June 29, 2008

Op-Ed Contributor

Pajama Life

By NICOLE BELSON GOLUBOFF

As gas prices increase, so will telecommuting and America's ability to make the most of its benefits.

Although the appeal of telecommuting is clear and the number of telecommuters is rising, people would be even more inclined to dial in from home if tax rules weren't stacked against them. Some telecommuters must pay income taxes in more than one state on wages they earn at home. So here's one potential positive outcome of rising gas prices: people who want to telecommute will join together with their employers, who want to retain them, to agitate to change these policies.

Once legal obstacles like these are removed, the nation will realize telecommuting's promise. The benefits include reductions in traffic, carbon emissions and the cost of building transportation infrastructure; increased employment among older and disabled Americans; and more time for leisure and work for employees who aren't spending hours in cars and on trains. We'll have exorbitant gas prices to thank ( technology, and people who believe it is right thing to do).

June 26, 2008

Life's Work

Working Alone in a Group

By LISA BELKIN

MY book proposal was not writing itself. It was half-done, and the stack of research in the corner was growing tall enough to topple. Because it was the only project, among several, without a deadline, it always seemed to fall off the to-do list entirely.

One reason I write from home is that I work best at my own pace and on my own terms. I am typical of the stream of workers who have left traditional offices for home in the last decade, causing a jump in the number of single-person businesses, to 20.4 million in 2005 from 16.4 million in 2000, according to the most recent census. (Not to mention the rising number of people who work from home, especially as telecommuting grows in direct proportion with the increase in gas prices.)

What also makes me typical, though, is my discovery that home is not always conducive to work. Which is how I found myself, with my stack of research shoved into a rolling briefcase, driving 25 minutes from my house to work all last week on the 16th floor of the Marriott Hotel and Spa in Stamford, Conn. A two-room lounge there with polished tables, cozy chairs, a faux fireplace, free Wi-Fi and a printer is home to Soundview Coworking, just one of many such spaces popping up around the nation. The defacto Internet co-working headquarters, coworking.pbwiki.com, shows at least one site in more than 30 states.

Co-working spaces, which first appeared in the Bay Area three years ago, are a cross between home, work and Internet-equipped cafe. They are based on the hard-won realization that while avoiding an office is liberating, it's also energizing to have one to which you can go.

Working from home, Starbucks or even the local library is throwing the baby out with the bathwater, users say. You get rid of the hassle of the commute, the over-the-shoulder-boss and the mind-numbing cubicle. But if you stay home, you lose the routine, the companionship and the accountability (napping is tempting). And you spend a lot of time looking for plugs and too much money buying coffee if you go to a public space. (An ongoing dilemma is how much coffee to actually drink, because you don't want to have to leave your laptop unattended to use the bathroom.)

Writers spaces, entrepreneurial incubators and office suites in which individuals can rent a single room have existed for decades. But co-working, with its open-to-all ethos, is a little different.

The Hat Factory in San Francisco was an early site. It began when Brad Neuberg, a computer programmer who was working by himself, wanted company. He rented space in a building and added a new definition to the term co-working. He eventually moved his creation to a rehabbed former hat factory.

Each place has its own personality. The Hat Factory feels like a college dorm, its users say, or, more accurately, like the four-bedroom loft that it actually is. Its residents share it with outsiders during the day, then take it back at night. For $200 a month, you can be an anchor member, get a key and have a desk reserved. The shared area, with a kitchen, living room and large communal table, is available free to drop-ins during business hours.

Soundview, in Stamford, is a bit more formal, as I realized on the first day when the manager, Catherin S. Mahaffey, coolly scanned my shorts and T-shirt and said, "our members usually dress for work." Soundview also looks like what it in fact is — a concierge suite at a Marriott. In fact, breakfast is served there to those with rooms on the executive floor.

After the hotel guests leave, it is the home base of the Soundview Club, a local yachting and golfing outfit whose members opened the suite to co-working last year because the club wasn't making full use of the space. The monthly fee is $150; there are no drop-ins and you can sit where you like.

Who shows up to which co-working location varies by region. Most of the Hat Factory's clients are in the tech fields clustered in the Silicon Valley, according to Eddie Codel, one of the organizers and a video producer. In Stamford, most of the 20 co-working members are in service industries, and there is a lot of chatting with clients on cellphones, albeit with inside voices.

At Berkeley Coworking in Northern California, the users are a "purposeful mix," said Jonathan Zamick, the founder, who created video games for cellphones out of a sprawling two-story space and last year closed that business and opened this space to co-working.

