21st CENTURY MOMS

2009-12-03T23:53:00.000-05:00

Talent Management Perspectives

Published December 2009
Fielding Objections to Telecommuting
Katy Lynn
Telecommuting options offer strong competitive advantages to
organizations that wish to attract and retain top talent in this
changing workplace.

Telecommuting is defined as allowing an employee to work remotely
through the use of electronic connections with a central office.
Offering this as an option to employees provides the opportunity for
them to have a better work-life balance and still maintain
productivity standards.

The primary struggle lies not in implementing telecommuting, but in
convincing management teams to change. HR professionals must know how
to meet management opposition in order to gain consent for the change.
Here are some of the most common forms of resistance they may
encounter.

"Workers won't be productive unless they're on-site for me to watch
them." This is one of the top reasons managers give for resisting
telecommuting. Many believe their teams are only productive with
constant supervision.

This belief is completely unfounded. Statistics show that
organizations that offered telecommuting options actually saw an
increase in productivity and a decrease in absenteeism. Working from
home gives employees easier access to their work and more time to get
it done, while still allowing them time with their families. It's best
to approach this type of opposition by implementing telecommuting on a
trial basis so productivity can be monitored; this will demonstrate
the increase in employee engagement firsthand.

"I can't manage workers unless they're on-site." Managers work hard to
establish leadership style and believe that if employees work
off-site, things will fall apart. Telecommuting would mean that
managers would have to take on the additional work of coordinating
both on-site and off-site employees.

It would be to the organization's detriment to concede this point and
risk the loss of talent for the sake of catering to a manager's
inability or unwillingness to coordinate an off-site team. HR
professionals can invest in cost-effective managerial training to
provide the necessary skills to lead an off-site team.

"Teams can't coordinate unless everyone is available on-site."
Managers recognize that employees can benefit greatly from the
knowledge and experience of more senior team members. They believe
that allowing team members to work remotely will mean sacrificing
this.

Technology has enabled organizations to offer telecommuting options
without losing knowledge-sharing capabilities. Webcams,
videoconferencing, e-mail and podcasts are just a few of the
technologies available that allow employees to work from home and
still coordinate with team members.

The greatest fact to refute this argument is that managers have been
missing out on potential subject-matter experts by avoiding
telecommuting options. In recent surveys, organizations indicated that
telecommuting options gave them greater access to more qualified
talent that wouldn't be accessible locally.

"We can't afford to offer telecommuting options." In actuality,
organizations can't afford not to offer these options. Recent surveys
have shown that regular on-site 8-to-5 schedules are quickly becoming
antiquated. Telecommuting will become a more common practice in the
next few years, and failure to meet that change will only result in
the potential loss of top performers. Telecommuting is cost-effective
and has a positive impact on employee engagement, retention and
attraction — all of which are critical for organization success.

We live in a changing workplace, and organizations must change with it
or risk irrelevancy in this evolving market. Employee needs are
transforming quickly, and the desire for a greater work-life balance
continues to grow. HR professionals must be able to address manager
apprehension regarding telecommuting so the organization can meet
these employee ne

Katy Lynn is a PHR certified HR generalist with Harland Financial
Solutions. She is currently a student in the master of human resources
program at Rollins College in Winter Park, Fla.

THE VOWS

2009-06-04T00:32:00.000-04:00

General Motors, please repeat after me:

We, General Motors take you The United States of America to be our number one producer of wealth, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish till death do us part.

The United States of America, please repeat after me:

We, The United States of America, take you General Motors to be our number one source of wealth, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish till death do us part.

The moral of the story...

It's a lot easier to make a commitment, than it is to keep one.

What is preventing GM from closing their non-profitable North America manufacturing sector, and transforming themselves into a well know import?

2009-05-15T20:11:00.001-04:00

May 13, 11:59 PM EDT

Chinese imports could bring GM political troubles

DETROIT (AP) -- As thousands of General Motors workers await word on more U.S. plant closures, reports that the company plans to import Chinese-made vehicles to the U.S. have created a political problem for the automaker and the White House.

The reports, which GM will neither confirm nor deny, could mean trouble because GM is supported by $15.4 billion in U.S. government loans, largely due to the Obama administration's desire to preserve the company's 90,000 U.S. jobs.

The United Auto Workers charged last week that the Detroit automaker intends to almost double over the next five years the number of vehicles it imports to the U.S. from Mexico, South Korea, China and Japan.

"GM should not be taking taxpayers' money simply to finance the outsourcing of jobs to other countries," Alan Reuther, the union's Washington lobbyist, wrote in a letter to U.S. lawmakers.

The carmaker, which was in danger of running out of cash early this year, faces a June 1 government deadline to cut costs and complete other restructuring measures or go into Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. It also has requested another $11.6 billion in government loans to make it through this year, and faces the prospect that the government will soon be its largest shareholder.

On Wednesday, Shanghai Securities News and other Chinese media reported that GM plans to begin exporting vehicles from China to the U.S. within two years, ramping up sales to more than 50,000 by 2014.

GM spokesman Tom Wilkinson in Detroit would not comment on the reports. The White House and Treasury Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

"GM is reviewing various options," GM's China office said in a written statement received Thursday. "We are not discussing details of our future portfolio, beyond what we have disclosed in auto shows and our viability plans."

But the report reiterated the company's emphasis on first meeting demand in the Chinese domestic market.

"GM's philosophy has always been to build where we sell, and we continue to believe that is the best strategy for long-term success, both from a product development and business planning standpoint," it said.

Harley Shaiken, a professor at the University of California at Berkley who specializes in labor issues, said increased overseas production and imports could prove politically tricky for GM.

"The reason is simple - production location is a corporate decision, but when it's on the taxpayer dime, there are different sensitivities, so the notion of billions for a rescue package and offshore production, I think, could be politically combustible," he said.

Shaiken said GM needs to lower costs, which is accomplished with cheaper overseas labor. But it must also address concerns of the U.S. government, which wants to preserve American jobs.

"GM is getting funding from U.S. taxpayers to help save the company," Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, said. "Taxpayers deserve more than Chinese imports in return. Taxpayer funds should be used to build the next generation of fuel-efficient vehicles in the U.S., not abroad. This is about creating jobs and rebuilding our economy."

GM, though, says the percentage of cars made and sold in the U.S. will remain stable.

Company documents show that American-made cars will comprise 67 percent of all vehicles sold in the country this year. The number drops slightly to 66 percent in GM's 2014 projections. Imports will amount to 33 percent this year, rising to 34 percent by 2014.

The company says the import mix could change by 2014, with fewer vehicles produced in Canada and more produced in Mexico and other countries.

"The percentage sold in the U.S. will stay constant within a percent or two," Wilkinson said. "The number of vehicles built in the U.S. will increase as the market recovers."

He reiterated that the company's goal is to build vehicles in the regions where they are sold, in part to avoid getting stung by currency fluctuations. GM, he said, builds 90 percent of vehicles sold in the U.S. in North America, and that is not expected to change.

Of the 3 million vehicles GM sold in the U.S. last year, it imported the Chevrolet Aveo and Pontiac G3 subcompacts from South Korea, the Pontiac G8 muscle car from Australia and the Saturn Astra compact from Belgium. The Saturn Vue, Chevrolet HHR small sport utility vehicles and several pickup truck models were imported from Mexico. Full-size pickup trucks, several sedans and small SUVs and the Chevrolet Camaro were brought in from Canada.

Still, the UAW generally opposes importing vehicles into the U.S. According to its figures, the percentage of GM's U.S. sales from Mexico, South Korea, Japan and China will increase from 15.5 percent now to 23.5 percent in 2014.

Reuther wrote that GM's increased imports would be equal to the output of four U.S. assembly plants, "the same number that GM plans to close."

The union currently is negotiating with GM for government-demanded labor cost cuts, including 16 plant closures. At a leadership meeting in Cleveland Wednesday, leaders were told to expect a vote on concessions before the June 1 deadline.

GM millwright Ron Bear of Belleville, Mich., who attended the meeting, said the rank-and-file would be unhappy with any more imports.

"As far as importing cars, what is that going to do for our jobs? I guess that's the question," he said.

GM would be the first company to import cars from China although automakers have brought in components in the past to save on labor costs. Most Chinese automakers have been daunted by meeting U.S. safety standards. They also face the uphill battle of winning consumer confidence for unfamiliar brands.

According to Chinese media reports, the primary exports to the U.S. would be small cars similar to the Chevrolet Spark subcompact.

David Cole, chairman of the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, says it makes good business sense for GM to import subcompacts from China because the U.S. market for them is uncertain, but there is strong demand in China.

With gas prices around $2 per gallon most Americans will keep driving bigger cars. U.S. sales would be too small to justify the expense of building and equipping an assembly plant, he said. At the same time, exports to the U.S. would allow GM to keep its Chinese plants running at maximum capacity, which is the formula to make money, he said.

"In the short term, you're going to locate your plants where the core of the market is for that product," he said.

Cole suggested that for Obama, returning the company to viability would outweigh the drawbacks of importing some cars.

"What's more important, some jobs in a particular factory somewhere or the overall success of the company?" Cole asked. "That is really far more important."

---

Associated Press writers Ken Thomas and Jim Kuhnhenn in Washington, Thomas J. Sheeran in Cleveland, Dan Strumpf in New York and Elaine Kurtenbach in Shanghai contributed to this report.

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2009-04-20T12:05:00.001-04:00

Fiesta tops Golf in European sales

The Ford Fiesta dethroned the popular Volkswagen Golf in March to become Europe's most-popular vehicle, according to JATO Dynamics, a Britain-based data company, even while industry sales declined 9%.

The Golf had been the top-selling vehicle for a year, but Fiesta has been well received since the new version went on sale last fall. Fiesta also benefited in Germany and Italy from government incentive programs that have provided money to people who turn in old cars when they buy new cars, JATO said.

Ford Motor Co. sold 52,805 Fiestas in Europe last month, up 15.5% from March 2008, while Golf sales dropped by 0.1% to 46,415.

Ford plans to begin selling the Fiesta in North America early in 2010.

2009-04-20T12:01:00.001-04:00

SHANGHAI AUTO: Ford: High Single-Digit Growth In China Market

April 20, 2009: 03:59 AM ET

SHANGHAI -(Dow Jones)- Overall sales in China's automobile market are likely to show high single-digit percentage growth this year, a senior executive at Ford Motor Co. (F) said Monday.

Robert Graziano, chairman and chief executive of Ford Motor (China) Ltd., made the remark at the Shanghai Autoshow but declined to disclose Ford's sales target in China this year.

"Our desire is to at least meet industry growth and ideally exceed industry growth," he said.

China remains one of the few auto markets in the world that is still growing. China's auto sales climbed for a second straight month in March, rising 5% to 1.11 million units. In contrast, March sales fell 30% in the U.S. and 32% in Japan.

Last year, China's vehicle sales growth slowed to 6.7% to 9.38 million units, falling short of the official 10 million unit target. It was the first non- double-digit growth rate in China's auto sales since since 1999.

Ford's sales in China will be boosted by the introduction in early March of the Fiesta sedan and hatchback, which qualify for a purchase tax cut implemented by the Chinese government in January, Graziano said.

-By Patricia Jiayi Ho, Dow Jones Newswires; 86-21-6120-1200; patricia.ho@ dowjones.com

2009-01-14T14:48:00.001-05:00

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Send workers home...

Tejaswi Shekhawat And Virat Markandeya

January 8, 2009

Mornings are particularly busy for Simone Premji, 34, Manager, HR, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Mumbai. It's a race against time to complete household chores, but Premji is in no hurry to leave for office—simply because she works from home. Premji joined TCS in 2002 and worked from office for three years until she had her daughter, Aliya. She initially took a year off and then wanted to get back to work. As a working mother, she was better off with a flexible working option. She got more than that; TCS gave her the option to work fulltime from home. Now her daughter goes to school, but she continues to work from home. "Something that started on a need basis has become a policy and way of working now," she says. TCS does not have a work-from-home (WFH) policy, but extends the same to employees who need it.

Mumbai-based Sameer Deshmukh's daughter Richa thinks her father has probably lost his job. What else could explain his presence at home when he should be in the middle of meetings in his office? The answer to Richa's confusion lies in the 'Work from Home Pilot Programme' at IT and BPO company MphasiS where Deshmukh, 42, works as Delivery Leader of the banking vertical. Deshmukh says he can't wait for this pilot programme to become a fulltime policy. "With e-mails and phone, there are no issues of connectivity. We are in a world where face-time is not required. Everything, including appraisals, can be done on e-mails," he says.

Simone Premji Manager, HR, TCS

Why telecommute:"Needed to balance out work and family"

Challenges: "Sometimes connectivity and a sense of dis-engagement"

Premji and Deshmukh are part of a growing number of employees opting for virtual workplaces or telecommuting, with organisations increasingly putting in place fulltime work-from-home programmes. The objective is two-pronged—to retain the talent pool and cut costs. But, that's not all. Says Shanthi Naresh, Principal Consultant, Human Capital, Mercer Consulting (India): "WFH policies have a great impact on employee engagement… while many organisations explicitly position WFH practices as part of the company's total reward strategy and use it as a great attraction and retention tool, the impact of WFH practices on employee engagement is often underestimated."

The trend of telecommuting may strengthen with organisations looking at reining in costs. "Today, when most organisations are trying to enforce cost-cutting measures, telecommuting is one of the most effective. From an employee's perspective, though, people may think twice. They will not want to move out of office. The employees may worry along the lines of— out of sight, out of mind," says Elango R., Chief Human Resource Officer, MphasiS.

Lower cost, higher productivity
While the jury is still out on the benefits of work-from-home, costcutting is clearly one of the drivers. "This policy seems to be working well for both the company and the employees. The productivity of our employees has gone up by 20 per cent," says Elango. Elango does some numbercrunching to drive home the point. "On an average, a company spends Rs 22,000 per person only on the seat cost. When he is working from home, all his needs like AC, food, transport etc., are taken care of." Elango would know because he works from home as well. "We as an organisation have to look at this as a policy and not a privilege because it probably benefits us more than the employee," he says.

IT major Cognizant, too, is actively adopting WFH. It is providing the option of telecommuting to people engaged in production support activities to avoid commute at odd hours. Says T. Sridhar, Chief People Officer, Cognizant: "Our belief is that if a fifth of our employees becomes part of this new arrangement, over a period of time, we would have effected a 20 per cent saving in investments in real estate, a 20 per cent increase in productivity of our employees and a 20 per cent improvement in customer satisfaction levels when these employees remain available to them on demand."

Vandana Arora Assistant Manager, Quality, Genpact

Why telecommute: "I have a small kid so I opted to work from home"

Challenges: "No major challenges":

Genpact sees telecommuting benefits in terms of employee satisfaction and thus, retention. Says Rajeev Sharma, Vice President HR, Finance and Accounting, Genpact: "We are rapidly moving towards the world of virtual organisations. The work-from-home policy helps us in talent pool retention. Re-training cost and loss of knowledge gets taken care of."

At Genpact, there is only three per cent attrition among employees working from home. Currently, the company has 500 employees working from home and it plans to increase the number to 5,000 by 2010.

No weak links
According to a white paper on Changing World of Work by Manpower Inc., by 2016, 63 per cent workers globally want to work flexibly and 84 per cent employers recognise this as a significant benefit in terms of retention. Vandana Arora, 30, Assistant Manager, Quality, Genpact, Gurgaon, is a recent convert to work-from-home. She has been working from home (which started on a need basis) for the past eight months. "It started because of my two-and-a-half-year-old son, but now I love it," she says. Arora is part of a five-member team and two more members of the team work from home. "It's a perfect team at work with deadlines and deliverables," she says.

Are the work-from-home members of the team weak links? "I don't think so. I have even got a promotion in the past six months," she says.

Companies want results. Whether you come to office every day or work from home, at the end of the day, it's the output that matters, say HR heads. "An employee's performance should be calculated on what he delivers, rather than how many hours he spends in office," says Elango.

TCS sets goals for its workfrom-home employees and tracks their performance and achievements based on which their performance assessment and appraisal takes place at the end of the year. "Meeting the deliverables of the job assigned is the key measure of performance," says Ajoy Mukherjee, Vice President and Head, Global HR, TCS.

Sameer Deshmukh Delivery Leader, MphasiS

Why telecommute: "My company wants me to. I am liking it"

Challenges: "The family needs to cooperate and be serious about the whole affair

The limitations
Telecommuting is not free from its share of challenges. For starters, it can only be offered to employee profiles that have no security and privacy issues involved. "If you are working on a client basis, then it is critical that your client is comfortable with your employees working form home," says Elango. Work-from-home may not work well where working together in a team and using a common pool of physical resources to deliver results is essential. Examples of this are in product engineering type functions where physical collaboration is vital for innovation. Mercer's Naresh points out: "This is, however, changing with a number of collaboration and knowledge management tools proliferating in the market."

On the flip side, WFH is sometimes a challenge because of unreliable power supply, lack of private working space at home, and a constantly ringing door bell. If employees make provision to tackle these issues, then WFH is very convenient.

Apart from this, there are execution challenges, too. According to Subash A.K. Rao, Director, Human Resources, Cisco India, work evaluation and absence of external motivation are two of the main challenges. Those working in teams might feel isolated and miss the interaction with co-workers. Many employees find they can get more work done without the distractions of a corporate environment, but some others find themselves unfocussed without other people around to motivate them. Cisco is implementing a work-fromhome policy on an ad-hoc basis, which is a carry-over of its worldwide policies.

HR heads say that it helps to have clear rules of engagement. "Telecommuting is a good option once certain pre-requisites, like a structured performance management approach, are in place and the employee's bonus is mapped onto productivity," says Rao.

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2009-01-14T14:35:00.001-05:00

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Virtual work still evolving

http://archive.gulfnews.com/articles/09/01/14/10274898.html

01/13/2009 11:42 PM | By Sanjiv Anand and Rajesh Iyer, Special to Gulf News

Globalisation and the Internet have made businesses more mobile. People and organisations are becoming more flexible about how they work and how they deal with new business opportunities. As the number of partnerships explodes, the need to work in virtual teams has increased. Virtual working will not replace traditional organisations and people physically getting together to work, but it has some distinct advantages:

In a world where change is rapid, a virtual corporation can allow an organisation, or group of organisations, to address new opportunities or threats quickly and efficiently.

The Internet and other telecommunications advances, such as audio and videoconferencing, make it easier for members of an organisation to collaborate more efficiently.

