as time spent out of the office. It could be one day a week, it could be one day a month.

It's kind of getting over that thing where they think, 'If I let people telework I'm never going to see them again.' We definitely want companies to know that's not the case -- you set the ideas of how often are you going to allow it, who do we start with to see how it works then see if we can spread it out to more people throughout the company.