In order to attract groups beyond computer programmers, he invited an architectural school to hold classes in the space and recruited journalists and documentary filmmakers.

"You want cross-pollination that comes with people of different types of work in the same room," Mr. Zamick said.

At Cubes and Crayons in Menlo Park, Calif., most of the clients are women, which is not typical. Child care is part of the package. The 60 members can drop off their children and work in a quiet lounge a few yards away.

However, one mother who does not use the space is M. F. Chapman, the founder of Cubes and Crayons. She said she loves every detail of the place, from the comfy chairs that have lap desks attached (because that's how she likes to work), to the shelves filled with business books (because that's what she likes to read) to the quotations on the walls (things like "Don't Follow Trends, Start Them") because that's what inspires her.

But once the space opened in January, she said she realized, "I wasn't getting any work done when I was there," because clients wanted to stop and chat. When she has real work, she now heads home. That's where I interviewed her by phone, while her 3-year-old colored and her 9-month-old cooed in the background.

And that is the lesson of co-working. Getting down to work — in the zone, all cylinders pumping, time passing unnoticed — is an alchemy of worker and workspace. You never know what is going to make you click. In the end, it all comes down to putting your bottom in a chair, getting started and ignoring all the possible distractions. Where you do that best can differ by person and by day. It could be your office, your carefully designed office-alternative or your kitchen table with children nearby.

I was able to find it at Soundview, to a point. There were always a few people around, and their presence made it feel purposeful. There was just enough surrounding chatter. So I got to work. The only problem was that I wasn't working on my proposal. However, I did manage to finish this article. Then I repacked my stack of notes and wheeled them home.

The Renewed Allure Of Telecommuting

Posted by Marianne Kolbasuk McGee, Jun 18, 2008 03:44 PM

With gasoline prices rising above $4 a gallon, a recent survey found that 40% of tech workers would willingly take a pay cut to telecommute. Meanwhile, more employers are apparently offering IT pros the choice to work remotely as a perk to attract hard-to-find skills. Is telecommuting an option you offer your staff?

IT staffing firm Sapphire Technologies has found that clients these days are more frequently allowing tech consultants to forgo long commutes in their cars and expensive air travel to client locations and instead work from home or from Sapphire offices closer to home.

"It's not the norm, it's still an anomaly," says Erik Fleishman, manager of Sapphire's Sacramento, Calif., office and West Coast regional recruiting division. "But it's definitely something that's become more popular over the last two months, especially in some markets." That includes states in the Northeast, like Maine -- which often recruits from Boston -- as well as other regions, like northern California, which has a big demand for scarce talent combos, such as health-IT skills and clinical knowledge.

To attract rare talent, Fleishman says clients are telling Sapphire to be flexible on their behalf in the arrangements they offer prospective workers. Sapphire has 52 offices in North America, including 40 in the United State, and so some clients also are asking the staffing firm to allow consultants to work from local Sapphire sites (instead of their own homes) in cases where the client "doesn't know" the contractors (and presumably their productivity level) well, says Fleishman.

Companies in industries such as banking, computer manufacturing, and health care are among the Sapphire clients pitching new off-site gigs to consultants for tech positions like "high level architect," says Fleishman.

As for the recent report by tech career site company, Dice, that found nearly 40% of tech workers would accept a pay cut of up to 10% to telecommute full-time, Fleishman isn't too surprised.

"In the Northeast, some clients who allow people to work remotely are also paying $10 to $15 dollars less," he says. So, indeed, some consultants are willing to accept the lesser pay to avoid travel, he says.

One of the issues organizations have in allowing staff -- any staff, not just techies -- to work from home is that often these people still need to come into company offices from time to time for meetings, on-site projects, and so on. That opens up challenges in terms of juggling workspace.

But a recent report by Nucleus Research points out that software tools, like PeopleCube's Resource Scheduler, can make workspace management easier so that companies can more readily launch or expand flex-work programs, including telecommuting.

By the way, from 2007 to 2008, there was only a slight increase in the number of tech pros who named "telecommuting/work from home" as a factor that matters most to them about their jobs, according to the 2008 InformationWeek Research National Salary Survey of 9,653 IT professionals.

In 2008, 15% named "telecommuting/work from home" as a job factor that matters most, versus 12% who said that in 2007. However, it's worth noting that the 2008 survey was conducted in February and March, months before gas prices spiked to more than $4 a gallon.

According to data kindly provided to InformationWeek by the AAA, the national average per-gallon price for unleaded gas in February was "only" $3.03. And in March, the national average reached $3.24 per gallon for unleaded gasoline.