More and more people are working from home for at least part of their week as a result of these advances.

However, there are some key questions to be addressed.

Where does virtual working work best?

Where there is a specific output or objective that needs to be achieved. It is, by definition, not 9 to 5 working. Rather, you set someone or some group a task, and they go about achieving that task. They can spend all weekend and then take days off, once they deliver a result.

What are the key trends that are driving virtual working?

Globalisation, rapidly changing environments, and the advances in the Internet and telecommunications are key drivers. Many of the new opportunities are crossing traditional business boundaries - the telecommunications and content industries are intermingling, for example. Very few organisations have all the skills required to meet these new opportunities. These business changes underpin a social trend for skilled individuals to want more flexibility in how they live and work. The result is that virtual working can bring together a mix of skills and capabilities that would be very difficult to assemble in a single physical setting.

How do virtual organisations, collaborative working, and telecommuting differ?

Virtual organisations are legal entities that are established with clearly defined objectives, such as developing a product, or exploiting a particular market opportunity. In collaborative working, the focus is very much on knowledge work. This is better suited to small multi-disciplinary teams of five to ten people. Collaborative teams can be established and disbanded according to the current need. Frequently, it may be the case that a person is a member of several teams at the same time. Telecommuting can, of course, support collaborative working, but is also used for processing the data in batches. For example, a hospital's handwritten records may need to be filed electronically every day. Another example is the personal assistant who works from home for an executive who is constantly travelling.

Have virtual workplaces been overhyped?

Yes. Like many new-economy developments, there were wild predictions that we'd all be working in our pyjamas.

The reality is that people still like to go to work to get out of the house. But virtual working still remains an important trend.

Sanjiv Anand is the Managing Director and Rajesh Iyer is a Director at CedarManagement Consulting International.

2008-12-31T18:27:00.001-05:00

Global CIO: The Top 10 CIO Issues For 2009

What should be on your agenda next year: A CIO-centric blend of business and tech issues that will help you increase business and customer value.

By Bob Evans, InformationWeek
Dec. 30, 2008
URL: http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=212700241

Given what's going on in the economy these days, maybe the No. 1 item on this list should be "Stay employed." But we figure you've all got that one nailed, so we've focused on a CIO-oriented blend of business and technology issues that in the end represent opportunities for you and your team to drive greater business value and customer value. And, to be sure, many other issues could have made this list -- we're assuming as givens things like increase revenue, make a profit, turn out great products, etc.

Along with each of the Top 10 CIO-centric issues, we've included at least one thematic piece published in 2008 by InformationWeek that offers valuable perspectives on these top-priority subjects. Please let us know what you think at bevans@techweb.com:

1. Customer-Facing Innovation. While it's essential for CIOs and your teams to be innovating across all parts of your operation, the greatest value in 2009 will come from efforts that directly connect your brands, products, services, and capabilities with your customers. In fact, in 2009, I think we'll see this term shift from "customer-facing" to "customer-embracing" to signify the move from the largely passive approach of merely facing your customers to the more-active and -engaged notion of embracing. Two articles that offer significant insights into this concept are this blog post introducing "The New Age of Innovation" microsite we created in April with authors C.K. Prahalad and M.S. Krishnan for their superb new book of that name; and a revealing look inside one of the top consumer brands in the world via Mary Hayes' "Coca-Cola's CIO Talks Innovation".

2. Attacking The 80/20 Ratio. Just as customer-facing innovation is the top outward-facing CIO priority for 2009, the inward-looking top priority is attacking the maintenance glutton that sucks up 75% or even 80% of your precious IT budget. Unless this beast is confronted and defeated, you're going to face an ugly 2009 with little or no money available for innovation, and that inability to push the company forward will, sadly, enhance the stereotype of you and your team as a cost center that impedes progress rather than accelerating it. In that context, we're happy to provide a richly detailed account for how to make it happen with Chris Murphy's superb "HP Goes All In With IT Transformation".

3. The Challenging Economy. Making your already-difficult job even a little more demanding, the current global economic mess is forcing CIOs to find ways to pursue the top two agenda items while also slashing away at costs. To see how some of your peers are tackling those challenges, check out another great piece by Chris Murphy called "How CIOs Are Setting IT Strategy Amid Economic Uncertainty".

4. The Strategic CIO. And somehow in 2009, even as you're dealing with those three issues above, you'll have to make some time to continue finding additional ways to enhance your role as a strategic business leader within your organization. While that certainly implies an open-ended set of possibilities, here are a couple of pieces that will offer some ideas of what you should be doing, "Tomorrow's CIO: The Qualifications," and what you should definitely not be doing, "Two Flavors of CIO, Each Leaving An Aftertaste".

5. Cloud Computing. Is it safe? Is it practical? Is it The End Of IT? Is it right for you and your company? InformationWeek's John Foley, who recently launched an excellent new site called Plug Into The Cloud, offers some CIO perspectives in his insightful overview, "CIOs On Cloud Computing".

6. The SaaS Effect. In 2008, like cloud computing, SaaS went from a slightly marginal prospect into a full-fledged player as large, midsize, and small companies alike began adopting the notion of having someone else host mission-critical applications. One of the challenges CIOs faced and will continue to face with the SaaS model is integration, and Mary Hayes offers an outstanding look at the challenges and solutions in "SaaS Integration: Real-World Problems, And How CIOs Are Solving Them".

7. Virtualization. While this became one of the most widely pursued approaches to attacking the 80/20 problem, some CIOs did not or could not make a strong case to the CEO and other executives about the business value virtualization can offer. So in some cases it was seen as a cool back-office techy thing, but not something to be confused with a game-changing business tool. Art Wittmann offers some analysis on this must-solve 2009 problem with "Does Management Get Virtualization?".

8. Outsourcing. Although it's widely used and most CIOs feel it can offer huge value, outsourcing is still regarded by some as anywhere from too risky to too mean-spirited. Chris Murphy shines some clear thinking on the whole matter as part of his two-week adventure in India with "Report From India: 5 Reasons To Outsource".

9. Green Computing. While a lot of attention around this issue was centered on the dubious claims of saving the planet, many companies devised excellent approaches to lowering energy consumption, reducing costs, and doing a better job with recycling -- all good business practices. In the midyear days of $4 gallons of gasoline, John Soat fingered the real culprit with "Energy Woes? Blame The CIO!".

10. Radical Desktops. Here's how Joe Hernick opens his analysis of how the trusty old desktop computer is about to undergo some massive change: "A slate of contentious issues -- social, economic, and technological -- will radically alter the business user's computing experience by the end of this decade." Virtualization, smartphones, new platforms, and more all play a role in "Radical Desktops Deliver Power To The People. But What About IT?".

So that's our list of things to keep you CIOs busy in 2009. If it's any solace, we here at Global CIO are honored to be able to follow your efforts and challenges and achievements, and to share the perspectives we hear from you and your peers as you attempt to change how the world thinks, works, plays, learns, communicates, and views itself. Thanks for the opportunity to serve you, thanks for your trust, and thanks for the great work you do. May 2009 be full of promise, fulfillment, and fun. Happy New Year!

To find out more about Bob Evans, please visit his page.

2008-12-29T18:09:00.001-05:00

One Million Job Cuts Predicted in 2009

Reported by: RNS

Monday, Dec 22, 2008 @09:15am CST

Another one million Americans will likely be getting pink slips next year.

That's according to the latest forecast from layoff tracking firm Challenger, Gray and Christmas.

The Chicago-based company says employers have already shed more than a million jobs this year because of weak consumer and corporate spending, a trend that is expected to continue.

CEO John Challenger says a massive stimulus plan expected from the Obama administration is going to take time to work through the system. He says even if the Obama plan goes well it could be several months before we see the benefits.

Challenger says the state of the economy and the job market will have a significant impact on 2009 workplace trends. He says there could be a major shift toward telecommuting as employers look to cut costs without turning to layoffs.

Challenger says many companies have already found they can save big on real estate costs by having employees work from home.

He says job seekers are also likely to turn to the Internet, enhancing their work search through video resumes posted on YouTube and the use of social networking sites. The national unemployment rate is now at six-point-seven percent.

Some economists expect that number to go as high as nine percent before the job market even starts to rebound.

Challenger says health care, education and energy industries are likely to do the most hiring in the year ahead. He says construction could be the lone industry to see an immediate boost from Barack Obama's economic plans since they focus heavily on a nationwide infrastructure rebuilding program.

2008-12-19T18:07:00.001-05:00

Manage Telecommuters Without Losing Your Mind

Alexandra Krasne, PC World

If you could roll out of bed, commute just 40 feet, work in your robe and fuzzy slippers, and save thousands of dollars on travel expenses, would you do it? And, as a business owner or manager, would you offer the same benefit to your employees?

According to a survey commissioned by the Computing Technology Industry Association (CompTIA), 67 percent of survey respondents said their organization has experienced greater worker productivity as a result of allowing employees to telecommute, either full- or part-time. The main reason for the increase in worker output: less commute time.

No doubt telecommuting offers numerous benefits to employees and employers alike, but with the distractions of home life beckoning, children to drop off at school, a kitchen to clean, and laundry to wash, can a telecommuter be as productive as employees in the office? More important, can technology keep your data secure, your teams connected, and your employees accountable? It can, as long as you plan well.
Plan First

Whether you decide to allow employees to work from home one day a week or all five, the key to implementing a successful telecommuting program lies in developing a well-thought-out plan, says Steve Simmons, vice president of software development at VIPdesk. VIPdesk's outsourced, home-based customer service representatives provide technical support to clients. But with an entirely work-at-home customer-care group, the company needed to implement a failproof telecommuting plan in order for the business to succeed.

Understanding the software and tools that employees use during their day-to-day activities, how often they use them, and any associated security risks involved in allowing company data offsite will inform your overall telecommuting plan. After a review, you might determine that accounting or human resources information should be required to stay in-office only, while sales data could be viewable outside the walls of your headquarters, for example. You should carefully assess such things prior to allowing employees to work offsite, to avoid technical glitches and data leaks.

"Don't do it by the seat of your pants," Simmons advises. "Don't let some sales guy sell you some product that will solve all your problems. One of the things we found is that, a lot of times, vendors will say device X is compatible with that VPN, but that's not always the case. You don't always get a straight story."
Know the Technology Involved

The first technology layer of a secure telecommuting plan is the VPN (virtual private network) that will provide encryption between the employee working at home on their own connection and your office's internal network. VIPdesk uses two-factor authentication for added network security. (One-factor authentication requires only a user name and password, and doesn't offer a high level of security.)

A network access control device, or NAC device, is another important piece to consider. A NAC will query each machine--before it's granted access to the network--to check whether certain software, such as an antivirus utility, is installed. When a user logs in, the NAC can even ensure that the user has a firewall set up and that patches are up-to-date. If the set criteria are not met, that user's computer will not be allowed on the network.

If your company stores credit card information or other data, consider installing a third-party application on company PCs that can disable external USB devices when a user is logged in to your office network via VPN. This arrangement protects your sensitive data and prevents a remote employee from downloading client data. If the software detects the presence of an external USB device, such as a thumb drive, it will terminate the connection. (VIPdesk uses Secure It Easy.)

Keep a Watchful Eye (or Learn to Trust your Employees)

While you don't necessarily need to watch an employee's every mouse click, it's a good idea to set ground rules and make sure that staffers aren't catching up on Oprah or heading out to a baseball game during work hours.

Brian Diamond, founder of Telecommuting360, a Web site and open forum dedicated to educating people about telecommuting, advises managers to be transparent about watching employees. He notes that most remote office and telecommuting packages have auditing built in. Citrix, for example, offers logging on its XenDesktop product so that a manager can receive a log of an employee's entire day, including chat sessions, e-mail messages sent, and IP-telephony calls. (Install this type of technology in the office first, so that we can track those individuals that spend half the day wondering the halls, taking personal phone calls, and kissing up to the boss. Perhaps telecommuters could be held to a higher standard from thier office co-workers, such as deliverables...but only for individuals who actually perform within given time lines.)

State laws vary, however, and some require employers to inform employees that they may be monitored, so be sure to check your state's laws before proceeding. Draft a policy stating that the employer may monitor the employee, says Diamond, and have each employee sign it. Then, send out a monthly reminder. If employees know that they may be monitored, Diamond says, it can be good motivation not to slack off.

"If you don't watch what [remote employees] are doing, you see a drop-off in work productivity over time," he warns.

If you don't have a package with auditing, another simple solution is to require that remote employees use instant messaging software so you can see their online status and ping them at any time during the workday.

The open-source and free IM client Pidgin has a feature called "buddy pounce" that allows you to follow a user and be notified the moment they sign on. Some enterprise applications, such as IBM's Lotus SameTime service, offer secure IM, logging, and built-in VoIP.

Finally, watch out for programs such as Auto Reply Manager, which automatically create messages and send replies based on rules that the user has set. If you suspect an employee is using one of these tools, send a very specific message and see what kind of answer you receive.
Manage Meetings and Projects From Afar

Seeing facial expressions and hearing vocal intonation is a much better way to communicate than shooting e-mail back and forth, but if your team is remote, Web conferencing can be almost the same as being there.

Gmail and Skype offer free, secure options, and many instant messaging programs are now starting to incorporate conferencing. But while the grainy video of most Webcams leaves much to be desired, high-resolution video is the next best thing to an in-person meeting. A recent PC World Australia article delves into a few of the latest conferencing products, such as Access Grid's high-resolution video and shared whiteboard.

Though meetings may not always be necessary, dropping by Bob's desk to find out when you'll get his latest sales report might be something you're used to doing when working in an office. Luckily, project-management software such as Microsoft Project or the open-source Basecamp makes tracking tasks easy. Project-management software not only lets you see tasks, deadlines, statuses, and expected completion dates but also allows your group to share documents online.

Telecommuting might not be an appropriate arrangement for all offices or all employees, but putting a secure and well-designed telecommuting plan in place may yield a happier, more productive workforce. And there's nothing like holding a board meeting in your pink fuzzy slippers.
Telecommuting Checklist

You have many elements to think about when creating a telecommuting program. Consider including an assessment of the following components in your plan:

Security/Connectivity

* VPN
* VoIP
* NAC
* Automatic backup and restore
* Data encryption
* Software patches
* Two-factor authentication
* Firewall
* Virus and spyware protection
* "Time-out" function

Collaboration

* Instant messaging
* Videoconferencing
* Collaboration software
* Document sharing

2008-12-19T17:47:00.001-05:00

Top 5 Ways A Virtual Assistant Can Save You Money!
By: Jan Harris

Have you ever considered hiring a Virtual Assistant?

Can a Virtual Assistant (VA) really save you money? You may be
surprised to learn how cost effective a virtual assistant can be. A
good VA can save your business time and money and help your business
grow. This article highlights the top 5 ways a Virtual Assistant can
save your business money.

Many business owners have never thought of hiring a virtual assistant
despite the growing popularity of this home based business. Some still
don't even know what a Virtual assistants are and just how cost
effective they can be. In fact, Virtual Assistants are one of the most
affordable contract professionals you can use for outsourcing!

One of the benefits the Virtual Assistant can provide is a cost
effective way of obtaining high level administrative services. Most
virtual assistants in the United States and other native English
speaking countries charge between $35 -$75 per hour. At first glance
this may seem like a high fee and maybe you are wondering just how a
Virtual Assistant can save you money?

Here are the top 5 things to consider before you decide whether or not
to hire a Virtual Assistant.

1. Although at first glance their rate may seem high, you have to
remember all of the additional costs you will pay for when hiring a
full-time employee. In addition to the hourly wage you pay, you must
also pay for taxes, benefits, office and equipment costs as well as
vacation and sick time. A Virtual Assistant covers all of her own
expenses.

2. An hourly employee is paid whether they are working or not. During
slow times or when they are sick, you still pay. A virtual assistant
only charges for time actually worked.

3. Virtual Assistant are highly skilled with many years of high level
administrative experience. They work quickly and efficiently while
requiring little or no training. An efficient assistant will take less
time to produce much higher quality work than a less skilled assistant
who will work for a lower hourly wage.

4. Businesses who use the services of Virtual Assistants have claimed
as much as a 50% increase in the productivity of their business. Many
VAs are highly skilled in business procedures and can help you
identify cost effective ways to run your business. A good VA can save
you valuable time by scheduling meetings, responding to emails and
sales leads, planning events and travel arrangements.

5. Many entrepreneurs and small business spend too much of their time
on administrative tasks which leaves them less time to do the things
they need to build their businesses. By outsourcing these tasks, you
can concentrate on the tasks needed to grow your business.

These are just five ways a Virtual Assistant can save you money. There
are actually many advantages to using their services and you may just
find that hiring a Virtual Assistant is the best solution for your
business. Learn more about what a Virtual Assistant is and why hiring
a virtual assistant can save your business save time and money.

About the author: Jan Harris is a veteran administrative professional
with over 20 years of experience and currently works at home as a
Virtual Assistant. Visit her site for information on the Virtual
Assistant Profession at http://www.VirtualAssistantsGuide.com.

Article Source: www.isnare.com

2008-12-06T00:22:00.001-05:00

Little White eBook of Homeshoring Jobs

By Lisa, Editor in Find Jobs, Resources, Reviews on December 5th, 2008

While I was doing some research to find a few companies that hire call center agents to list in my post about having a phone and a plethora of patience just the other day, I ran across an ebook offering that looked, at first glance, to be pretty darned informative. So I contacted the publisher and asked for more information and a copy of the ebook to see for myself if it really was informative. I thought I might as well review it here on Telecommuting Journal, right! I wasn't able to get the entire ebook free for a review (only the first 3 chapters and a few example company listings) so I purchased it for myself.

To be honest, I was not expecting this review to be very flattering. But I was pleasantly surprised and extremely impressed with what I found inside. Enough so that I feel compelled to actually recommend this ebook to anyone looking to become a home-based call center agent. Most of the work-at-home ebooks available out there are extremely disappointing, sneaky, and don't deliver what they promise.

However, the Little White eBook of Homeshoring Jobs actually provides exactly what they promise, and then some.

Here's what they promised:

. . .243 pages and 198 listings of real virtual call center employers. It's truly your complete guide to virtual call center employment from home. These companies regularly hire people across North America to answer their phones and perform administrative tasks. The positions these companies hire for range from customer service to telemarketing - and everything in between.