If gas prices continue to soar, I wonder how high on the priority list telecommuting will spike among IT pros in next year's InformationWeek Research salary survey?

What do you think?

Telecommuting Could Save Gas And U.S. $38 Billion Annually

If the 53% of white-collar employees who could work from home did, the savings would be substantial, according to a Telework Exchange study.

By K.C. Jones,  InformationWeek
June 18, 2008
URL: http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=208700405

Most Americans take fewer car trips, consolidate errands, and eat out less frequently to cope with rising gas prices, but if everyone who could telecommute did their jobs from home twice weekly, the country could save 9.7 billion gallons of gas and $38.2 billion a year, according to a recent study.

Telework Exchange, a public-private partnership for promoting telework, recently surveyed 377 federal and private-sector employees and found that 92% believe they could do their jobs from home. However, only 34% reported that they actually telework.

If the 53% of white-collar employees who could work from home did, the savings would be substantial, according to the study, "How Much Is Too Much -- America's Addiction To Gasoline And Its Impact On The Workforce."

"Americans are not seeing an end to rising gasoline prices," said Cindy Austen, general manager of Telework Exchange. "As we reach the $4 gallon of gas, Americans must turn to alternative methods, such as telework, to cut costs. In addition, employers need to consider offering telework programs and other incentives to retain current employees and recruit new staff members."

Eighty-four percent of respondents said they rely on their own transportation for work.

On average, Americans spend $2,052 annually on gas and an average of 264 hours, or 11 days, commuting each year, the study found. Eighty-nine percent of respondents said they would limit job searches because of potential commuting costs. Twenty-eight percent said they are seeking new jobs to reduce commuting costs.

"With gas prices soaring, we need to explore pragmatic and innovative alternatives to the typical modes of commuting," said U.S. Rep. John Sarbanes, D-Md. "Telework is a win-win opportunity for our federal government. By expanding telework, we can better compete with the private sector to attract the best and brightest to federal service and help federal workers strike a better work/family balance. With gas pushing $4 a gallon, our efforts to pass legislation expanding telework are gaining steam."

Seventy-eight percent of those surveyed said they have changed their lifestyles to reduce their dependence on gas. Still, 38% said they would pay anything for it.

June 19, 2008

State of the Art

Scanning for Groceries From the Comfort of Home

By DAVID POGUE

On "The Jetsons," when George got hungry, he just pushed a couple of buttons on the Food-a-Rac-a-Cycle on the kitchen counter. In seconds, a freshly synthesized meal appeared on a plate, prepared to his exact specifications.

In the real world, food-synthesis science is only in its infancy, as you know if you've ever tasted fake blueberries in a muffin. But there is a machine that could be the Food-a-Rac-a-Cycle's great-great grandfather: a new countertop appliance called the Ikan.

The mission of this $400 device is to eliminate your trips to the grocery store. The hardware component is a bulbous barcode scanner, dressed up in Any-Décor White and mounted on a countertop stand, an under-cabinet bracket or a wall mount. It offers a small color screen on the front, a laser scanner underneath and a Wi-Fi antenna inside that connects to your home wireless network.

Each time you're about to throw away an empty container — ketchup, cereal, pickles, milk, macaroni, paper towels, dog food or whatever — you just pass its bar code underneath the scanner. With amazing speed and accuracy, the Ikan beeps, consults its online database of 1 million products, and displays the full name and description. In a clear, friendly font, the screen might say: "Nabisco Reduced Fat Ritz Crackers 14.5 Oz," for example. Now you can toss the box, content that its replacement has been added to your shopping list.

After a few days of this, you can review the list online at Ikan.net — and if everything looks good, click once to have everything delivered to your house at a time you specify.

Maybe it's not exactly a Food-a-Rac-a-Cycle. But at least it's the Netflix of groceries.

People's reactions to this gizmo are all over the map. Old-school homemakers may consider it a silly redundancy. How much more effort is it, they ask, to maintain a handwritten shopping list? And isn't going to the grocery store more than just a time drain? Isn't it also a little outing, a small source of pride and accomplishment, an opportunity for social interaction?

Other people can't believe the amount of time this system saves. You've just compressed a two-hour weekly errand into about 10 minutes. All you have to do is approve the illustrated, error-proof online shopping list, and then let somebody else battle the traffic, haul the bags and pay for the gas.

The Ikan company has found that customers' reactions also depend on age, income and location (city vs. suburb, for example). But before you decide, consider some of the less apparent aspects of the Ikan.

First, there's an environmental benefit. A big green Recycle log appears on the Ikan's screen whenever you scan a package that's recyclable in your town, warning you not to throw it away; very, very smart. (The company researches each municipality's recycling policy individually as Ikan units are purchased, so the logo may not appear the first day you own the Ikan.)

Furthermore, consolidating a number of deliveries on a single truck removes a number of cars from the road, providing an additional green benefit.

Above all, though, your happiness with the Ikan will depend on what grocery delivery is available in your area.

The best situation is to live in Manhattan or certain surrounding suburbs, where Ikan is smoothly integrated with the D'Agostino grocery chain. For example, if you want something that has no bar code, like fresh fruit, you can press a Voice Reminder button and simply speak it: "Six green bananas." A D'Agostino representative on the other end will manually add the requested item to your order.

Furthermore, if you scan something that D'Agostino doesn't carry, a rep will call you on the phone to discuss a substitution. That speed bump eventually goes away, of course; over time, your standard list fills with those substitute items that the store does carry.

If you live beyond New York City, you may be able to get delivery from a company like Peapod, which offers service through Stop 'n' Shop and Giant stores in 10 states. (That's the service I tested.)

At the moment, the Ikan isn't quite as well integrated with Peapod. For example, those spoken fresh-fruit recordings don't get transmitted to your Peapod.com list. They show up on your page at Ikan.net, neatly typed out when possible (the system offers speech recognition of 800 terms, like "limes" or "bananas"). But you have to add them to your Peapod.com list manually.

You don't get a phone call about substitutions, either. Items that Peapod doesn't carry congregate in a special section of your Peapod.com list; choosing substitutions is left to you.

Most of the Ikan's current weaknesses stem from its fledgling status, not from design or concept problems. It's incredibly solid and speedy in performing its central functions: recognizing your home network, identifying products you're scanning and transmitting them instantly to the Web. Even teenagers won't forget to add things they finish up to the list, since it's so much fun to scan them.

But the Ikan's appeal will grow as the company develops partnerships with more store chains, as the features grow and as the steep price goes down.

The Ikan unit is a little bulky for a kitchen counter. The next version, the company says, will be far smaller; it will incorporate a digital camera instead of a laser apparatus.

It's also a little alarming that the thing is perpetually turned on. Sure, it uses only a trickle of electricity, but seeing that screen lit up day and night, ready for the next scan, will bug the environmentalist in you.

Finally, you've got a wireless, Internet-connected machine with a color screen right there on your counter. What a waste not to have it fetch news, sports scores, weather and other Web info for you — or, at the very least, to offer recipes and how-to cooking videos. The company says that it plans to add all of these features.

Incidentally, if you've never tried home grocery delivery, you're in for a treat; at least in my Peapod experiments, the system is extremely refined. The Web site is exceptionally well designed for quick list-building — you can search by category, by name, by aisle or by items you've ordered in the past.

You can specify a two-hour delivery window, leave instructions like "If no answer, leave in garage," use store coupons (just hand them to the driver), use your store loyalty card, view all of the store's current specials and so on. Frozen items come surrounded by little dry ice packets, which produce huge volumes of white cloudy steam when dropped into a bucket of water — hours of fun for my whole family.

My one disappointment: nearly every item in my test orders came, pointlessly, in its own white plastic bag — every jar of pickles, every package of bacon. After unpacking, I put all 30 bags back into the large insulated delivery coolers that the driver had dropped off, hoping that the store would get the message. Or at least re-use the bags for the next customer.

Still, the time savings are truly gigantic. For a delivery charge of $6 to $8, you save a couple of hours a week and you gain incredible convenience. At the very least, you can use the home-delivery option for staples — the stuff you always buy — and visit the actual store just for the elective items, or things you want to hand-pick.

All right, Americans don't really need another way to avoid moving their bodies or leaving the house. But think of it this way: with all that time you save, you can get to the gym more often. That's the way of the future, isn't it?

TheStar.com

 

Americans flocking to get in to Mexico

June 16, 2008

SAN DIEGO–The kilometre-long queue of cars heading north at the U.S.-Mexico border usually contrasts starkly with the handful of vehicles waiting to go south.

So it's with a certain irony that an increasing number of Californians have been heading south to take advantage of cheaper gas prices.

A gallon of regular unleaded gasoline in San Diego averages $4.61 (U.S.). A few kilometres south, in Tijuana, it's about $2.54 – even less if you pay in pesos.