Here's what they provided:

243 pages of well-researched, solid information including sensible introductory chapters that offer additional information about the industry and about working as a call center agent.
Company profile pages that provide a lot of relevant information (like Better Business Bureau ratings links if they're available, typical openings, typical salaries, job schedules, a link to the company's employment page and main page, LinkedIn profile page, etc). I counted 196 home-shoring company profiles, 8 Canada-Only home-shoring company profiles, and 4 additional home-shoring companies that prefer to hire military spouses, vets, and disabled. That's 204 company profile listings (which is 6 more than I was promised).
It appears that it's regularly updated. Several of the company profiles seem to be new listings and the title page of my copy says Updated 2/10/08. The purchase thank you page notes that I'm eligible for free updates if I elect to receive them.
They've listed their resources - nearly 10 pages of online resources with clickable links to each.
It's reasonably priced at $30

And here's how they presented it:

A 1-page Title Page
A 1-page Introduction: Using this Resource
An 8-page Table of Contents
A 16-page Section One - An Intro to Virtual Call Center jobs that includes the following information:
- The Importance of Doing Your Research
- The Importance of Doing Your Research
- So, What is Homeshoring?
- Who Hires Virtual Call Center Agents (and Why?)
- The Sung (and Unsung) Benefits of Working at Home
- The Pitfalls of Working for Virtual Call Centers
- Preparing for the Virtual Application Process
- Preparing Your Virtual Resume
- Things to Keep in Mind When Applying for Virtual Call Center Jobs
- The Virtual Call Center Checklist
- Acing the Virtual Job Interview
A 208-page Section Two - Company Profiles - Pages 25 to 233)
A 9-page Resources Section

Would I recommend this ebook to everyone looking for a legitimate work at home job???
Nope! Being a call center agent isn't for everyone. It's not a "quick fix" or an answer to your money nightmares and it's not going to land your job FOR you. What I am saying is that IF you're fairly certain that you'd make one heck of a call center agent, you're serious about pursuing that, and you're in the process of looking at the various companies who actually hire call center agents, then this eBook is a great resource to help you reach that goal. If you're looking to learn everything you can about the homeshoring call-center industry, as well as jump-start your research on the companies that employ home-based agents, then this is a great resource for you.

Ten years ago, when I was searching for work I could do from home, there weren't many resources out there. I learned the word "telecommuting" and stumbled across an eBook written by Rosalind Mays called The Real Deal on Telecommuting.

It, too, was reasonably priced and it not only listed several valuable resources, it also talked about the telecommuting industry, the difference between being employed by someone as an independent contractor vs an employee, and offered up some ideas for going about your search for actual, legitimate telecommuting work online. That eBook was the only purchase in my search telecommuting information and work.

While it didn't directly give me a job, it changed my mindset and got me looking in the right direction. Prior to the reading the ebook, I wasn't familiar with a lot of the terminology and several of the resources that were available to me at the time (such as web forums and discussion lists). My goal then was to learn how to better research and explore my options online. That ebook helped me reach my goal and I found a great telecommuting opportunity that I wouldn't have otherwise found had I not educated myself with the help of Rosalind's eBook.

The same is true with this eBook I'm reviewing here. It's not going to GIVE you a job, but it will help you find your way around in the call center industry and save you hours of research looking at all of the companies and offerings that are out there to go after.

If you're interested in purchasing the eBook, or learning more, be sure to visit their site and then click on the eBook picture on the right.

They actually offer another eBook there as well, one for Virtual Assistant jobs. I have not looked at a copy of that eBook, but I'd suspect that it's also well-done if you're looking for more information about working as a virtual assistant. Perhaps I'll hop over and purchase a copy of that eBook for a review of that on Telecommuting Journal as well.

Full Disclosure:
I was so impressed with this eBook that I joined their affiliate program before writing this review. Which means, if you click on a link here from my site and actually purchase the eBook for yourself, I make a commission on that sale. I've purchased the information and am confident that should someone who's looking for call center work also purchase this book, it would be a valuable resource in that particular job hunt. I'd never make a recommendation a product or service that I didn't first use myself and actually believe in. Any commission I might make is compensation for the time and money I spent reviewing the product and writing the review.

2008-12-06T00:15:00.001-05:00

Strategies for Working From Home

By Lily Garcia
Special to washingtonpost.com
Thursday, December 4, 2008; 12:00 AM

What strategies would you recommend for making the most out of working from your home?

Many people believe that they lack the discipline to effectively telecommute. They fear that they would be too distracted, lured away from their job duties by household chores, too easily tempted by the television and the bed. Although the challenge of remaining focused without the positive influence of a bustling office environment is very real, I doubt that most telecommuters actually spend their work days watching "The Price Is Right," napping and doing laundry. The typical office environment is replete with distractions of its own, after all, including chatty coworkers, nosy bosses, and needless meetings. The distinct advantage of working from home is that the potential distractions and interruptions are usually within your control.

What, then, can you do, to capitalize upon the peace and quiet of your home while ensuring productivity? Here are a few important lessons that I have learned:

Rise and shine. Get ready for work in the morning as if you were about to leave your home. Take a shower, brush your teeth, and change out of your pajamas. I am not suggesting that you slip into an Armani suit, but do wear clothing that you would not be embarrassed to be seen in. This exercise will help you to set the stage for a successful day of work.

Minimize interruptions. That means telling your family and friends that you are working during certain times and that your availability is no greater than if you were in a cube somewhere. It also means scheduling medical and other appointments with due regard for your work schedule. If you would normally see the doctor first thing in the morning to avoid interference with your projects, then keep to this habit when you telecommute.

Schedule breaks and lunch times. Minimizing interruptions does not mean that you must work nonstop for eight hour stretches. However, you should try as much as possible to stick to a schedule of breaks and lunch periods rather than resting at haphazard intervals. Taking this disciplined approach will allow you the uninterrupted time that you need to get things done and allow you to take care of personal business without feeling guilty. Yes, it's okay to watch television and bake cookies, as long as you do so on your lunch hour.

Plan time out of the office. An important benefit of working alongside other people is the opportunity to network and socialize. Even a confirmed introvert can feel isolated after a stretch of days without face-to-face conversations (significant others, children, and cats excluded). An important rule of telecommuting successfully, therefore, is to schedule time out of the office. Meet people for lunch or coffee, or just take your laptop to a public place that offers free Wi-Fi. It will lift your spirits and help to keep your professional network alive.

Set a boundary between your work and personal lives. Just as some telecommuters worry about being less productive than their office counterparts, others must take precautions not to let their work swallow their home life whole. Unless you must work late, make sure that you are taking affirmative steps to "leave" your office at the end of the day. If possible, locate your home office in a separate room and close the door when you are done. If you do not have space for a separate home office, then power down or hide your computer at the end of the day. If you leave your computer on, mute the sound. You will otherwise be haunted by the sound of incoming emails and the temptation to check might become too great.

Assert your presence. Even though you are not located next to your coworkers, you are no less a part of the team. However, your boss and coworkers might at times forget to include in team activities and decisions. To ensure that you are taken into account, you must work twice as hard as your office counterparts to be seen and heard. Schedule a weekly check-in meeting with your boss, make sure that you are on all appropriate email distribution lists, reach out at least once a day to the people who work most closely with you, and drop by the office for visits as often as you can.

Join Lily Garcia on Tuesday, Dec. 9, at 11 a.m. ET for How to Deal Live.

Lily Garcia has offered employment law and human resources advice to companies of all sizes for more than 10 years. To submit a question, e-mail HRadvice@washingtonpost.com. We reserve the right to edit submitted questions for length and clarity and cannot guarantee that all questions will be answered.

2008-12-01T13:28:00.001-05:00

Virtual Staffers Avoid Bleak Car Market, Some Economy Woes

Virtual Workers Have Office in a Box with HP

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

PRLog (Press Release) – Nov 29, 2008 – A new look at telecommuting workers has found that technology may shield these folks from the worst of the economic crisis. Examining the team of virtual assistants at Team Double-Click® yields some fascinating results: virtual assistants report more work, high job satisfaction, and, in some cases, fewer economic woes than their traditionally-employed counterparts.

"Part of the reality of our economy is that businesses still need services but cannot always afford to hire full-time staff," reports Gayle Buske, president and CEO of Team Double-Click®. She thinks that as a result "Employers are more likely to take on virtual workers, who require less supervision, less office space and a more modest budget." That means that virtual assistants at Team Double-Click® can expect steady work even when other industries are worried about lay-offs.

Another economic advantage for telecommuting workers is less reliance on a lengthy and expensive commute. "Virtual assistants can work at home. Their computer is essentially their office, connecting them to money-making opportunities the world over and even allowing them to capitalize on requests from clients in more prosperous corners of the globe," says Buske. In most jobs, it takes money to get to work. Many workers need a car and a career wardrobe for the office, money for lunch out and other work-related expenses. This is simply not the case for virtual contractors at Team Double-Click®, where the computer replaces the office.

And now, thanks to a strategic alliance with HP, Team Double-Click® virtual assistants will be able to enjoy a better office, even when the economy is tough. The new partnership with the computer giant will allow Team Double-Click® virtual assistants and clients alike to enjoy discounts on all HP products. HP will offer free ground shipping as well as instant price reductions as part of the partnership. "We're very excited about the new partnership with HP," says Buske. "It's a great way to ensure that our team and our clients have the technology needed to meet work requirements in today's economy."

About Team Double-Click®:

Established in 2000, Team Double-Click® has grown into the country's largest virtual staffing firm. Team Double-Click® offers virtual assistant services that range from general administrative, sales and marketing, human resources, finance, to real estate transaction coordination. The company takes care of the screening, managing, and payment of virtual assistants. Team Double-Click® even carefully monitors the relationship between a client and virtual assistants to ensure maximum value for businesses. Team Double-Click® combines unparalleled staffing expertise with a dedication to improve clients' and virtual assistants' businesses and profits. Team Double-Click® is currently the only virtual staffing firm to offer a 30 day money-back guarantee.

For more information on how a virtual assistant can help you save time and money in your business, visit www.teamdoubleclick.com or call 888.827.9129.

About HP:

HP is one of the most recognized technology brand names in the world. The company founded in 1939, currently operates in more than 170 countries. Producing everything from handheld devices and printers to supercomputer installations and laptops, HP is recognized both by the business consumer and the home computer buyer. Among the company's more recognized offerings are: mobile computing devices, workstations, PCs, inkjet printers, LaserJet printers, commercial printing installations, printing supplies, digital photography technology, entertainment systems, servers, managed services, and software. Through a company called EDS, HP delivers business technology services to governments and private sector companies.

What your competition is doing.

2008-11-21T12:45:00.001-05:00

Nation needs a workplace rethink

Publication Date：11/21/2008 Section：Commentary
By Steven Crook

Taiwan has a small army of self-employed designers, programmers, and translators who work from home. Most of these individuals receive assignments and deliver finished work via the Internet. They do not waste time commuting to an office, nor do they have to dress smartly for work.

Despite a very high rate of Internet access and an economy that is increasingly white-collar, few nine-to-five employees have joined the ranks of Taiwan's e-commuters. Across the island, working from home is still very much the exception. While there are no reliable statistics as to the number of people who work in this manner, it is certain that compared to their counterparts in the United States and Japan, Taiwan's large companies have been slow to adopt telecommuting.

This is unfortunate for those in Taiwan who would like to e-commute so they can spend more time with their families. And it means employers are missing an excellent chance to boost productivity and cut costs.

Nurses, construction workers and others doing jobs that could not possibly be done through the Internet should also be concerned, because telecommuting benefits society as a whole. Rush hours become less hectic and thus safer. Working from home is undeniably good for the environment: Fewer car and motorcycle journeys mean lower greenhouse-gas emissions and healthier air.

The obstacles that stand in the way of Taiwan enjoying the maximum environmental, social and economic benefits of telecommuting are more cultural than physical. The hardware--high-speed, reliable Internet access--is already in place. It is management attitudes that need to change.

Many Taiwanese employers believe in "management by surveillance." In other words, they make sure employees do the work assigned to them by watching them continually or paying a supervisor to do so.

If e-commuting arrangements are to be successful, "management by surveillance" has to be replaced by something akin to what Peter Drucker calls "management by objectives"--a process whereby managers and workers agree upon objectives and deadlines, which the latter then tackle without constant monitoring. While it is difficult for any government to effect cultural changes, it would be easy to create conditions that would hasten any shift in this direction.

Starting with large, high-tech companies--because they tend to be very receptive to new ideas--the government should require employers to devise plans allowing some part of their workforce to work from home one or two days a week. This goal is not overambitious. In 2004, the Japanese government announced a target of 20 percent of the country's labor force regularly working from home by 2010.

Successful telecommuting programs should be publicized and rewarded in an effort to win over skeptical employers. If IBM Corp. can cut costs by US$8,000 per year for each worker moved out of an office and into his or her home, it should be possible for companies with Taipei offices to save substantial sums. Moreover, some studies suggest that, because they are removed from the distractions of an office, teleworkers are up to 40 percent more productive than their cubicle-bound counterparts.

Just as it subsidizes the installation of green technology, the government should offer incentives to companies that allow e-commuting. Workers who lack the necessary hardware at home--not just a computer with high-speed Internet, but also ergonomic furniture that prevents injuries--should not have to buy their own.

Internet security is an issue, but not an insoluble one. Companies like Ericsson have made their computer systems so secure that employees are permitted to work wherever there is an Internet connection. Employers should be given help in this regard, just as they already get government assistance for industrial upgrading.

How much would this cost the country? In net terms, likely nothing at all. Growth in telecommuting would lead to major savings elsewhere. Less driving would mean fewer traffic accidents, which in turn would reduce police and medical costs. Better air quality would lead to fewer cases of respiratory disease.

According to a 1995 study by Yen Jin-ru, a professor in the Department of Shipping and Transportation Management at National Taiwan Ocean University, Taipei City Government would save between US$75.3 million and US$271.4 million per year on road construction if just 5.9 percent of rush hour trips were replaced by e-commuting.

It has been said that, even if employers can be won over, few Taiwanese workers would opt to telecommute. People who live alone or in cramped apartments are not especially fond of staying home. And there are certainly some for whom power dressing, and the prestige of working in Taipei's swankier areas, are important.

However, those who are married with children typically have different priorities, and are likely to embrace a practice that makes balancing family and career much easier. A government that encourages telecommuting may even find, some years on, an uptick in Taiwan's precariously low birth rate.

--Steven Crook is a free-lance writer based in Tainan.

These views are the author's and not necessarily those of the TJ.

2008-11-20T16:54:00.001-05:00

High travel costs increase use of meeting technology

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Loading ... Posted on: November 19th, 2008 by Peter Headley

The high cost of business travel is leading to a change in how businesses communicate and meet, according to a new survey sponsored by Plantronics, Inc.

In the study it was found that many companies have already reduced business travel significantly due to the high cost of fuel, and that more employees are working from home, at least one day per week. It also found that increasing numbers of knowledge workers are spending more time on the phone in order to maintain effective levels of communication.

The study was conducted by the research firm TNS, and showed that during the past year, 42 per cent of knowledge workers responding saw a decline in corporate travel. Forty per cent of the respondents indicated that they spent more time attending teleconferences and 30 per cent increased their time spent telecommuting.

When asked about ergonomic issues, 33 per cent complained about shoulder and neck pain more than any other health-related condition. This was attributed to extended use of the computer, phone and other office equipment.

"A shift is occurring in the way businesses operate in trying economic times," noted the vice-president and general manager of Plantronics' Business Solutions, Chuck Yort. "Many corporations have worked to find cost effective ways for employees to communicate and connect with colleagues and customers, a trend that was sparked by high travel costs and has been accelerated by the uncertain financial climate. As a result, we anticipate an increased use of collaboration tools to reduce operational expenses and to help professionals work efficiently."

Thanks to www.ibtimes.com for the above quotes, for more information on this article please visit their website.

www.plantronics.com

2008-11-18T11:08:00.001-05:00

Making Virtual Agents Feel "At Home"

By Stefania Viscusi, Assignment Desk Editor

In today's increasingly global workforce, and with the amount of new technologies being introduced, more and more people are working from around the globe and connecting virtually instead of being in the same physical location.

Working from a virtual location not only saves on costs and aggravation of long commutes, but also employers are finding benefit in the ability to choose from a larger pool of candidates and lower overhead costs since they don't have to provide a work space for those employees.

As more businesses put their trust in telecommuting, the need to develop new processes that will continue to promote success, is necessary.

In call centers, a virtual agent can be located anywhere in the world to take calls and perform functions just as those located on site. This industry is however most reluctant to develop work-at-home strategies because their success is so dependent on agent productivity.

To gain a better understanding of the benefits of work-at-home initiatives and how to change processes to promote success, a free Webinar is being offered byTMC ( News - Alert) and IEX, "Make Virtual Agents Feel Right at Home."

The Webinar, which will be held on Thursday, November 20, 2008 at 1:00pm ET / 10:00am PT, will feature Amy Wolf, Senior Solutions Engineer, IEX Corporation, a NICE Systems company and BrendanB ( News - Alert). Read, Senior Contributing Editor, Customer Inter@ction Solutions.

Discussion topics will include: how companies can manage their at-home agents, equipment requirements and quantitative advantages to a work-at-home program. The Webinar will also include a live Q&A session.

REGISTER NOW!

Stefania Viscusi is an assignment editor for TMCnet, covering VoIP, CRM, call center and wireless technologies. To read more of Stefania's articles, please visit her columnist page.

Edited by Stefania Viscusi

2008-11-13T17:51:00.001-05:00

Google Adds Voice, Video Chat to Gmail, Apps

11.11.08

Total posts: 1

by Chloe Albanesius

Fearful that the tone of your instant messages is sometimes lost in translation? Google on Tuesday announced that it is integrating a voice and video plug-in for it Gmail Chat offering that lets you see or hear the friend with which you are chatting.

Users will need to download and install a plug-in, and have access to a Webcam for video purposes. Google has partnered with Logitech and Buy.com to offer discounts of up to 30 percent on several cameras, as well as free shipping, until November 30.

A $99.99 Logitech QuickCam Pro for Notebooks, for example, is available for $69.99, while a $49 Logitech QuickCam Communicate MP is now $39.99.

"I'm a big user of Gmail chat. Being able to switch from email to chat as needed, all within the same app, is really great for productivity," Justin Uberti, a Google software engineer, wrote in a blog post. "But people can only type so fast, and even with our new emoticons, there are still some things that just can't be expressed in a chat message."