Paul Covarrubias, 26, who lives in Chula Vista and works in construction in San Diego, crosses the border each week just to refuel his dual-cab Ford F-250 pickup for $60, about half the price in San Diego.

The downside? He still faces a one-hour, or longer, wait at the border coming home.

Associated Press

 

Ford says company will lead urban transportation effort

Posted by anash June 12, 2008 09:31AM

---

"The company that does the best job of delivering that to the market will have a clear competitive advantage."
- Sue Cischke, Ford's vice president for safety and sustainability.

---

Integrating different means of transportation, information technology and land use is the way to provide sustainable transportation in very large cities and address global warming.

That was the message delivered at a conference at the University of Michigan on Wednesday by representatives of some of the world's most prominent automobile, energy and Internet technology companies.

Ford Motor Co. Executive Chairman William Clay Ford Jr. announced a new business initiative that will incorporate many of the new urban transportation ideas discussed at the conference.

The cell phone will be the backbone of the new strategy, said Sue Cischke, Ford's vice president for safety and sustainability, who explained the concept in more detail.

That would allow people to figure out how to integrate daily trips using, for instance, automobiles, public transit, shared cars, taxis and shared bicycles, she said.

Such systems, Cischke said, will be a necessity in emerging "mega-cities," defined as those of 5 million to 10 million or more people.

Ford will be involved in developing all parts of the new model, including Internet technology, and will make money from car sales, car-sharing, royalties, licensing and other means, she said.

"The company that does the best job of delivering that to the market will have a clear competitive advantage," Cischke said.

David Berdish, Ford's manager for sustainable business development, said Ford would use its expertise in logistics, product design and Internet technology to produce the new business model.

Ford will try the ideas first in Cape Town, South Africa, and in Chennai and Bangalore, India.

The discussion was part of a two-day conference at U-M on the emerging urban transportation market. The conference, which continues today, is hosted by U-M SMART, or Sustainable Mobility & Accessibility Research & Transformation.

During a presentation Wednesday evening, Niel Golightly, vice president for downstream communications and sustainable development for Shell International Petroleum Co., said business needs to use a "blueprint" model rather than a "scramble" model to deal with what he called the "hard truths" of surging energy demand, supplies struggling to keep up with demand and environmental stress from energy use.

Energy use will double by the mid 21st century, yet carbon emissions need to be cut in half, he said.

Localized solutions, good policy and collaboration are keys to the blueprint model, Golightly said. The scramble model involves nations simply making sure they have energy available for themselves and paying lip service to environmental issues, he said.

"We're actively advocating for the blueprint scenario," Golightly said.

Reporter John Mulcahy can be reached at 734-994-6858 or jmulcahy@annarbornews.com.

Other speakers included Val Stoyanov, managing partner of Internet business systems at Cisco Systems; Paul Morris, vice president of sustainable planning and development at Cherokee, an investment company specializing in reclaiming environmentally damaged real estate; and Robin Chase, founder and former CEO of ZipCar and now CEO of GoLoco, an Internet-based network that helps people share transportation.

Chase said sharing ownership of cars makes more economical and environmental sense for most people.

"This is a vastly better way of owning and using a car if you live in a city," Chase said.

Susan Zielinski, managing director of SMART, said a new vision for transportation is needed with two-thirds of the word's population expected to live in urban areas by 2025.

"You know that not everybody can have single-occupancy vehicles," Zielinski said.

Audience member Kris Talley of Ann Arbor, an advocate for bicycle use, said she was skeptical when she came to the presentation, but found some useful ideas.

"The (Internet technology) aspect does hold some promise for getting people out of their cars," Talley said.

Amanda Pudenz, a U-M student and member of Transportation Riders United, a Detroit area advocacy group, said statistics presented showing many car owners eager to use mass transit were encouraging.

"That was very interesting because the perception is the opposite," Pudenz said.

Many Tech Workers Would Accept Pay Cut To Telecommute

In a poll of more than 1,500 IT workers, 37% said they would be willing to take a pay cut of up to 10% to telecommute full time.

By Marin Perez,  InformationWeek
June 10, 2008
URL: http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=208403187

Nearly 40% of U.S. information technology workers would accept a reduced salary to have the ability to telecommute, a Dice Holding survey revealed Tuesday.

In a poll of more than 1,500 IT workers, 37% of respondents said they would be willing to take "slightly less" pay to telecommute full time. The survey defined "slightly less" as up to a 10% reduction in salary.

This is only 1% higher than respondents who said they wouldn't take a pay cut. But other surveys suggest that offering the ability to work from home can be a good way to attract and retain talented workers.

Workers can be drawn to the flexibility of telecommuting, and thanks to improvements to personal computers, videoconferencing, and Internet speeds, many remote workers can handle almost all their tasks from a home office.

Another growing issue is the spiraling cost of gasoline, which is more than $4 a gallon. Many private and federal offices are implementing plans that let workers work remotely, or have a compressed four-day workweek to combat the pain at the pump.

In a recent USA Today story, Sun Microsystems estimated that employees who choose to telecommute can cut gas purchases by 135 gallons a year, which at $4 a gallon would save $540. Sun has 18,000 employees who have the option to telecommute.

Only 7% of respondents to Dice's survey said they are already working remotely, although many of those jobs are limited to consulting firms where telecommuting is a necessary part of the job.

Greening the Gov: Is teleworking worth the effort?

After the passage of Rep. Danny Davis's telecommuting bill in the House yesterday, OhMyGov! decided to rummage through some statistics and determine if telecommuting is all it's cracked up to be. What we found was indeed interesting.  First, the basics; In a 2005 poll conducted by ABC News, The New York Times and the Washington Post, it was determined that the average round-trip commute for an employee is 32 miles. If we use the statistic from the Environmental Protection Agency that the gas mileage for cars sold between 1997 and 2007 averaged 20 miles per gallon (mpg), then the average federal employee would save 1.6 gallons of gas for every day of telecommuting.  Assuming the person telecommuted one day a week for 48 weeks out of the year - this accounts for sick leave and vacations - that same person would save 76.8 gallons of gas a year, or $306 per annum at the current national average gas price of $3.983 per gallon. The federal government employs 2.7 million workers, 89% (2.4 million) of whom work in white-collar jobs, according to the latest Federal Civilian Workforce Statistics Fact Book.  If just half of those employees telecommuted once a week, the federal government would be responsible for saving 184,320,000 gallons of gas a year.  In dollars, this amounts to $7.34 billion over a ten-year period.  When these benefits are combined with the environmental benefits of eliminating thousands of pounds of air contaminants and greenhouse gases emitted from vehicles burning gasoline from entering the atmosphere, telecommuting seems to be worth the hoopla.     According to CDW Government, an IT solutions provider to the federal government, 17 percent (459,000) of federal employees telework.  Unfortunately, the number conflicts with the latest report from the Office of Personnel Management entitled, The Status of Telework in the Federal Government, which states that in calendar year 2006, there were 110,592 employees teleworking in the Federal Government. Regardless of who is reporting the correct numbers, the reality is more employees could be teleworking.  There are three main impediments to broad adoption of teleworking policies in the government: supervisor reluctance, a lack of employee awareness about teleworking benefits, and security concerns. According to Telework-Exchange, a public-private partnership focused on telework in government, forty-two percent of respondents are not aware if they are eligible to telework. Ninety percent of these respondents are, in fact, eligible to telework. The No. 1 obstacle to instituting teleworking broadly across government is middle managers, Joseph Hungate, the Treasury Department's principal deputy inspector general for tax administration told Greener Computing News. Hungate went on to state that if middle managers are allowed to telework and are given the tools to manage their employees remotely, including metrics on employee productivity, they are more likely to embrace the concept rapidly. "Managers need to get away from managing conduct and start managing product," he said. Of course, not everyone is cut out for teleworking.  Individuals who have a difficult time self-motivating might find their plasma TV particularly distracting.  Teleworking also requires the proper equipment - those working on a dialup Internet connection won't be responding to emails from coworkers or their boss particularly quickly.  Moreover, some agencies and offices don't allow remote access to email or files due to security reasons. And until productivity measurements are implemented throughout government workplaces more consistently, many will continue to worry that telecommuting will erode employee performance.

Telecommute! Use this Memo to Make Your Case to Your Company

Brad Schepp

 

June 05, 2008

 

Want to save money on gas? Work at home. It´s that simple. Or is it? Despite the obvious benefits to workers, and the fact that it reduces pollutants and demand for dwindling oil, most managers are reluctant to let workers telecommute. It boils down to this: Managers prefer to see their staffs, to have employees nearby. That way, they´re available for face-to-face meetings, but also managers can know for sure that work is getting done.

That´s just dumb.

If you want to be sure someone is working, just monitor their deliverables: the architect´s blueprints, the reporter´s articles, the auditor´s spreadsheets—you get the idea. If a telecommuter isn´t getting the job done, managers will find out soon enough.