Once installed, click the "video & more" link inside the chat window and select "start video chat" or "start voice chat." The friend you are trying to contact will hear a ring and be given the option to accept or ignore the call. Users can then chat within the Gmail tab or pop it out into a separate window and expand or decrease its size.

Voice and video chat is available on Macs running Mac OS X v10.4 or later and PCs running Windows XP or higher. A link to download the offering will be rolled out to all Gmail and Google Apps accounts in the coming days, but it is also available directly at http://mail.google.com/videochat.

The video function was designed via open standards, "which means that third-party applications and networks can choose to interoperate with Gmail voice and video chat," Uberti wrote.

The offering was developed by Google teams in the U.S. and Sweden "so collaborating across continents and time zones is a fact of life for us, and it sure is easier (and greener) to click 'Start video chat' than to get on a plane!" he said.

2008-11-11T22:47:00.001-05:00

IT Networking in a Downturn

Telecommuting beating the credit crunch

Posted:: 15:30 07 Nov 2008

Despite the economic downturn, businesses cannot afford to stop investing in technology, in particular in IT security. Such investments are of strategic importance for companies in order that they stay competitive and innovative. But more than ever, choosing IT security investments wisely, and ensuring quick ROI, is vital.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, technology products which allow companies to operate more efficiently, and increase productivity will survive the economic slowdown. A key component in ensuring success is the clever use of flexible communications tools that support remote working and can allow organisations to meet economic challenges head on, ensuring a productive, efficient and secure working environment.

We believe that there are ten social trends and technology advancements which are spurring companies to implement 'telecommuting' strategies. These factors demonstrate that the technology, and timing, is now right to make telecommuting a viable option for business.

Considering these elements will allow firms to assess how, and when, they capitalise on the trends and technologies available in order to increase productivity, and make efficiencies across their business.

Technology #1: Broadband connectivity tops 50%

As the number of homes with broadband Internet access grows, working from home becomes more viable than ever before. Teleworkers can work more effectively with broadband connections. Enterprise applications run closer to real-time when accessed over a fast connection instead of dial-up - making accessing and working on company documents more speedy than ever. Broadband also makes VoIP (voice over IP or Internet phone) and other bandwidth-hungry new applications more viable.

Technology #2: Collaborative applications emerge: Web 2.0, Web meetings, VoIP

Today, web meetings have become commonplace within companies that have distributed workforces, whether in remote offices or home offices. Applications such as wikis and VoIP are key enablers of online collaboration. For telecommuters, remote collaboration can lead to huge productivity gains.

In terms of office culture, outsourcing and extended supply chains have given many organisations new lessons in real-time collaboration—online or by phone—with suppliers, partners and outsourcers. Now employees can apply those skills to collaborate with each other remotely.

Technology #3: Smartphones and PDAs abound

The proliferation of smartphones and PDAs, together with laptop and mobile computers, has given millions or workers the tools to work while commuting or otherwise work remotely or from home.

But mobility also challenges corporate IT departments in terms of the security of the devices and wireless networks they utilise. If looking at enterprise mobility, companies must ensure adequate security and device management policies are in place.

Trend #4: Put money back in employees' pockets to keep them loyal and productive

Economic conditions are affecting many workers. Working from home can trim commute costs in a family budget and allow for greater flexibility. Telecommuting is such a prized job perk that recent research from Sonic Wall carried out by the FactPoint group shows that just over a third (37%) of IT workers say they'd accept up to a 10 per cent lower salary to work full-time from home.

Trend #5: Save on operations and real estate

In the big picture, telecommuters also help companies lower their operating costs. When telecommuters use their own space, power and cooling to work from home, savvy employers adjust their facilities practices to pocket that savings.

Trend #6: Carbon footprint

A company's carbon footprint has become a key indicator of its environmental record, so companies keen to be "green" do measure their carbon footprints.

The growing use of web meetings and other virtual events makes cutting travel less painful and more cost-effective.

Trend #7: Boost business continuity and bounce back from disasters

Telecommuting dovetails nicely with another key corporate objective—Continuity of Operations, also called disaster recovery or business continuity. Telecommuting by definition distributes employees away from central offices that may be knocked out through power outages, weather, traffic jams or localised disturbances.

Trend #8: Regulatory compliance

The number of regulatory compliance issues has multiplied in recent years. Telecommuters are not excluded from these compliance mandates, so the viability of a telework program requires having technology in place that closely monitor teleworkers and onsite employee

Such technology must be able to:

Identify who requires access to the data
Enforce access to sensitive information
Segregate users, resources and communications between the two
Verify the processes are being followed, and audit processes for compliance

Trend #9: Bad guys are getting better

SSL VPNs, the basic security requirement for secure telecommuting, address the growing sophistication of hacker attacks and the organisations behind them. Telecommuting, which on the surface might seem to open new security vulnerabilities, should not if enterprises insist on effective remote access technology security.

Technology #10: Telework prerequisite: Secure remote access technology

Secure remote access and virtual private networks (VPNs) are essential for sending critical information over the Internet. VPNs essentially drill a "secure tunnel" through the Internet from the corporate data center to a remote location or mobile worker so sensitive data can pass over the Internet safely. With telecommuting and transit-based Wi-Fi, VPNs are no longer a "nice to have" but a key requirement. Modern VPNs, meaning those called SSL VPNs after the SSL protocol they utilise, can detect the identity of remote users, their network, location, and endpoint device and its security state.

Conclusion:

These trends and technologies put telecommuting on the cusp of a period of rapid growth. Two general categories are stronger today than they have been anytime in the last five years: financial drivers and enabling technologies.

The technology enablers of telecommuting work include reliable secure remote access, wider access to broadband Internet, new collaborative applications, and the popularity of PDAs and smartphones. Add to this a heightened public awareness of global warming and the original push from employees seeking better balance between their work and family lives. This time, teleworking will actually work.

2008-11-05T16:59:00.000-05:00

5 Additional Contacts Every Web Worker Should Have

November 4th, 2008 (12:00pm) Celine Roque No Comments

In a previous post here at WWD, I gave a list of four essential contacts for web workers. The list included a mentor, a newbie, the walking social network, and the non-techie. While those contacts will help you enrich your career, there are other contacts you'll need if you want to have more opportunities, or if you need help in establishing the businesses side of your web working practice.

The lawyer. Contracts and legal documents are part of every web worker's life. We often need to sign non-disclosure agreements, independent contractor documents, and telecommuting agreements. Having a lawyer as a contact can be handy, especially if you want to start a business, translate legalese, or draft your own contracts when templates just won't do.

The financial expert. Whether it's managing your own money, finding stable investments, or computing yoru home office as a tax deduction, you'll need a go-to person for your financial questions. This could be a hired accountant, financial advisor, or simply a friend who is wise about money. Even if they might not be able to answer all your questions, they can certainly point you to the resources and experts you need.

The website network owner. This contact is probably more important to freelancers than telecommuting employees. Basically, this person owns or manages several websites and blogs. Having a contact like this can prove to be useful, whether you're a designer, writer, SEO practitioner, or programmer. The most obvious reason is that there's a good chance that this contact will give you extra opportunities for work, since she has several web projects that need maintenance and updates. Also, if she really likes your work, you might be tapped for any new projects that come along.

The colleague. Web working is like a rat race where you don't get to meet the other rats. No matter how much you love solitude and independence, you'll need to network with others who are doing the kind of work that you do. Why is this important? First of all, it's always good to have someone who faces the same challenges as you do. You get to exchange ideas and help each other out when facing problems that are unique to teleworking. Also, it allows for opportunities to collaborate in the future.

For telecommuting employees, you can establish rapport with other telecommuters in your department. For freelancers, you could get in touch with the people you work with on a regular basis, or hang out in online communities where freelancers talk about the issues that matter to them.

The popular blogger. Blogs are fast becoming one of the most common resources that people turn to for current events and expert opinions. Their position gives bloggers some amount of authority when recommending a product or service. This makes it good to have blogger contacts from a marketing perspective, especially if you work with them and they blog about how happy they are with your work. I think that kind of recommendation beats a regular testimonial.

While having these five contacts is beneficial to your career, you shouldn't depend on them for everything. After all, the quality of your work is still up to you. These contacts will just add to the work, opportunities, and know how that you already have.

2008-10-29T20:44:00.001-04:00

New technologies redefine telecommuting practices

Companies

Written by Alma Anonas-Carpio / Correspondent

Wednesday, 29 October 2008 23:30

TAIPEI, Taiwan—Telecommuting will take on a new look with new mobile Internet technologies unveiled at the recently concluded Intel Developers Forum (IDF) in this city.

Intel Mobility Group vice president Shane Wall said the Internet is "poised to go mobile," adding that the Internet of the next generation of so-called netizens will be "very different from the Internet as we know it today."

The Intel executive added that "now the Internet is pervasive and we are already beginning to see the time when the Internet becomes ubiquitous," pointing out that the drivers for this evolution of Internet use are "social networking, user-generated content and location-based services."

"We are beginning to see users carry the Internet in their purses. We will soon see them carrying the Internet in their pockets, using mobile Internet devices [MIDs] to always remain connected to the Internet," Wall said.

This is the reason Intel came up with the Atom processor Z5xx series-based MIDs to serve as the platform for innovation in the mobile ecosystem Wall said as he showcased a number of devices coming to market.

He also announced that Intel is working with the alliance members Asus, BenQ, Compal, EB, HTC, Inventec and Quanta on the Intel Moorestown platform and is adding a new member, Compal Communications, to the alliance for its "strong competency in the communications space."

According to Wall, first-generation MIDs, such as ultramobile PCs or netbooks, "continue to hit the market." This new device "boasts of a compelling user interface, integrated applications and services from the SFR portal, seamless Wi-Fi and 3G roaming and an SFR applications store with easy access to rich content and services," he said.

The Intel executive also took note of "the growing momentum behind MIDs with strong interest from computer manufacturers like Aigo, Asus, BenQ, BYD, Clarion, Compal, Digifriends, Fujitsu, Gigabyte, Hanbit, Innowell, Inventec, Kohjinsha, Lenovo, OQO, Panasonic, PearTree, Sharp, Sony, Trigem, Techfaith, USI, Wibrain and Yukyung.

Other information and communications technology firms are also joining the MID ecosystem, including California Micro Devices, Fluendo, Gameloft, GyPSii, Livecast, Minigate, Move Networks, Mytopia, Navteq, Orb Networks and TuneWiKi.

2008-10-29T20:00:00.001-04:00

IT outsourcing giant to set up new center

By Wang Xing (China Daily)
Updated: 2008-10-29 10:34

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US software outsourcing company CSC, one of the world's largest IT outsourcing firms, said yesterday it will launch a new delivery center in China as the global financial crisis may force more Western companies to outsource their business to the country.

Michael Laphen, chairman and chief executive officer of CSC, said the financial turbulence would force more companies to outsource their business in pursuit of lower operating costs, thus creating more opportunities for outsourcing companies.

"Outsourcing will increase in difficult times as the financial crisis pushes companies to become more cost effective," said Laphen. "We expect further robust growth from China."

CSC's new delivery center, located in Tianjin, will open next spring.

It will serve both CSC's domestic and multinational clients in China and will have 500 employees within the next three years.

But Laphen declined to say how big its investment is in the new China facility.

Although the financial crisis has had a major impact on most of the world's economy, CSC remains optimistic about economic prospects in China.

It said the country's manufacturing and financial companies, which are two major customers for CSC in China, will continue to grow at a rapid speed.

During the past decades, multinational have been transferring non-core business to countries like India and China to reduce costs.

But as labor costs continue to rise in China, outsourcing companies in the country have been striving to go up the supply chain and earn money with more value-added services.

Lin Zheying, deputy director of foreign investment administration department under the Ministry of Commerce, said at an industry forum on Monday that the economic turmoil provided a good opportunity for China to develop outsourcing in service sectors, as many US financial institutions may have to outsource their business.

According to the ministry, the value of foreign contracts of Chinese outsourcing companies reached $1.9 billion in the first eight months, up 17 percent from the same period last year.

CSC entered the Chinese market in 1991 and now has around 300 employees in the country.

It has offices in Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai and Guangzhou.

Globally, CSC has approximately 90,000 employees and reported revenue of $17.1 billion for the 12 months ended July 4, 2008.

2008-10-29T19:51:00.001-04:00

The right tools for making telecommuting possible

Author: Piers Daniell| Date: 28 Oct. 2008| Tags: Broadband, Outsourcing/Telework, Telecoms

A recent study by the Computing Technology Industry Association reveals that telecommuting to your job, or in simpler words working from home, has positive outcomes in more than one aspects.

From environmental benefits, to reduced stress, and increasing the safety of their employees, to employee retention and worker productivity, the survey of 212 businesses revealed that almost close to 7 out of 10 of the respondents claimed to have experienced improved productivity by allowing their employees to telecommute part-time or full-time.

However is telecommuting for everyone? And what are the challenges and opportunities associated with benefiting from ever-increasing availability and speed of telecommunications?

To make telecommuting work well companies need excellent reliability and speed of communication. A fast data network is important for VoIP which not only makes interoffice calls free, but also makes the employees feel like more part of the day's activities being only an extension away.

In addition, video is becoming increasingly popular with more laptops shipping with onboard cameras, and a growing demand for video conferencing and screen capture software. Consequently this makes a fast connection with minimal downtime key.

Security is another important factor for utilising the benefits of telecommuting. Services exist, that expand the security of the company beyond one physical location through wide area networks.

This enables restrictions on spam, viruses, and authorized online content to be managed and supported by the company head office. It also allows them to operate services such as Quality of Service (QOS) which is necessary for a network supporting voice, video, and data.

In terms of costs, a good connection that provides speed, reliability, and security all under "one" roof isn't the cheapest. Nonetheless, it is important to keep these attributes to the highest level possible given that connectivity is the only thing that links employees to businesses when working from home. After all, considering health, environmental, and the business benefits of effective telecommuting, these are all reasons enough for acquiring the best possible connectivity solutions.

2008-10-27T19:42:00.001-04:00

Published on GreenBizSite (http://www.greenbiz.com)

Telecommuting and the Green Office of the Future

By Dana Sanchez

October 27, 2008

Businesses are becoming greener, not just because it's right but because it makes sense.

Paul Marerro didn't consciously try and start an environmentally conscious company. It happened naturally. Working out of a home office in Tampa, Fla., Marerro provides database and application enterprise architecting, report writing and project management services.

As his company, Caaspre Consulting, LLC grew, he hired a full-time employee in Iowa and added contractors in Cincinnati and Florida. All had worked for Marerro before in traditional offices. But the time for traditional offices has passed, both for Marrero and for a growing number of companies.

"It's all telecommuting," Marerro said.

If he had more full-time employees, he'd consider a virtual office, which would allow facilities like a conference room and phone-answering service. But for now, he's happy, he said.

Marerro doesn't have much waste and while he can't go totally paperless, waste paper is shredded and recycled. His business cards are made from recycled paper and all invoices are e-mailed. When he visits his largest client in Philadelphia, he walks or takes public transportation around the city.

"The green has worked its way in," Marerro said. "We consume electricity but nowhere near the amount of an office building. It's a room in your house."

Ideally, Marerro said he'd like to grow the business while expanding his green practices to include solar panels for his home and office. "But it's also nice to have several large clients, stay focused, give quality and there shouldn't be a lot of waste," he said.

Real estate executives and facility managers at medium to large companies are sometimes way off when it comes to occupancy rates, says John Anderson. Most think their facilities are being used 80 or 90 percent of the time. Upon tracking the data, they are often surprised to learn that they are using their space less than 50 percent of the time.

Anderson is president and CEO of PeopleCube in Framingham, Mass. He provides resource and energy management technology for the workplace. Many of his 65 employees telecommute.

Anderson's office hoteling software allows employees to schedule activities to secure a work space or room or office as needed. Some take it a step further. A large PeopleCube client in Charlotte, N.C., for instance, put up telecommuting offices around the perimeter of the city from which employees can work several days a week without commuting into the city.

The office and employer of the future invite employee participation and collaboration, which is key, Anderson said.

"You input your own carbon footprint. For example, you don't own a cubicle so you rent one for a day. You set the air conditioning and lighting as you like, contributing to the carbon offset."

Facilities represent the second highest expense for large businesses and the No. 1 manufacturer of emissions, according Anderson. Many employers are paying too much to heat and cool conference rooms that are hardly used and to illuminate cubicles too often left empty. Allowing employees to telecommute from home at least part of the week could cut costs significantly.

Traditionally, tracking and analyzing data from workflow patterns involves looking backward. Anderson suggests a mind shift that would require companies to establish baselines before demonstrating and measuring savings going forward.

Using the data more efficiently can help lower carbon footprint by reducing real estate costs and increasing energy efficiency up to 30 percent, he said.

"You need to establish what your baselines are before you can demonstrate and measure savings going forward," Anderson said. "Companies are just starting to do that today."

John Larson remembers when a U.S. Interstate Highway collapsed three blocks from where he worked in Minneapolis-St Paul in 2007. There was an immediate reaction by politicians and transportation officials who needed to reroute hundreds of thousands of vehicles every day. If these commuters' companies had put a telecommuting plan in place, that problem could potentially have been solved almost instantly.

Larson is a spokesperson for Results-Only Working Environment, or ROWE, a new way of managing people developed by two women who worked in human resources at Best Buy. The idea of ROWE is to allow flexible schedules, forcing managers to concentrate on outcomes rather than hours.

Best Buy adopted the ROWE plan at its headquarters, staggering arrival times for employees throughout the work day and cutting down on commute times.
"Those 4,000 people in Best Buy -- 2,500 to 3,000 still go to work each day but not all at the same time," Larson said. "People go at all hours so you don't have a giant crush of cars stalled in traffic."

Tips for Managing Office Space

• Think about cultural dynamics before switching to telecommuting
Not all employees are cut out for telecommuting. Some don't function well working from the home. Some companies have employees come in to the office for the first six months of employment to learn the corporate culture before being eligible to telecommute. Others have employees fill out a psychological profile for telecommute eligibility and physically check the employee's home to see if it has a dedicated work space.

• Use only the space you need
In a concept called office hoteling, employees can reserve office space as needed, reducing real estate use, energy use and carbon emissions. Automated scheduling systems allow employees to share resources, such as projectors or laptops.

• Use automated systems to integrate scheduling technology with air conditioning and lights
This ensures that rooms are lit or heated only when they are being used. Some smart systems can display energy savings and carbon emissions on display boards. The scheduling system can even suggest that a space recently used by one group be used for a subsequent group rather than reheating another space.

• Monitor resource and energy use
This allows managers to better leverage resources and reduce consumption and energy costs on meeting rooms, audiovisual equipment, vehicles and real estate. Unnecessary purchases can be avoided by better allocating how these assets are used.

Source: PeopleCube

Only a handful of companies have adopted the results-only philosophy. "But if ROWE became the status quo, it would have a tremendous impact on the environment," Larson said.

Anderson's 65 employees book conference space and cubicles on an as-needed basis, telecommuting when they don't need to be in the office.

Telecommuting is a huge incentive, PeopleCube's John Anderson said. It helps employees balance work and home life. Not having to drive an hour or more each way sometimes results in employees spending that saved commute-time working.

"After the salary, the number-one attraction is telecommuting," he said. "You're now dealing with millennial kids exiting college and they're very environmentally conscious. Employees want to know that their company is driving in those directions. It's a recruiting strategy too."

Employee participation can sound like a scary proposition for the traditional office scenario. There are two schools of thought regarding control, according to Anderson: One is that employees aren't going to help, so bosses have to force them to do what bosses want. The other is that the more employees are included in decision-making, the more they will help.

Educating employees about green office practices is vital, Anderson said.

"You'd be surprised what the employee population is willing to do," he said. "People are more willing to pitch in if you incent them to participate."

Incentives include funding transportation if employees leave their cars at home, bringing a homey feel into the office by having living-room type set-ups or having a Starbucks in the building.

Some of the more radical changes in green offices of the future have to do with amenities-based interiors and designs based around increased productivity. Think laundry room at the office so you don't have to send out.

Some banks, insurance and technology companies are creating positions for sustainability officers dedicated to reducing carbon footprint. Others resist, saying they want to be environmentally conscious but have to have a return on their investment in everything they do. Whether they're in stocks, paper recycling or can recycling, there's a prevailing mentality in the executive suite that if you're not in the office today, you're not really working.

"Our employees that telecommute are probably more productive than those that come in," Anderson said. "As long as I'm getting a day's work out of you I don't really care. Telecommuting has a high degree of success."

Dana Sanchez is a business writer based in Sarasota County, Fla.

Source URL: http://www.greenbiz.com/feature/2008/10/27/telecommuting-and-green-office-future

Links:
[1] http://www.caaspreconsulting.com/caaspre/
[2] http://www.peoplecube.com/
[3] http://caliandjody.com/

2008-10-23T20:40:00.001-04:00

October 23rd, 2008

After the layoffs: Increased workloads stress out those left behind

Posted by Sam Diaz @ 12:13 pm

Jobcuts are never easy - and finding your name on the layoff list can be traumatic, especially this time of year. There's no disputing that.

But what about the folks whose names are not on the list, the ones who get left behind to pick up the workload slack? They certainly don't want to be complainers when the boss comes walking over to hand off the work that Mary or Joe was doing, before they were laid off. But, they were barely keeping up with their own workload before - and now there's more?

An increased workload - followed by the pace of new technology and office politics - are the leading causes of stress for IT workers today, according to a survey released by Robert Half Technologies. OK, I know what you're thinking: Too much work can be a good thing in today's economic climate. But it can also take a toll on productivity. Overstressed workers don't usually perform at their best and stressed-out workplaces can quickly erode morale, as well.

Robert Half Technologies, which asked the question as part of a larger survey that helps shape hiring forecasts, said some companies are bringing in IT folks on a contract basis to help with the workload. Many are also looking at training and professional development programs to help employees keep pace with technology. Most importantly, though, good managers open the lines of communication to keep employees motivated and ensure that priority projects stay on track.

The survey asked the question: Which of the following do you think is the greatest source of workplace stress for IT professionals? The responses were:

Sam Diaz is a senior editor at ZDNet. See his full profile and disclosure of

2008-10-20T22:25:00.001-04:00

Telecommuting Good for the Whole Office, Survey Says

10/20/2008

Companies that allow telecommuting save an average of $700,000 per year, according to a new survey sited by ASI. The savings are found in fewer mileage reimbursements and money spent in office materials. The availability of telecommuting was also found to have health benefits for employees, as well increase productivity and the ability to hire and retain more qualified workers.

Results of the Web-based survey by CompTIA, a nonprofit trade association, indicate that employees and businesses alike benefit from allowing people to telecommute. More than 200 companies responded to the survey, and 75 percent said they allow at least some telecommuting. Most attribute the increased efficiency to eliminated travel time.

Business savings, while averaging about $700,000 per year, varied greatly. The survey was sent in August and September to professionals in several industries, including technology service, manufacturing, health care, education and entertainment.

2008-10-20T19:54:00.001-04:00

Iconic Irish company Waterford Crystal (WATFF) will lay off most of its workforce and shift production elsewhere, having already contracted most of its production to Slovenia.

At its height in 2002, Waterford employed 3,200 people, but that number will soon drop to approximately 125.

The company's plant will remain in Dublin, though it will become primarily a tourist attraction, rather than a manufacturing plant. Waterford, which manufactures the ball dropped each New Year's Eve in Times Square, draws about 300,000 tourists each year.

The decline of the dollar is partially to blame, as about half of the company's revenue comes from American consumers. Also to blame are the living wages paid Western European workers; Eastern European laborers can produce high-quality goods for far less pay.

Much as the newly-unemployed workers dislike being jobless, investors seem to like the new direction, bidding Waterford stock up 50% to 0.3 euro cents. (The company's market cap remains less than a tenth of its debt.)

A union representative had this to say: "That [employees] will now seemingly be cast aside and production moved to just another factory overseas is devastating."

Outsourcing is already de rigueur here in America, as companies from Procter & Gamble (PG) to DuPont (DD) to Cisco Systems (CSCO) have sent jobs overseas. Atul Vashistha, CEO of outsourcing consultant neoIT and co-author of the book The Offshore Nation, told BusinessWeek: "Many CEOs are saying, 'Don't tell me how much I can save. Show me how we can grow by 40% without increasing our capacity in the U.S."

Eli Lilly (LLY) is a good example. For each new drug it releases, it estimates the cost to be somewhere around a billion dollars. However, according to the same BusinessWeek article, outsourcing lowers those costs to about $800 million. Lilly now does 20% of its chemistry work in China at a 75% savings; it's also trying to cut costs on clinical trials by conducting them in Brazil, Russia, China and India. When most people think of outsourcing in this country, they think of India. General Electric's (GE ) John F. Welch Technology Center -- named for their famed ex-CEO -- isn't located anywhere near GE's headquarters in Fairfield, Connecticut. It's in Bangalore, India.

A quarter of the Welch center's engineers have Ph.Ds. They design turbine-engine blades for jet aircraft; they study the molecular structure of materials used in short-term-use DVDs, which automatically erase after a certain period of time. Workers at the center have filed for 95 US patents since 2000.

Morgan Stanley (MS), JPMorgan (JPM), and Goldman Sachs (GS) employ Indian analysts and back-office workers. (Though someone working in Madras may be better-described as back-back-back office.)

But something interesting is now happening: India is outsourcing outsourcing.

To Mexico, because Indian workers are just too expensive these days.

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) opened a software development center in Guadalajara, providing about 5,000 jobs to Mexicans over the next 5 years.

New Delhi-based IT firm Genpact (G), self-described as "a world-class" alternative to India for IT outsourcing, opened a 125,000-square-foot facility in Ciudad Juárez, employing 2,500 people.

Bangalore's Infosys (INFY) set up shop in Monterrey last year - 150 miles south of the United States border.

This is the new paradigm: A company in the United States pays an Indian vendor 7,000 miles away to supply it with Mexican engineers who work within driving distance of America.

It's what happens when a country's companies are trying to cope with wage inflation hovering around 15% annually.

So, the next time you boot up your PC, remember: the software you're using could well have been dreamt up by someone in San Jose, developed by someone in Matamoros, tweaked by someone in Mumbai, manufactured in Hermosillo... And if you need tech support? Expect it to come full circle to Bangalore.

Adios!

No positions in stocks mentioned.

Justin Rohrlich welcomes your comments and feedback at jrohrlich@minyanville.com

Minyanville staff and contributors may trade or hold securities that are discussed in an article. Staff and contributors will indicate whether they have a position in any security discussed, but will not indicate size or direction. The information on this site is not intended as individualized investment advice and all investment decisions by a reader must in all cases be made by the reader either individually or together with his/her investment professional. The views expressed in articles appearing on this site are solely those of the staff and contributors and should not be attributed to any other person or entity except where expressly stated. Minyanville staff and contributors will not respond to requests for investment advice.

Copyright 2008 Minyanville Publishing and Multimedia, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

2008-10-20T19:44:00.001-04:00

Home Sweet Office: Telecommute Good for Business, Employees, and Planet

By Brendan I. Koerner 09.22.08

Photo: Mauricio Alejo

Start

Next: The Project That Tracks Big Projects

Ever since OPEC vexed Jimmy Carter into wearing a cardigan, telecommuting has been touted as a fix for what ails the US office worker — the agony and expense of commuting, the drudgery of cubicles, the shortage of family time. Long before the advent of the Web, evangelists were confident that cordless phones and faxes had already made the office a relic. "Working from home holds the promise of a new American dream," Paul and Sarah Edwards gushed in their 1985 manifesto, Working From Home, in which they extolled the virtues of commuting from breakfast nook to den.

Two decades later, however, most workers still trudge to the office. Though a third of the more than 150 million working Americans telecommute at least occasionally, most do so just a few days each month. Only 40 percent of companies permit any sort of work-at-home arrangement, which means most insist on full-time attendance. According to a 2006 survey by the Telework Exchange, the top fear among resisters is that they'll lose control of their employees, whom they doubtlessly envision frittering away the hours between 9 and 5 playing Minesweeper and munching Cheetos.

Telecommuting's foes couldn't be more misguided. When gasoline costs $4 a gallon, companies shouldn't just be doing all they can to expand telecommuting — they should be scrapping their offices entirely. No, not turning them into toy-filled communal spaces, as advertising titan Chiat/Day infamously did in the early-'90s, but abandoning them outright.

That might sound a bit radical to those who swear by the office's supposed benefits, like camaraderie and face-to-face collaboration. But time and again, studies have shown that telecommuters are every bit as engaged as their cubicle-bound brethren — and happier and more productive to boot. Last year, researchers from Penn State analyzed 46 studies of telecommuting conducted over two decades and covering almost 13,000 employees. Their sweeping inquiry concluded that working from home has "favorable effects on perceived autonomy, work-family conflict, job satisfaction, performance, turnover intent, and stress." The only demonstrable drawback is a slight fraying of the relationships between telecommuters and their colleagues back at headquarters — largely because of jealousy on the part of the latter group. That's the first problem you solve when you kill your office.

Earlier this year, an IDC report from Asia found that 81 percent of managers believe telecommuting improves productivity, up from 61 percent in 2005. The increase is attributable largely to the proliferation of unified communications technologies — tools that connect mobile and remote workers. These include products like LifeSize Express, the first hi-def videoconferencing system priced at less than $5,000, as well as Web-based services like Google Docs and Glance, which let users view a remote colleague's onscreen work in real time (in the case of Glance, with cursor movements and all).

The traditional office, meanwhile, remains a black hole of interruptions, procrastination, and soul-crushing politics. According to Gloria Mark, an informatics professor at UC Irvine, the typical office worker is interrupted or switches tasks every three minutes — hardly enough time to accomplish anything of substance.

True, there is value to getting folks together under one roof, but those gatherings needn't occur every day. Instead of leasing traditional offices — currently averaging around $21.25 per square foot annually, and a quarter of that is typically either vacant or underutilized — companies could join meeting-room cooperatives, which allow firms to assemble when necessary. Given that it costs more than $15,000 per year to provide an employee with 200 square feet of cubicle, the savings would be significant — so great, in fact, that companies would still come out thousands of dollars ahead after springing for workers' broadband and VoIP expenses.

Ditching the office could also provide businesses with a leg up in the scramble to recruit and retain talent. For starters, location would no longer limit a company's employment pool — gifted Kansans wouldn't be forced to uproot their lives for opportunities in, say, California. Also, based on the average American's commute time, driving speed, and vehicle specs — and assuming that gas costs $4 per gallon — a telecommuter would save around $1,200 a year on fuel alone — an instant salary bump, of sorts.

Perhaps you've been an office drone for so long that you can't imagine life without fuzzy, low-slung cubicle walls. Well, given that the typical American house is now over 2,500 square feet — up more than 60 percent since the early '70s — surely you can find room to build your own cube. Add some stale coffee and a buzzing fluorescent light and it will feel just like... well, you know where.

2008-10-17T16:43:00.001-04:00

10 ways to convince your boss to let you work from home

Date: October 16th, 2008
Author: Susan Harkins

There may be dozens of reasons why telecommuting makes sense for you. But to make your case with management, you need a list of reasons that make sense for the business. Here are some well-supported arguments that demonstrate the benefits your company will gain when you work at home.

You want to work from home, but your boss might not support the idea. Don't blame your boss — it's a lot of change. Don't make the mistake of telling your boss that you'll be happier, and therefore more productive, working from home. Your boss won't care about your state of mind. Instead, spend a little time researching telecommuting statistics that your boss can care about. In short, show your boss how telecommuting will improve or help business.

Note: This information is also available as a PDF download.

#1: Your place is cheaper than theirs

Office space doesn't come cheap. Rented office space runs the extremes, but with an average of $33 a square foot (per year), it adds up. According to InnoVisions Canada, organizations can eliminate one office for every three telecommuters. Just a few money-saving examples should encourage any manager to consider your proposal:

AT&T reduced office-space costs by 50%.
IBM saved $56 million a year after reducing office space by 2 million square feet.
Merrill Lynch saves $5,000 to $6,000 a year for each office it eliminates.
Georgia Power saves $100,000 a year after reducing office space.
The March 2008 issue of The TeleWorker reports that Dow Chemical's administrative costs dropped 50% and it attributes 1% of those savings to telecommuting.

Realistically, you're just one person, but you could start a trend. The movement has to start somewhere. If it's good for big business, why not yours?

#2: Your productivity will increase

It's hard to convince some managers that you'll be more productive at home. Seeing your little bobblehead lends comfort, albeit false security. Just because your boss can see you doesn't mean you're working. If your word won't get the job done, try statistics:

According to a 2008 survey by Computing Technology Industry Association (CompTIA), 67% of respondents said their organizations were productive thanks to part-time and full-time telecommuting.
In the March 2008 issue of The TeleWorker, American Express claims its telecommuters produce 43% more business than officer workers.
A survey by the Massachusetts Division of Energy Resources and the Massachusetts Highway Department reported an improvement in productivity: 82% to 87%of telecommuting employees felt they were more productive; 96.7% to 100% of supervisors reported increased productivity for their telecommuters.

Then there's the creative aspect, which is hard to quantify. Frankly, some of us get more work done between 3:00 AM and 5:00 AM than those at the office working 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM. Now, this is more about you than the business, but it won't hurt to let your employer know that you often work those extra hours, if you do.

The word is out: Telecommuting employees spend more time working when they're not commuting and interacting with co-workers.

#3: Employee retention will go up

Threatening to quit if you can't work from home is a bad idea; few of us are indispensable. However, if you have a long commute, working from home is a reasonable request. If you're a valued employee, working from home a few days a week is preferable to losing you to a company that's closer to home.

In CompTIA's 2008 survey, 37% of respondents said telecommuting improves employee retention. Another 39% said they have access to more qualified personnel, who don't always live within commuting distance, thanks to telecommuting.

A recent study by The Journal of Applied Psychology found that stress due to tense relationships at work is a major factor in the decision to quit a job. These people aren't hard to get along with, they just don't like office politics. Telecommuting, at least part-time, can reduce that stress and keep key people from leaving your organization. That kind of give and take has the added bonus of building company loyalty.

#4: You'll increase your billable hours

Anyone who bills clients directly knows how difficult it is to differentiate billable tasks from non-billable interruptions. When other people have access to you, they access you! At the end of the day, how much time did you actually spend on billable tasks? At home, you have fewer interruptions and that adds up to more billable hours. That means more revenue, quicker solutions, and more time for new clients, which means more money.

#5: You'll be running with the crowd

Everybody's doing it. Robert Half Technology surveyed 1,400 CIOs and found that 47% offered more flexible schedules, including telecommuting, to improve job satisfaction and build loyalty. Here are a few more national statistics from WorldatWork:

12.4 million U.S. workers telecommute at least one day a month.
The number of employees who telecommute one day a month increased 25% from 2004 to 2005.
WorldatWork estimates that 100 million U.S. workers will telecommute by 2010.

#6: Your relationships will improve

The study by The Journal of Applied Psychology mentioned earlier found that telecommuting helped improve the relationships between supervisors and staff. In a telecommuting environment, everyone works hard to stay in touch. They see each other less, but they often communicate more efficiently and effectively than people sharing the same office space.

#7: It's the green thing to do

Being green isn't just trendy, it can save your company money. A study commissioned by the US Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) reported that telecommuting saves 9 to 14 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity per year — the equivalent of one million U.S. households. That equates to energy savings for your company. How much will of course depend on the company's size and the number of employees who are telecommuting. The study also estimated that 3.9 million telecommuters reduce fuel consumption by about 840 million gallons and carbon dioxide emissions by nearly 14 million tons. While that won't change your department's bottom line, with today's gas prices, your boss might decide to start telecommuting too!

Traffic isn't just about fuel and emissions. The Texas Transportation Institute concluded that gridlock (traffic) cost $78 billion annual, or 4.2 billion lost hours. Instead of sitting in traffic, you could be working, if you worked at home.

#8: Politicking will go down

It's hard to share gossip from a home office. Yes, there's always e-mail, IM, and phone calls, but it just isn't the same. You might not be prone to participating in office politics or gossip, but sharing the same space with those who are affects your attitude and even your work. Nothing zaps productivity and morale like gossip and rumors. A home office can filter (protect you from) the undesirable aspects of sharing space with miserable human beings. If this is a problem, believe me, your manager already knows it. Showing sensitivity to the issue and wanting to separate yourself from it is admirable and professional.

Warning: Not every boss will agree with you. Some believe you should be above such shenanigans and you will appear petty if you even hint at such problems. Know your boss before you put this one on the table.