You know telecommuting makes sense, but you must explain to your boss why it benefits the company. To help, we´ve reprinted a sample memo you can adapt to your needs. It´s from our book, The Telecommuter´s Handbook. Send the memo to your boss to help make your case for telecommuting!

TO: Bill Sharp

FROM: Jack Rogers

SUBJECT: Telecommuting at Acme Publishing

Telecommuting Defined

Telecommuting means working for a company from a home office or another remote location (e.g., a satellite office or "on the road"), for one or more days a week. Most telecommuters use computers, broadband Internet connections, fax machines, email, and the like to do their jobs and stay in touch with their offices. Hundreds of companies have telecommuters, including many in the publishing field.

What makes a job suitable for Telecommuting?

It doesn´t require face-to-face interaction every day.

It has clearly defined and measurable tasks.

It´s portable. That is, it doesn´t require a lot of resources available only at a central location. Or, if resources are needed, they can be accessed through the Internet (through a Virtual Private Network, for example).

What´s in it for Acme publishing?

Handled right, telecommuting is a win-win situation. Both the company and the employee stand to gain. These are some of the benefits to the company.

Increased Productivity. Telecommuters are an average of 20 percent more productive than their office-based counterparts, according to Professor Jack Niles, the "father of telecommuting" and a telecommuting consultant to Fortune 500 companies. Freed from lengthy commutes and the distractions of an office, telecommuters work for longer stretches. They can also work when they are at their best: morning people early in the morning; night owls, later in the day.

Money Savings. An employee who works from home is not using company resources such as parking spaces, bathrooms and lunch-rooms, computer equipment, desks, chair, etc.

Fewer Sick Days. People who work from home will often still work with colds or other minor ailments. Office workers with these ailments, on the other hand, may just stay home and call it a "sick day."

Easier Recruiting. Companies like Hewlett-Packard have found that telecommuting is an excellent recruiting tool. For example, if we could tell prospective employees that telecommuting is an option here, we could better compete for scarce talent. This is especially important when recruiting highly sought after talent. Although you may not want a new hire working from home, that person could be allowed to do so after six months or a year.

Reduced Turnover. Companies such as New York Life now know that telecommuting programs reduce turnover markedly. It´s clear and simple: valued employees who may have otherwise left stayed on once the company made telecommuting available. They include employees whose spouses were transferred or who received other offers.

Better Morale. Telecommuters are happier. They appreciate the improved flexibility telecommuting brings to their lives. They also like working in synch with their body clocks. It´s also a good feeling to know you are accomplishing more than you were before, and are therefore a more valuable company employee.

How it might proceed at Acme publishing

We should start small. Employees may, for instance, telecommute only one day a week to start. Those with clearly defined and measurable tasks (say a copy editor reviewing a new manuscript) would be a good test case.

Telecommuting could be rolled out according to the following schedule:

1.Managers are briefed on telecommuting. They learn more about it, what its benefits are, and for whom it´s suitable. They are also given some hints about managing employees from afar. Possible candidates are discussed.

2.Telecommuters are selected. This should be entirely voluntary, of course. Some factors that managers may want to consider, though, are whether the employee has a suitable home office. Also, how self motivated is the employee? Telecommuters must work well without close supervision. Not everyone does. Telecommuting is also not a good idea for employees who are new to the company.

3.Telecommuters are briefed on what will be expected of them, and how they can retain ties to the office while working from home.

4.Telecommuting begins. Again, it starts gradually. A core of people gets it underway.

5.Program evaluation. Telecommuters and their managers are called in after a month or so to discuss how it´s working. Possible problems are brought out and discussed and the program is amended accordingly.

Thanks for your time!

 

Telecommuting adds up in accounting

(Reading Eagle (PA) (KRT) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Jun. 1--What is it about the accounting industry that has placed it in the forefront of telecommuting?

"Globally, it's really part of our business model," said Lamar R. Stoltzfus, chairman of Beard Miller Co., Spring Township, which started telecommuting in 1999. "We do a lot of work at client offices, so everybody has to have the ability to access the network remotely.

"Three-quarters of our employees have their laptops with them all the time. They can access time sheets, check e-mails -- we even have the ability to have phone messages put into the inbox right through the computer."

James A. Michalak, partner at Herbein and Co., Spring Township, added that the improved speed of communications in homes has made telecommuting possible.

"When there was just dialup, there was virtually no benefit," Michalak said. "With cable coming through phone lines at much higher speeds, you can have virtually the same environment you have in the offi ce."

He cautioned, however, against expectations that telecommuting will become rampant, either at Herbein or in industry.