#9: You'll be more accessible

In an episode of Seinfield, George napped under his desk. Everyone thought he was very busy because he was never available. He was really just asleep. If you're not in your office, maybe you're in the copy room, or a conference room, or the library — there are many places to hide at work.

If your boss calls your home office and you don't answer, just where are you? Realistically, you could be busy with a biological call, letting the dog in, letting the cat out, and so on. The point is, you can't hide at home for very long. You must return a voicemail or e-mail quickly because your boss knows you're not in the copy room, a conference room, or the library. You're at home, and your boss knows where you live.

Not only are you more accessible to your boss and co-workers, you're more accessible to clients. Business hours and time zones don't limit you. (On second thought, maybe you might want to keep that benefit to yourself.)

#10: It's a weather-proof arrangement

In January 1994, my employer shut down for a full week after Mother Nature dumped about 20 inches of snow on the region. Depending on where you work, this might be an important issue. Weather won't disrupt your commute across the hall.

2008-10-15T21:00:00.001-04:00

TELECOMMUTING
Productivity rises for teleworkers: survey

Staff

October 15, 2008

More than two-thirds - 67 per cent - of employers say that their
organization has gotten a boost in productivity from full-time or
part-time telecommuting, mainly because workers spend less time
getting to and from work, a new survey finds.

And 59 per cent of the 212 respondents said that they've also
benefited significantly from cost savings through less use of
office-related materials and lower vehicle-related expenses, according
to the survey by the Computing Technology Industry Association.

As well, 39 per cent said it gave them access to more qualified staff,
especially people who might not have been otherwise geographically
available.

Among other benefits, 37 per cent said telecommuting helps to improve
employee retention, and 25 per cent said it benefits employee health,
mainly by cutting the stress of the commute to work.

2008-10-10T18:53:00.001-04:00

Air district union workers hold pickets

By Paula Lloyd / The Fresno Bee

10/09/08 22:36:33

Union employees of the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District offices who have worked without a contract since Sept. 30 held informational pickets in Fresno, Modesto and Bakersfield on Thursday to discuss their concerns.

Representatives from the Service Employees International Union Local 521 and the air district have met about 12 times since July to hammer out a new contract, said Carolyn Rose, the district's director of personnel.

The district made its "last best" offer Tuesday for an 11% increase in salary and benefits spread over the next three years. The offer is for 3.5% in each of the next two years and 4% in the third year, Rose said.

"We think, especially in these economic times, a package of 11% is very generous," Rose said.

The union, however, is asking for a 7% increase in wages and benefits in each of the next three years, said Sam Shaw, a union representative. The union represents about 250 of the 285 employees in the Fresno, Modesto and Bakersfield offices.

The increase would offset increasing health-care costs, said Carlos Garcia, an engineer at the district's Fresno office on Gettysburg Avenue, who took time off to help staff the picket.

Turnover of employees is too high, Shaw said, and the union also wants the district to expand the pilot telecommuting program that began this summer.

About 10 employees in the Fresno office are working from home in the telecommuting program, Rose said.

The 10% employee turnover rate at the Fresno office is "not alarming -- if anything it's healthy," Rose said.

District and union officials are scheduled to return to the bargaining table in about two weeks.

The reporter can be reached at plloyd@fresnobee.com or (559) 441-6756.

2008-10-09T18:30:00.001-04:00

Want a four-day workweek? IT is key

Floundering economy makes it attractive, but hidden problems could arise

Sandra Gittlen

October 9, 2008 (Computerworld) As oil prices continue to fluctuate, the economy flounders and the pressure is on to slow global warming, both public- and private-sector organizations are turning to alternative work schedules such as telecommuting, flex time and four-day workweeks to ease the pain to their bottom lines, their employees' wallets and the environment.

For example, the state of Utah recently announced a one-year trial of a four-day workweek where most non-essential services are shut down on Fridays to save more than $3 million in utility costs. Across the country, other organizations, such as the Hawaiian state government, have disclosed similar plans as well as telecommuting initiatives and flex-time to reduce carbon emissions, give employees a break from crushing gas prices and possibly cut down on expenses.

If you're going to shut buildings down and change work schedules, you have to know how you're going to keep business going and what IT support you'll need to make that happen.

Stephen Fletcher, CIO of Utah state government

But as beneficial as these plans promise to be, without early involvement by IT, they may be doomed to failure. Experts say it's critical for IT to assess the infrastructure's ability to support increased remote access to services by employees and customers.

"If you're going to shut buildings down and change work schedules, you have to know how you're going to keep business going and what IT support you'll need to make that happen," says Utah CIO Stephen Fletcher.

Well before Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman revealed his four-day workweek plan to the public this summer, he gathered his cabinet members, including Fletcher, to determine if such a move was even feasible. "The governor was very clear in those early meetings that we still had to make services available even if our buildings weren't physically open for business," Fletcher says.

Keeping 850 online services operating

Fletcher met with every department to figure out which applications their customers would need access to during the off day. He focused on completing the 850 online services the state now offers and building up the external-facing Web infrastructure needed to support increased traffic from citizens looking to pay taxes, renew driver's licenses and carry out other common e-government tasks.

Fletcher's team earned top ranking in this year's Center for Digital Government's Digital States Survey of e-government services. He says the governor's inclusion of his team in the early planning helped him guarantee that there would be enough servers, bandwidth and other resources to make the plan a success.

The governor's strategy also gave Fletcher time to assess how best to reallocate his consolidated IT resources, which would normally be targeted at supporting in-house employees on Fridays, to other strategic projects.

While Hawaii is taking its cue from Utah and piloting a four-day workweek, that state has also thrown in the challenge of adding greater support for remote access for employees.

Hawaii's government, the state's largest employer, says telecommuting is a necessary element of its project to help reduce traffic congestion in Honolulu's downtown area during peak hours, provide employees with a better work/life balance, and serve as a recruitment and retention tool, according to Marie Laderta, director of Hawaii's Department of Human Resources Development.

State officials are working closely with IT to make sure that employees who have been approved for telework can securely access file systems as well as do remote transaction processing. However, the state has already hit a snag because some transaction processing requires the use of paper files. Laderta says removal of paper documents from the office raises privacy concerns and must be closely examined before the pilot is expanded. "For now, we are limiting the remote transaction processing to systems administration and monitoring, small-scale systems development, and processing that does not require access to paper files," Laderta says.

Brad Johnson, vice president at consultancy SystemExperts in Westerly, R.I., says Utah and Hawaii should be commended for bringing IT to the table early to hash out issues that might otherwise have had disastrous results down the road.

There's no doubt that a change in work hours can mean additional costs for an organization -- particularly for an environment that hasn't offered remote access before.

Brad Johnson, consultant at SystemExperts

"Most organizations don't think these flex plans or four-day workweeks the whole way through. There's no doubt that a change in work hours can mean additional costs for an organization -- particularly for an environment that hasn't offered remote access before," Johnson says.
He points to help desk support as an example. "There is a big jump between supporting most of your workforce in-house to supporting a large percentage remotely," he says.

It doesn't work for some workers

Mark Gibbs, CEO of consultancy Gibbs Universal, recommends that organizations start their alternate work-hour projects by figuring out who in the organization would be able to take advantage of it. As the Hawaiian government has discovered, some users might not be able to conduct their jobs remotely because of regulatory or corporate compliance constraints.

But it's not just regulatory constraints that limit who can take advantage of such a program -- it's also legacy applications that can't easily be accessed remotely. "They become apparent pretty quickly," Johnson says. He adds that there is a cost to making those applications available that has to be considered.

Organizations must decide how they're going to allow users to safely access data on the network -- by an employee's home PC, an organization laptop or a virtual desktop. Johnson says all of these avenues require some level of IT support that is different than on-site support.

One snafu that some organizations might encounter is around infrastructure and licensing. Johnson says IT teams might need to add more firewall licenses or boost server capacity to accommodate increased concurrent remote access to the network -- another hidden cost.

Gibbs advises using instrumentation such as dashboards to make sure that the objectives of your alternate work-schedule project are being met and that you're not negating the positives with unexpected costs. If you're focused on providing access for employees, make sure you monitor and measure all the resources they use, including cell phones, voice over IP, applications and laptops. If you're focused on providing customer service while your business is closed, then you need customer experience tracking tools to guarantee you're meeting their needs.

Fletcher agrees and has deployed monitoring tools that help him record customer usage on the day off as well as application and network performance. That way, he can report back to state executives on the customer experience and the effectiveness of the project.

Sandra Gittlen is a freelance technology editor near Boston. She can be reached at sgittlen@verizon.net.

2008-10-09T17:10:00.001-04:00

Telecommuters more productive, healthy and loyal

Cheaper too, finds survey

Shaun Nichols in San Francisco, vnunet.com 08 Oct 2008

A recent industry survey claims that workers who telecommute are more productive and healthy, and more likely to stay with their current employer.

The study, carried out by the Computer Technology Industry Association (CompTIA), followed some 212 professionals in various industries, including IT, government services, education and telecoms.

Two-thirds of the respondents experienced greater productivity from employees working full-time or part-time from home.

A third said that they were able to hire better qualified employees through the lure of telecommuting, while 39 per cent reported better staff retention levels.

The study also found that a quarter of the participants believed that the reduced stress of not having a morning commute improved their overall health, while 18 per cent felt safer not having to brave busy motorways on their way to work.

"With 'anywhere' connectivity, faster broadband options and high-quality video and online conferencing choices, the opportunity for virtual offices is greater today and more affordable for businesses of all sizes and types," said CompTIA president and chief executive Todd Thibodeaux.

The productivity and environmental benefits of telecommuting have long been used as a selling point. The health and loyalty benefits, however, could prove a new weapon for work-at-home advocates.

But security remains a concern. Remote workers usually operate outside the corporate network, and administrators cannot easily track their activities and enforce security policies, increasing the risk of attacks and data leaks.

Permalink: http://www.vnunet.com/2227695

www.vnunet.com/2227695

2008-10-09T17:08:00.001-04:00

October 8th, 2008

Teaching telecommuting

Posted by Christopher Dawson @ 9:20 am

Categories: Education Technology

I had to commute this morning. I left the commuting behind about 5 years ago and dread the drive from middle-of-nowhere Massachusetts to Boston. We have a lot more horses than traffic jams out my way, so I've definitely lost my tolerance for traffic. The local troopers frown on BlackBerry use as you inch along besides.

Needless to say, as I fumed on my way to a conference south of Boston this morning, I got to thinking about Zack Whittaker's article on working from home. There is a cultural shift going on, no doubt, as more and more people telecommute. Rising gas prices, greater awareness of our carbon footprints, cost of living considerations, work-life balance, etc., all drive telecommuting.

It occurred to me, though, that we can actually teach kids skills and provide them with tools that allow them to work anytime, anywhere, on any computer. I touched on this idea with my article on SIMtone's Virtual PC initiative, but the tools already exist to enable kids to simulate a work environment in which they can remain connected to their data and school resources.

Citrix is the obvious example, along with VPN tunnels allowing access to shared drives, expensive applications, etc. A local school recently had to send kids home because they lost heat in the building. While this is not a big deal for a lot of students (it's like a snow day, only early!), other students enrolled in SAT prep courses, AP courses, and others that need every day possible to cram in content could certainly have benefited from the ability to work at home.

This is no different from those of us who commute (or at least formerly commuted) through the snow belts. In fact, most businesses find that this sort of 24/7, work in your pajamas access really increases productivity. Spouses and significant others don't care much for it, but the ability to work anytime means that a lot of people work, well, anytime.

It's easy to make a case for letting kids work anytime as well and instilling, if not workaholism, a healthy respect for the tools that let them get their jobs done effectively, even after the school day has ended.

2008-10-08T10:35:00.001-04:00

From: www.cio.com

Telecommuting Improves Productivity, Lowers Costs, New Survey Finds

– Meridith Levinson, CIO

October 07, 2008

Employees who wish their employers would let them work from home now have more stats to include in their business cases for telecommuting, according to a new survey conducted by CompTIA.

Keeping In Touch with Remote Collaboration Tools

Anthony Williams

Ever since my wife and I started our custom software development business, we've been making use of remote collaboration facilities such as VNC and Webex in order to give demonstrations to clients without having to visit their site, or have them come to us, as I described in my blog entry on Demonstrating Software on the Web. This has worked well: the majority of our clients are over 100 miles away, so visits in either direction are quite a lot of hassle. We still do make site visits or have clients come to us where desired or necessary, but the use of remote collaboration tools has certainly cut down on the level of travel we
would otherwise have had to do.

The various remote collaboration tools have various levels of cost and functionality. For example, we usually use TightVNC for demonstrations, as it is completely free to use, and just requires that the client has a web browser with Java support in order to use it. However, it does require that you know your IP address, and may require modification to your firewall to ensure that the incoming request is passed on to the VNC server.

At the other extreme, WebEx is primarily a subscription service (though they do offer a pay-per-use option), and requires that the client download and run a program on
their machine. However, WebEx works seamlessly through firewalls, and just requires knowing the meeting ID information rather than an IP address.

Obviously, whatever program you use it will work better if both you and your client have a broadband connection: remote desktop sharing requires a lot of data to transfer, so can be painful if either party
has a dial-up connection.

Using VNC

If all you are trying to do is allow clients access to your desktop, either for a demonstration or so they can try things out for themselves, VNC can be the easiest and cheapest option, as all they
need is a web browser with Java support.

First off, you need to install the VNC server on the machine you wish to allow remote access to. This allows you to share the desktop either for viewing only, or for remote control.

As I've already said, VNC does require that the incoming connections are allowed through the firewall, but for freelancers this shouldn't pose a problem: the chances are that the you have a computer directly
connected to the internet, or a small network with a hardware firewall that you control. It is therefore very easy to configure your firewall to allow VNC connections to forward to your PC. VNC requires one port (which defaults to 5900) for the actual data request, and a second (which defaults to 5800) for the web server. Once it's all set up you can give your clients a URL like:

http://123.45.67.89:5800

where 123.45.67.89 is your IP address. If you have a static IP, you can register a domain and point that at your IP address, otherwise you can use something like the free dynamic DNS service at http://www.dyndns.com/ to provide a more sensible URL like

http://myvncserver.dyndns.org:5800

Once the connection is open (and the password validated), then your desktop will be visible in a Window on your clients computer. If you have enabled remote control, then your client can interact with your
computer through this window. If not, then they will just be able to watch what you are doing.

If your client is willing to install the VNC viewer software on their PC, then they can access your machine directly, without going through the web browser. In this case you only need the one port open in the firewall.

Since your IP address or host name is unlikely to change too much, clients could in theory try and connect at any time, and thus watch demonstrations you're giving to other clients, which would not be
desirable. VNC allows the connection to be protected with a password to avoid snoopers, so I would recommend choosing a new password for each session, and disabling the VNC server when you're not actually using it.

Using WebEx

WebEx is good where you are behind a firewall that you cannot control, where you might need to access your client's PC (e.g. to help solve a problem they are having), or where they are familiar with using it,
and trust WebEx over "the strange VNC thing". WebEx is a subscription service though, so be prepared to pay for this convenience.

To use WebEx, both you and your client must run the WebEx meeting software. You need to arrange a "meeting ID", and then both of you can enter the meeting ID when prompted by the software. The software then connects to the WebEx server and passes the data between the two
PCs. No messing around with firewalls or IP addresses required.

WebEx will then show your desktop to your client in a window. Just as with VNC, you can choose whether they are just watching, or whether they can interact with your machine. One extra feature that comes with WebEx is the ability to switch which machine is being shared, so that you can view or control their PC instead. This ability to interact with your clients PC can be really helpful if they are having trouble with some software you wrote for them: they can show you what they are trying to do, with their live data. This can be important where the issue is data dependent, or depends on some aspect of their PC configuration.

Summary

This short article has barely touched the surface of how to use these versatile tools, but hopefully I've managed to convey something of how useful they are. Next time a client asks you to travel to their site
for a demonstration, it might be worth asking if they'd try out one of these tools instead.

2008-10-07T17:19:00.001-04:00

Firm launches telecommunicating tech in Malacañang

Article posted October 04, 2008 - 01:17 AM

MANILA, Philippines - A technology that will allow call center agents to work from home was formally launched Friday in Malacañang.

In a statement, Vikas Kapoor, Chief Executive Officer of iQor, Inc., the company that developed the technology, said this will give the workers flexibility in communicating with clients worldwide.

"Our new propriety technology will vastly increase both flexibility and security of our clients. They [clients] no longer need to choose a specific location for their work, and can simultaneously access the best workers anywhere in our global footprint or use qualified workers who do not wish to commute to a call center," he said.

The technology, called "FeAther," can recognize the identity of call center agents using biometrics. When a call center agent's fingers touches the keyboard, iQor's network will use the biometric information to determine who he is, what systems he can access and what calls he can handle.

Feether lets workers to access the system in any of iQor's centers worldwide as well as those who have high speed Internet access at home.

Mr. Kapoor did not state how much was spent to develop FeAther but a statement from the company said it was a "multi-million investment" In a courtesy call on President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, Mr. Kapoor demonstrated the capabilities of the technology by using an internet connection at the Palace to take calls from the President's office.

Last June, Mr. Kapoor announced the opening of iQor's third call center in the Philippines, which was expected to create 700 new jobs. iQor had said it plans to hire 300 new employees at its new call center at the Clark Special Economic Zone before the end of the year.

iQoR provides business process outsourcing to 21 call centers in five companies and four continents worldwide. It has around 8,000 employees worldwide. — Alexis Douglas B. Romero, BusinessWorld

2008-09-23T19:55:00.001-04:00

2008-09-22T18:11:00.001-04:00

We're outsourcing…but don't tell anyone!
September 22, 2008

In my work in helping companies to develop outsourcing strategies and roadmaps, and the one constant is we have to keep this quiet! When I ask "Why are you outsourcing" the most common answer is "for cost savings." What I tend to discover is that most companies want to grow bigger without growing fatter. Now Fatter is a term I use when you have to expand sites or manufacturing space to take on new work. Some companies really do need to just cut costs and outsourcing is only one phase of a series of cost-cutting measures. In either case the steps are really the same except at the end where you let employees go or reallocate those people and resources to a new product/project.

But the one typical discussion is almost always focused on secrecy of the outsourcing project. Now the really funny thing about telling folks to keep it a secret is that it makes them want to tell someone. This could be to gain some political advantage, because there friends will be effected or just because, but you can count on some leakage. For the most part the rumors will be much worse than reality, but because it affects them, they have to take the information seriously. Should you find yourself in a circumstance that requires secrecy, the fewer people who know the better.