"I had a client stop in this morning to drop off some information and we sat down for 20 minutes to discuss it," he said. "The face to face goes a long way in relationships."  ( Would it have been just as effective, if the "information" had been electronically transferred, and discussed via telephone, or web conferencing? )

J. Andrew Weidman, chief executive of Reinsel Kuntz Lesher, Spring Township, observed that electronic accessibility means family issues which most workers face at one time or another no longer mean a lost workday. On the other hand, he agreed with Michalak about the importance of personal contact.

"An important aspect of any business is relationship building and there's something lost when you don't have that human interaction," Weidman said. "On the other hand, some firms are outsourcing their tax reps to India. ..."  ( Why is face to face soooo important, until the decision to offshore is made? )

 

Ultimately, telecommuting is a trend and likely is here to stay, he said.

"We're still getting the work done," he said, "but I've defi -- nitely noticed there are not as many cars here at night as there used to be."

Contact Tony Lucia at 610-371-5046 or tlucia@readingeagle.com.

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Copyright (c) 2008, Reading Eagle, Pa.
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Tech That Makes Telecommuting Work

By Gabe Goldberg
Special to The Washington Post
Sunday, June 1, 2008; K01

The information age has a split personality. Technology improves ever more quickly and we're online everywhere, easily connecting with people around the world. Yet time and money is consumed traveling from place to place by burning the diminishing remains of dinosaurs. Even worse, with gasoline at $4, our gadgets are less consolation while we're stuck in rush-hour traffic.

But technology, gadgets, flexibility and simple steps by employers and workers can achieve the long-promised benefits of telecommuting.

Working successfully from home or another remote location involves more than a creaky computer and slow Internet connection. It requires at least a complete and distinct office, including printer, fax capability (device or Web-based), scanner, copier, desk and mailing supplies, said Stan King, chief executive of Information Technology, based in Falls Church. He also suggests "teleconferencing capability with camera and audio, privacy, quiet and a focus on work rather than watching TV or running errands."  ( Called self discipline ).

Jeff Savit, principal engineer at Sun Microsystems in New Jersey, advocates using separate personal and business computers so documents and security issues don't overlap. He likes sharing a common calendar with co-workers, because they "can't see if you're at your desk, so they know where you are and whether you can be reached."

He says that it's worth being "as self-sufficient as possible for all the technology bits," because "even companies with good telecommuting programs will not be as fast to diagnose and fix your problems" as they are for problems of those in the office.

All but the most independent workers need access to a central network, files and servers. Among the most secure and robust technologies for this is VPN, or virtual private network, available from many sources. VPN requires some setup and administration.

Fee-based services such as GoToMyPC.com, free tools such as LogMeIn.com, and native facilities such as Windows' Remote Desktop make an office computer accessible from anywhere there's a computer and broadband connection. If files are shared among central and remote workers, FTP, or file transfer protocol, is a handy way to convey and store them.

Technology can mitigate feelings of isolation and the lack of hall encounters and water-cooler chats. Bevi Chagnon, president of PubCom in Takoma Park, favors online collaboration and conferencing software such as Adobe Acrobat Connect.

You must "have a way for two or more people to easily -- and I mean easily -- have an online conversation about jobs, tasks, projects," she said.

Other interactive tools such as instant messaging or IRC (Internet relay chat) bridge distance.

Some connections allow administrators to back up data, but following Savit's self-sufficiency mandate requires remote workers to handle complete and regular back up details themselves.

Each remote function demands bandwidth, so a worthwhile investment is a fast Internet connection.

Relatively new technologies allow users to carry applications such as word processing, Web browsing, e-mail, spreadsheets and associated data files on tiny USB drives. These "portable desktop" alternatives can make any computer a functional office.

Being businesslike starts with telephone access. Unlimited service avoids nasty billing surprises. A dedicated line with reliable voice mail and non-cute greeting sets the right tone for callers.

Employer support is necessary for successful telecommuting. Company skills directories to "find the expert" allow teleworkers to contact colleagues quickly. Help desks and information technology staff must recognize and support their invisible brethren.

Workers aren't the only ones who benefit from telecommuting. A recent focus group held by Telework Exchange, an Alexandria-based group that promotes telecommuting, underlined that telework is an important employee recruiting and retention tool.

Addressing societal benefits, a Federal Web site, http://www.telework.gov, highlights how telecommuting enables public and private employers to sustain continuity of operations during natural disasters or terrorist incidents.

Of course, it reduces the economy's dependency on the dinosaur.