Circumstances aside I almost always advise to just tell the truth and not make a big secret about activities. In-fact if you are trying to grow vertically not horizontally I would much rather include people in what is going on than not. With a decision to outsource overseas you will face some attrition, as some employees would rather work for someone not looking to outsource, but that is very normal. In all cases whoever is involved will divide into two camps, those for and those against. Those against will throw as many roadblocks in the way as possible, usually in the form of technical problems or my favorite "Only Jimmy Can do this" type of response. Those in favor of the outsourcing, will start beating the other guys to remove the roadblocks and before you know it you have firmly divided the office.

The final piece of advice I will give on outsourcing to the point of layoffs is, be prepared to do something for those employees who stick it out until the end. You should quickly identify those employees that you need and offer some type of compensation for ensuring the deal is closed timely and without many issues. ( In a perfect world where corporations are actually trying to keep employees this would be true. However, in the real world, there are no rewards for the individuals who choose to stay until the bitter end.)

Good luck.

2008-09-18T17:00:00.001-04:00

Developing a Telecommuting Policy Advisory by Dallas employment lawyer

September 17, 2008 (WiredPRNews.com - Law, Top Stories)

As gas prices climb, employee requests to telecommute rise as well. Dallas employment lawyer Keith Clouse advises employers contemplating a telecommuting policy to consider the following points.

In addition to environmental gains, telecommuting may benefit an employer in several ways. For example, an employer can hire the best job candidate, even if the candidate lives far from the office, and the employer may be able to retain key employees. Second, overhead costs may decrease, especially if employees share work space and office equipment. Labor costs may also be reduced if employees are willing to work for less pay in order to avoid long commutes. Finally, employee morale and motivation may increase.

But disadvantages do exist. Many employees are not ideal telecommuting candidates and many homes are not well-equipped for office work. Some managers question their ability to manage from a distance and office workers may undervalue telecommuters' contributions. Finally, not all work is conducive to telecommuting since some tasks require close interactions with others.

Advance preparation will help an employer create a successful telecommuting experience. First, the employer should choose the right employees—motivated, independent, and trustworthy "self-starters." An employer should then clearly define its expectations regarding tasks and the telecommuter's availability. Finally, an employer should maintain frequent communication with its telecommuting employees to foster productive relationships.

If you would like to discuss a telecommuting policy with a Dallas employment lawyer, contact the employment lawyers at Clouse Dunn Khoshbin LLP at info@cdklawyers.com.

2008-09-17T11:38:00.001-04:00

New Study Shows Other Countries Are Closing in on US IT Industry

Political candidates and Congress urged not to take US leadership in information technology for granted

Last update: 2:00 a.m. EDT Sept. 16, 2008

WASHINGTON, Sep 16, 2008 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- A new study reveals a tightening international competition for providing the most competitive conditions for the information technology (IT) industry.

The United States continues to rank first in the world in the annual IT industry competitiveness index, which was written by the Economist Intelligence Unit, the business information arm of The Economist Group, and sponsored by the Business Software Alliance (BSA). But while the United States places in the top five in all six index categories, its overall score was just 74.6 out of a possible 100, down about three points from its 2007 score of 77.4. Moreover, Taiwan, Sweden and Denmark have moved into the top five and they are quickly closing in on the United States as the most competitive market. The study, now in its second year, assesses and compares the information technology (IT) industry environments of 66 economies to determine the extent to which they enable IT sector competitiveness. The top ten in the 2008 study are the US, Taiwan, United Kingdom, Sweden, Denmark, Canada, Australia, South Korea, Singapore, and the Netherlands. (For those of you that are interested India ranked 48th down from 2007 at 46th.)

Although the top 20 economies remain the same from one year ago, nine moved up and 11 moved down in the rankings. Taiwan, ranked sixth in 2007, leaped to second-place in 2008 thanks to improved performance in research and development (R&D). Other big gains were in Denmark, up from eighth to fifth place, thanks to a stronger business environment, investments in IT infrastructure, and improvements in human capital; Canada, up from ninth to sixth place; and Singapore, up from 11th to ninth place.

Robert Holleyman, president and CEO of BSA, welcomed the report and the attention to competitiveness around the world, but urged policymakers to guard against indifference and complacency.

"This year's Index shows that IT competitiveness rankings can change very quickly," Holleyman said. "The gap between the US and other nations is narrowing as many economies are becoming more competitive and nipping at our heels. Strong leadership and sound policies will be needed for the US to remain the innovation leader."

"A strong tech industry is crucial to America's ability to address almost every economic and social challenge," Holleyman added. "The tech sector remains one of the primary engines of the US and global economy. This index provides a guide to how we can keep that engine running smoothly to ensure innovation and progress in the future."

Six Key Competitiveness Enablers

According to the Economist Intelligence Unit, six factors combine to create a sound environment for the IT sector, including an ample supply of high-skilled workers; an innovation-friendly culture; world-class technology infrastructure; a robust legal regime that protects intellectual property such as patents and copyrights; an open, competitive economy; and government leadership that strikes the right balance between promoting technology and allowing market forces to work. Those economies that perform well in these six "competitiveness enablers" generally are home to high-performance IT industries, which contribute more than 5% to the gross domestic product of many advanced nations.

According to the study, the United States combines breadth and depth in the six competitiveness categories, with special strengths in the quality of its legal regime, business environment, and university graduates. However, the report also highlights areas where US global leadership could come under threat, including:

-- Infrastructure: Broadband penetration is well below that of many countries in Western Europe and East Asia. Large firms generally enjoy high levels of reliable, secure connectivity, but in some parts of the country, smaller IT firms and individual entrepreneurs--often the crucible of technology innovation--require better access to high-speed networks.

-- Workforce: US technology firms, like those elsewhere in the world, are experiencing shortages of skilled talent and will be adversely affected by slower increases in the number of science and engineering graduates from domestic institutions. Easing or at least avoiding further tightening of immigration restrictions on skilled workers would help US competitiveness.

-- Openness: With the US economy in a period of slow growth, US policymakers must resist intensified political pressure to restrict access to the domestic market and educational institutions.

-- R&D Environment: Asia boasts the strongest R&D environments. Dynamic innovation, supported by a strong R&D environment, has contributed to that region's IT industry competitiveness. Conversely, the US lags far behind in resources provided for R&D in IT, scoring 23.7 compared to Taiwan's score of 74.3. The US score dropped by more than 40% from last year's score of 39.8.

Other key findings of the research include the following:

-- Investing in people is mission-critical for domestic IT industries. Sourcing talent will be among the toughest challenges IT producers will face in the coming years.

-- Competitive broadband markets help cultivate strong IT sectors. Without fast, reliable and secure Internet access, technology firms cannot interact effectively with their partners and the research community, nor can they sell their services online.

-- A legal environment that protects intellectual property rights (IPR) and takes a robust approach to cyber security is essential. The US, Australia and Western European countries have the most effective systems in place to address IPR protection and cyber security, but gradual improvements are also evident in other nations.

-- East Asia boasts the strongest R&D environments. Dynamic innovation, supported by a strong R&D environment, is a major contributor to IT industry competitiveness.

International partnerships and the Internet will promote R&D. Global IT "ecosystems," online or otherwise, that bring together talent, technology, venture capital, and good universities, supported by a risk-taking ethos, will be the best incubators of innovation.

Chart: Top 20 countries in IT competitiveness:
Country              Score           2008            2007
                                     rank            rank
USA                  74.6            1               1
 Taiwan               69.2            2               6
UK                   67.2            3               4
Sweden               66.0            4               7
Denmark              65.2            5               8
 Canada               64.4            6               9
Australia            64.1            7               5
South Korea          64.1            8               3
Singapore            63.4            9               11
 Netherlands          62.7            10              12
Switzerland          62.3            11              10
Japan                62.2            12              2
Finland              61.5            13              13
 Norway               59.7            14              14
Ireland              59.4            15              15
Israel               56.7            16              20
New Zealand          56.6            17              17
 Austria              56.1            18              19
Germany              55.4            19              16
France               54.3            20              18

Source: How technology sectors grow: Benchmarking IT industry competitiveness 2008, is available free of charge at www.eiu.com/sponsor/BSA/technologysectors or www.bsa.org/globalindex.

About the Business Software Alliance

The Business Software Alliance ( www.bsa.org) is the foremost organization dedicated to promoting a safe and legal digital world. BSA is the voice of the world's commercial software industry and its hardware partners before governments and in the international marketplace. Its members represent one of the fastest growing industries in the world. BSA programs foster technology innovation through education and policy initiatives that promote copyright protection, cyber security, trade and e-commerce.

About the Economist Intelligence Unit

The Economist Intelligence Unit is the business information arm of The Economist Group, publisher of The Economist. Through our global network of over 650 analysts, we continuously assess and forecast political, economic and business conditions in 200 countries. As the world's leading provider of country intelligence, we help executives make better business decisions by providing timely, reliable and impartial analysis on worldwide market trends and business strategies.

SOURCE: Business Software Alliance (BSA)

Business Software Alliance 
Americas: 
Amos Snead, +1-202-715-1531 
or 
Robert Jameson, +1-202-715-1535 
or 
media@bsa.org 
or 
Economist Intelligence Unit 
 Joanne McKenna, +44 (0)20 7576 8188 
joannemckenna@eiu.com 
or 
Denis McCauley, +44 (0)20 7576 8237 
denismccauley@eiu.com

2008-09-17T10:48:00.001-04:00

Asian employers warm up to telecommuting?

By Billy Teo, ZDNet Asia
Tuesday, September 16, 2008 05:50 PM

Oil prices stalking the US$100-per-barrel neighborhood have raised transport costs for workers. Add to that, companies are encountering higher rent. To save costs, employers might therefore be pressured to adopt telecommuting.

Adam Bowden from the IT Commerce Specialist Recruitment Division of recruitment firm Robert Walters, thinks not.

"We are not seeing much direction towards telecommuting at the present time," he told ZDNet Asia.

The biggest concerns for Asian companies, Bowden noted, are additional costs, security and, in particular, productivity.

Said the senior consultant: "The big question will always be asked: How productive will an employee be, working remotely?"

But another Robert Walters senior consultant covering the banking industry, Sohrab Singh, was more optimistic that employers would allow employees to work away from the office.

"It is a relatively new concept in Asia, hence both the employer and the employee will need to be educated on the benefits and pitfalls," he told ZDNet Asia.

"The basic change will need to come in the way the employee's productivity is measured, wherein it will have to be based on setting targets, deliverables and timelines rather than the number of hours spent at work."

A recent survey conducted by IDC and commissioned by Avaya, revealed 81 percent of executives polled across the Asia-Pacific region agreed or strongly agreed telecommuting improves productivity. In 2005, only 61 percent thought so.

The increased positive perception of telecommuting--as a way to improve productivity--was most obvious among respondents in Hong Kong, Australia and India.

It is striking that respondents in China (76 percent) and Singapore (78 percent) viewed telecommuting as a means of improving the work-life balance among their employees.

Way of life
For some multi-national companies operating in Asia, telecommuting is a way of life.

At Cisco Singapore, 40 per cent of the staff are mobile workers without a permanent workstation in the office.

Tom Cheong, Cisco's managing director for Singapore and Brunei, told ZDNet Asia: "Globally, 85 percent of our staff spend time each week working from home, with 24 percent of their work time spent in their homes. This is consistent with both Singapore and the Asia-Pacific region."

Companies like Cisco and Sun Microsystems provide all the necessary equipment and services for their telecommuting staff.

Gan Boon San, president of Sun Microsystems, South Asia, told ZDNet Asia: "For 10 years now, we have an Open Work Program that provides our employees with secure access to their e-mail from home or on the road. On top of that, we provide access to everything. You name it: e-mail, calendar, address book, expense reporting and benefits management."

There are signs that even the small and midsize businesses (SMB) are taking up telecommuting.

Lendl Chong, sales director of telecommunications services company Qala, said that a quarter of his company's business comes from providing telecommuting-related infrastructure and services for SMBs in Singapore.

He said: "The demand has been increasing over the years. It will soon be a norm for people and companies to adopt the concept of telecommuting in the near future. As it is now, employees are already able to work anywhere, as long there's a computer and a phone."

Mobile workforce
It appears Asian companies are embracing the concept of mobile workers who don't necessarily have to be in the office at all.

WAN application delivery and secure Web gateway products provider Blue Coat recently concluded an online survey with 1,100 businesses in the Asia-Pacific region.

The survey explored topics that include the globalization of enterprises and the consolidation of data centres--as well as the mobilization of work forces.

Managing director P.K. Lim of Blue Coat Systems South Asia and Australia/NZ, said: "Interestingly, 77 percent of respondents have at least a quarter of their workforce being mobile, and 86.9 percent of these mobile professionals depend on the network to access their information."

Shalini Verma, research manager for communications research at IDC Asia-Pacific, believes talent shortages will make Asia more receptive to telecommuting--although not as enthusiastically as in the United States.

"In many markets, the shortage of skills will force enterprises to provide more flexibility to employees, and hence will encourage telecommuting. Also, the challenges of daily commute and the high cost of office real estate, will force enterprises to encourage telecommuting," Verma told ZDNet Asia.

Gan from Sun Microsystems said: "Another benefit of our Open Work program is that it enhances our ability to attract and retain the best talent available. In fact, our Open Work platform is one of the top reasons that 85 percent of our mobile workers say they would recommend Sun to external people."

Cisco's Cheong thinks that Asian employers will eventually warm up to telecommuting regardless of transport costs or office rentals.

"Many organizations in Asia perhaps do not have the same culture [as Cisco], but this is going to change over time, especially as the Gen Ys and the Millennials (born from 1991 onwards) enter the workforce and assume management positions."

Billy Teo is a freelance IT writer based in Singapore.

2008-09-15T18:23:00.001-04:00

Virtual teamwork on the rise

Staff

September 12, 2008

With more telecommuting, global work forces and rising travel costs, more than two-thirds - 67 per cent - of employers expect to rely more on "virtual teams" in the future, a new survey finds.

The benefits: 75 per cent of the 278 respondents said such teams facilitate information-sharing, 70 per cent said they encourage diverse thinking, and 62 per cent said they result in higher productivity and facilitate cross-training, according to the survey from the Institute for Corporate Productivity (i4cp).

The detriments: they are too difficult to manage, according to 35 per cent, and problematic to co-ordinate schedules, according to 31 per cent. As well, 31 per cent felt their company's technology tools are inadequate for holding virtual team meetings.

Can you compete in the global market place?

2008-09-02T17:55:00.001-04:00

Five outsourcing websites: You too can telecommute.

Outsourcing often gets a bad rap, but if your business needs to build a new website or have a brochure designed, for instance, and lacks the expertise in-house, outsourcing your project at home or abroad is often the most viable and cost-effective solution.

So where can you find qualified contractors to complete your projects? Thanks to the internet, it's never been easier to not only locate talented contractors but to get them competing for your business.

Here are five websites that help businesses find contracts to outsource their projects to.

ELance
One of the original outsourcing websites, I've hired a number of web developers and graphic designers using eLance. ELance allows you to post your project, receive bids from contractors, offers a system for managing projects and also provides a payments service with an escrow option.
ScriptLance
With a focus on web-oriented projects, I've observed that ScriptLance tends to be a hub for lower dollar value "gigs."
oDesk
When outsourcing on an hourly rate payment schedule, there is always concern that a contractor won't put in the time her or she is supposed to put in. oDesk takes a novel approach and keeps track of the time contractors are putting in. It can even take screenshots every 10 minutes so that you can see what your contractors are doing.
Guru
Guru bills itself as "the world's largest online service marketplace" and works in a fashion similar to ELance.
RentACoder
Like ScriptLance, RentACoder is primarily oriented to web projects, as its name implies. It claims over 220,000 "registered coders."

Having successfully used some of the services above, here are a few tips:

Spec out your requests in as great a detail as possible. Even if you're not capable of describing what you need in technical terms, take the time to explain what you need in depth. If you don't, expect delays, additional costs and poor results.
Set sensible milestones. Quite honestly, outsourcing can be crapshoot - especially when working with a new contractor. You have to be prepared for complications. Thus, give thought to milestones so that you can get a project back on track (or cancel it) early if it goes astray.
Communication is key. If you have a hard time communicating with a contractor during the sales phase, you're probably going to have a hard time communicating with them during the project phase.
Look local. Certain types of projects are almost always best completed locally. If you have a complex or long-term project, give some real thought to selecting a local contractor that you can meet with in person.
You usually get what you pay for. Even if you decide to outsource your project to a country in which contractors charge far less, be weary of quotes that seem too good to be true. They usually are.
Look closely at portfolios, read feedback, request references and ask questions. Treat the hiring of a contractor the same as you would the hiring of an employee. Do your due diligence!

2008-08-28T17:06:00.001-04:00

August 25, 2008

Mick Hager column: Figure out if employees are suited to telecommute

By Mick Hager

As an organization you might be considering allowing some of your most trusted and competent employees the privilege of telecommuting. So what are the key issues for allowing workers to telecommute?

First of all, your most important issue is not whether they have a proper space at home in which to work. Here are some things to think about:

Has the employee completely mastered the job and has he demonstrated a high level of trustworthiness? I'll say it again, "Slackers need not apply."

Do you have clear work standards that are observable and measurable? In other words, how will you hold the employee accountable for getting the work done?

How will you guarantee the employee is available when needed? Consider making certain days of the week "commute days" where the employee is physically on site. Also consider core hours that they must be available by phone or messaging.

From an employer perspective, the most important issue is that the employee gets the job done effectively. So what are the issues for good employees who are thinking about telecommuting?

Maytag Man Syndrome: Prepare to be lonely. Telecommuting is not for people who have a need to socialize at work.

Self-discipline: If you're a highly motivated go-getter who needs little direction or pushing to get the job done you have what it takes to telecommute. If you find yourself anything short of being highly organized and able to stick to it and "Git-R-Done" then forget it—telecommuting isn't for you.

Distractions: Absolutely critical to your success will be your ability to get rid of distractions so that you remain focused on your work. Kids, dogs, TV's, visitors, personal phone calls all have to go.

The bottom line: Telecommuting isn't fun and games. It's about having the discipline to get the job done in an environment lacking structure.

Next time: The benefits of telecommuting for employers/employees.

2008-08-28T17:02:00.001-04:00

INTERNET LAW - TELECOMMUTING AND UNEMPLOYMENT BENEFIT CLAIMS

Staff Attorneys, IBLS Editorial Board
Maxine Allen v. Commissioner of Labor established a New York State precedent regarding the eligibility of telecommuters to receive unemployment benefits. The case concerned Maxine Allen, a telecommuter who worked for a Long Island employer from her home office in Florida. The labor case eventually reached New York's Court of Appeals which ruled that the location of the telecommuting worker is the key determinative factor regarding a worker's eligibility to receive unemployment benefits in the state to which the worker applied, as opposed to the location of the employer.
In 2003, the New York Court of Appeals held that physical presence governs eligibility for unemployment insurance benefits, as opposed to the location of the employer's offices.

The case involved Maxine Allen, an employee of Reuters America Inc. She had worked for the company for less than a year in Long Island when her husband's position was transferred to Florida. At that point, she came to an agreement with her employer that she would work from her home office in Florida, and the employer was to supply the necessary equipment and access to the corporation's mainframe computer in New York.

This telecommuting agreement was in force from July 1997 until March 1999, at which point the agreement was terminated. Although Allen was offered to relocate back to New York, she declined on account of her husband's position in Florida. When Allen sought to claim unemployment benefit in Florida, her application was denied on the basis that she voluntarily left her job without good cause. The Florida Department of Labor and Employment Security advised Allen that she would qualify for benefits in New York.

NY Unemployment Insurance Appeal Board held that Allen was ineligible for benefits in New York because her work performance took place in Florida. The case was finally determined by New York's Court of Appeals. The Court of Appeals held that an individual's physical presence is the localization determining factor when interpreting and applying subsection 511 of the Labor Law Code to interstate telecommuters. Since Allen was regularly present in Florida, she was held to be localized there. The claimant was held to be ineligible for New York unemployment insurance benefits.

On what basis did the Court of Appeals reach its decision?
The court based its decision on a four-pronged test for determining the applicability of New York labor law: (1) localization; (2) location of base of operations; (3) source of directions or control; and (4) employee's residence.

How was Allen's employment as a telecommuter classified in terms of its localization by New York's Court of Appeals?
Allen argued that to claim employment benefits, she was not required to have physical presence in New York because her entire services were performed on Reuter's mainframe computer which was located in New York. Applying the above-mentioned test, the New York's Court of Appeals rejected Allen's argument holding that Allen's residence outside of New York precluded her from receiving unemployment benefits in New York.

What are the ramifications of this holding?
According to statistics published by the International Telework Association and Council, approximately 28 million Americans telecommute. This ruling sets a clear precedent (which is only binding in New York) that telecommuters should seek unemployment benefits from the state where they physically work as opposed to the state where their employer is located. In addition, it is advisable for telecommuters to negotiate with their employers to determine, in advance, the state in which their employment is situated, thus avoiding future disputes.

Have you ever seen one of these somewhere before?

2008-08-24T20:07:00.001-04:00

TELECOMMUTING AGREEMENT

Posted By admin On August 23, 2008 @ 1:55 am In Uncategorized | No Comments

TELECOMMUTING AGREEMENT

The following constitutes an agreement between [Your Business] and [Employee].

[Employee] agrees to participate in the telecommuting program and to adhere to the applicable guidelines and policies. [Your Business] concurs with the employee's participation and agrees to adhere to the applicable guidelines and policies.

Terms and conditions. The telecommuting agreement is subject to the following terms and conditions:

Duration. This agreement will be valid for a period of [specify term] beginning on [start date] and ending on [end date]. At the end of that time, both parties will participate in a review which can result in the reactivation of the agreement.

Work hours. Employee's work hours and work location are specified in the Attachment at the end of this agreement.

Pay and attendance. All pay, leave and travel entitlement will be based on the employee's primary business location. Employee's time and attendance will be recorded as performing official duties at the primary business location.

Leave. Employees must obtain approval before taking leave in accordance with established office procedures. By signing this form, employee agrees to follow established procedures for requesting and obtaining approval of leave.

Overtime. The employee will continue to work in pay status while working at the home office. An employee who works overtime that has been ordered and approved in advance will be compensated in accordance with applicable law and rules. The employee understands that [Your Business] will not accept the results of unapproved overtime work and will act vigorously to discourage it.

By signing this agreement, the employee agrees that failing to obtain proper approval for overtime work may result in removal from the telecommuting program or other appropriate action.

Business owned equipment. In order to effectively perform their assigned tasks, employees may use [Your Business] equipment at the telecommuting location with the approval of [Your Business]. The equipment must be protected against damage and unauthorized use. [Your Business] owned equipment will be serviced and maintained by [Your Business]. Any equipment provided by the employee will be at no cost to [Your Business], and will be maintained by the employee.

Inspection. The telecommuting location will be inspected periodically to ensure that proper maintenance of [Your Business] equipment is performed, and that safety standards are met. Notice must be given to the employee at least 24 hours in advance of the inspection, which must occur during normal working hours.

Liability. [Your Business] will not be liable for damages to the employees' property that result from participation in the telecommuting program.

Reimbursement. [Your Business] will not be responsible for operating costs, home maintenance, or any other incidental cost (e.g., utilities) whatsoever, associated with the use of the employee's residence. The employee does not relinquish any entitlement to reimbursement for authorized expenses incurred while conducting business for [Your Business].

Workers' Compensation. The employee is covered under the Workers' Compensation Law if injured in the course of performing official duties at the telecommuting location.

Work assignments. The employee will meet with [designate contact person] to receive assignments and to review completed work as necessary or appropriate. The employee will complete all assigned work according to work procedures mutually agreed upon by the employee and [the contact person] according to guidelines and standards stated in the employee's performance plan.

Employee evaluation. The evaluation of the employee's job performance will be based on norms or other criteria derived from past performance and occupational standards consistent with these guidelines. For those assignments without precedent or without standards, regular and required progress reporting by the employee will be used to rate job performance and establish standards. The employee's most recent performance appraisal must indicate fully achieved standards.

Records. The employee will apply approved safeguards to protect [Your Business] records from unauthorized disclosure or damage. Work done at the telecommuting location is considered [Your Business] business. All records, papers, computer files, and correspondence must be safeguarded for their return to the primary business location.

Curtailment of the agreement. [Specify whether the employee may continue working for your business if the employee no longer wishes to telecommute. Also specify the circumstances under which the telecommuting agreement will be terminated by your business (e.g., if continued participation fails to satisfy business needs) and the consequences of that termination on the worker's continued employment.]

Performance location. The employee agrees to limit performance of assigned duties to the primary business location or to the approved home location. Failure to comply with this provision may result in termination of the telecommuting agreement and/or other appropriate disciplinary action.

Employee: ___________________________________ Date: _________________

[Contact person]: ______________________________ Date: _________________

Attachment
The following hours and locations are agreed to in support of the Telecommuting Agreement.

Primary Business Location: _____________________________________________

Telecommuting Location: _______________________________________________
General Work Hours:

Day Hours Location (home, office, other)

Monday: ______ - ______ ___________________________

Tuesday: ______ - ______ ___________________________

Wednesday: ______ - ______ ___________________________

Thursday: ______ - ______ ___________________________

Friday: ______ - ______ ___________________________

Saturday: ______ - ______ ___________________________

Sunday: ______ - ______ ___________________________
Comments (Schedule flexibility, etc.):

____________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________
Signatures:

[Your Name]: ___________________________________ Date: _________

Employee: ______________________________________ Date: _________
Employee Information:

Name: ______________________________________________________________

Address: ____________________________________________________________

City, State and Zip: ____________________________________________________

Article printed from Crown Equity Holdings Inc.: http://www.crownequityholdings.com

URL to article: http://www.crownequityholdings.com/?p=279

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2008-08-20T15:15:00.001-04:00

Shrewd companies mine golden-age workforce

Employers find mutual benefit in hiring older workers

Brian Morton

Canwest News Service

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

CREDIT: Glenn Baglo, Canwest News Service

Fiona Barry works from her Vancouver-area home office. Her company, Metasoft, has won an award for its efforts at hiring people over 50.

VANCOUVER - Fiona Barry sees absolutely no reason to quit her full-time job with Metasoft Systems Inc. and settle into the "golden" years of retirement.

After all, Ms. Barry -- who was hired by the Vancouver-based firm nine years ago at 58 -- has the best of both worlds. She not only earns a full-time salary, but rises early most mornings and takes a short walk to her home office, where she works as a sales account manager and takes in a lovely view from her office window.

But Ms. Barry is lucky to work for a company that, along with several other Canadian companies, has been singled out for being a top employer of people over 50.

She is also part of a growing wave of employees whose employers are making special efforts to both accommodate existing and new staff members aged 50 and over. Companies are offering such progressive options as home offices, flexible hours and compressed work weeks -- arrangements that are particularly appealing to older workers.

In Ms. Barry's case, she works four of five days each week from home, largely setting her own hours so she can spend more time with her husband and family, including helping out with her young grandson when the need arises.

"This is wonderful, this is a great company to work for," Ms. Barry said in an interview. "They recognize older people's skills, no question about it. And a home office is very important to me. It makes it much easier for me to plan my day so that I'm not restricted to nine to five. This is absolutely a huge advantage. Not having to commute gives me extra time for everything. And I've got an office with a view.

"I'm taking this six months at a time, but I plan on working here as long as I'm successful with them." Metasoft, a high-tech software company that provides funding information and services for the non-profit sector, recently received a Best Employer Award for 50-plus Canadians from the Workplace Institute, a Toronto-based consulting and research firm specializing in the mature workforce.

According to a news release, criteria for the awards are excellence in the areas of hiring, training, career development, health care, employee and family benefits, retirement policy, pensions and pre- and post-retirement support systems.

The average age of all staff is about 40 at Metasoft, which provides an online database of over 100,000 funders for non-profits in Canada, the United States and Britain.

In 2003, Metasoft initiated its work-from-home program, an initiative that has resulted in 18 per cent of its 81 workers working from home full-time and another six per cent part-time.

The reduced amount of time spent commuting, and the ability to work flexible hours, equates to more quality time with family, other interests and hobbies, the company says.

"We introduced (telecommuting options) three years ago and it's been an overwhelming success. It's a great retention strategy. It also provides savings for both the company and employee. In many cases, they work better.," Metasoft president and CEO Trevor Skillen said in an interview.

Employees may apply for an unpaid leave of absence at any time, allowing for extra vacations -- something that is often appreciated by the mature worker who (like Ms. Barry) has a retired partner, or young family living at a distance.

"We find mature workers bring a lot of talent and expertise to the table," said Mr. Skillen. "You get a lot of accumulated expertise, focused energy."

Mr. Skillen said his company now has five employees over 65, including Bill Barratt, their manager of grant development services, who was hired at 66 and just turned 70. "He gave me a five-year plan last week. He's not planning on leaving."

Mr. Skillen said two of their top three sales people are over 60 and that they're committed and passionate about their work. "I can't think of any downsides. I really don't know why (other) companies aren't focused on this end of the market."

Most of Mr. Skillen's staff -- including those over 50 -- work full-time, he added, although the company is considering job-sharing as an option.

According to Metasoft, 27 per cent of their employees are over 50 (compared to 16.9 per cent on average in Canada).

Mr. Skillen said their older workers also provide a great balance for their younger employees, who bring curiosity and innovation to the company.

Older workers, however, often face unique challenges, such as retraining in the information technology field, he added. Two of Metasoft's top sales representatives, both over 50, didn't know how to turn on a computer when they started.

Ms. Barry, who previously worked in the hospitality industry, understands that. "I went in for an interview and they were very good at accepting me and teaching me computer skills. People over 55 have to get their computer skills up to scratch."

Ms. Barry feels a lot of companies are "missing the boat bigtime" by not hiring more older workers. "If more companies offered people over 55 the choice to work from home and then send them on a computer course, they'd get a lot of good people. Plus, the turnover is small."

Barbara Jaworski, president of the Workplace Institute, said in an interview that Canadian companies are starting to look at older workers as a valid option because of the looming talent shortage.

Working from home?

2008-08-19T18:42:00.002-04:00

TOM WALSH
Job-creation breaks OK'd today; may supply 6,800 positions

BY TOM WALSH • FREE PRESS COLUMNIST • August 19, 2008

Twenty new business locations or expansion projects that promise to create more than 6,800 jobs in Michigan are expected to be granted tax incentives today by the Michigan Economic Growth Authority.
Advertisement

Gov. Jennifer Granholm said today's batch of MEGA projects marks the second straight record month of job-creation projects using an expanded toolbox of incentives designed to diversify Michigan's economy away from its historic reliance on the automobile industry.

Six of the 20 projects are in Wayne and Oakland counties, ranging from an expansion by Troy-based staffing firm Kelly Services that is expected to create 572 jobs, to a new Van Buren Township facility for Ricardo Inc., a high-tech outfit involved in emissions and battery testing. The 45 new jobs at Ricardo are expected to pay an average of $84,000 a year.

A flurry of job-creating expansions and other activity for two months does not constitute a full-blown rebound for Michigan's still-troubled economy. But Granholm does see it as a response to more robust incentives for attracting business in advanced energy, military and other growing sectors. "And we've had a more aggressive outreach by the Michigan Economic Development Corp. to attract different kinds of businesses," she said in an interview Monday.

Here are details of the six projects in Wayne and Oakland counties expected to win MEGA board approval today:

• Testec Inc., a manufacturer of equipment for the aviation industry, plans to move from Livonia to larger quarters in Wixom, investing $5.3 million and creating 27 jobs. The company considered locations in Virginia, Texas and North Carolina.

• Kelly Services is adding 400 jobs to its Kelly Connect operation, which provides call center staffers working from home. Utah was the chief competitor for the Kelly Connect expansion. In addition, the firm is investing $7.8 million to consolidate other operations in a nearby Troy building, adding 172 more jobs.

• Danotek Motion Technologies of Plymouth Township is adding 141 jobs in an expansion.

• Redico Holdings is investing $68 million and creating 206 jobs, and will be awarded a brownfield tax credit to redevelop the site of the former Montgomery Ward store in Dearborn with a mixed-use project that will include medical offices, retail and residential units.

• Ricardo Inc. of Van Buren Township already has a new battery-testing development under way, and is now considering a rolling chassis dynamometer facility for emissions testing. The Van Buren Township site is competing with two German locations of parent firm Ricardo plc for the $12.3-million expansion.

• Plymouth-based Aisin Technical Center of America plans to create 82 jobs with an $8.6-million expansion. Like other Japanese-owned auto companies and suppliers, Aisin located and expanded its research and development activities in the Detroit area. Its new jobs are expected to pay an average of more than $66,000 a year.

Granholm said the 20 projects are spread across the state, including some in Ann Arbor and a $59-million investment by Eberspacher North America of Brighton, a German-owned firm that makes exhaust products to improve vehicle emissions. That ENA project is to create 105 jobs and retain 171 others. She would not provide further specifics.

In July, the MEGA board approved incentives for projects expected to create 3,382 direct new jobs and 3,635 spinoff jobs in those communities. The August projects approved today are expected to create 6,853 direct jobs and 2,642 spinoff jobs.

Contact TOM WALSH at 313-223-4430 or twalsh@freepress.com.

2008-08-18T15:55:00.001-04:00

A winning balance of in-house, outsourced and services-based resources

Hey, Home-based Worker, Someone Is Watching You — and It's Your Boss

Posted by Ann All on August 18, 2008 at 12:56 pm

In my half-dozen years as a telecommuter, I've found widely varying managerial attitudes toward the practice. I go to great pains to tell my current manager when I'll be out running errands at lunch time, information I don't feel compelled to share when I work at the office. Though I suspect she doesn't give a hoot — and she's said as much — I find the disclosure habit a hard one to break because a former manager wanted me to check in frequently if I worked at home.

To be fair, no one at my previous job used instant messaging, which makes it much easier to stay in essentially constant contact with co-workers whether or not you're in the same building. But that former boss also had a tendency to micro-manage. Several of us papered our work spaces in Dilbert cartoons in a lame and mild form of protest; he either didn't notice or (more likely) didn't care.

With hefty fuel prices leading to an increased interest in telecommuting, more managers will need to come to terms with any mixed feelings they have about it. In the positive column for employers: reduced real-estate costs, a more flexible workforce, improved disaster-recovery capabilities, and happier and hopefully more productive employees.

In the negative column: security concerns, possible negative impacts on coworker relationships, and a lingering suspicion that some employees may indulge a daytime TV habit instead of working.

Indeed, the latter concern is relevant. Check out what our self-described "crotchety manager" Ken Hardin wrote about telecommuting earlier this summer:

… telecommuting is not for everybody. If it were, companies would not be recoiling from it, despite workers' and staffing companies' contentions that telecommuting makes everybody more productive. Companies like productivity. As much as I like telecommuting for my teams, I can't do it myself, beyond an hour or so in the evening just to catch up. The great joys/banes of my existence – my TV and my fridge – are at my house. I have to get away.

In my experience, folks who have trouble staying on task at home generally realize it (like Ken) and just report to the office where they can focus. But that may not be possible for everyone. Some companies prefer to hire home-based contact center agents, and freelancers generally work from home (unless they have access to a shared workspace).

No worries. According to Wall Street Journal columnist Sue Shellenbarger, companies are "stepping up electronic monitoring and oversight of tens of thousands of home-based independent contractors," utilizing technologies that count computer keystrokes, collect screen shots and sometimes snap photos of workers at their keyboards.

One such system at oDesk.com, a professional network of 90,000 computer programmers, network admins, graphic designers, writers and others, takes random snapshots of workers' computer screens six times an hour, records keystrokes and mouse clicks and can produce optional photos of freelancers at work. Workers see a small icon at the bottom of their screens each time a screen shot is taken. Clients can log into the system and see whether contractors are working, what they're doing and how long it's taking them. Says the company's CEO:

You can't play Blackjack. You can't watch YouTube. Why? Because I'm watching you work.

Not surprisingly, some folks find this kind of system a little too Orwellian for their tastes. Peter Weddle, a consultant, author and researcher on employment Web sites, tells Shellenbarger that work-at-home professionals "don't need someone looking over their shoulders."

The column also mentions Arise.com, a company that routes calls to its 8,000 home-based agents constantly and suggests the workers schedule a half-hour off the clock for bathroom breaks a few times throughout the day. Working Solutions uses sophisticated speech analytics technology to detect barking dogs, wailing babies and other unwelcome background noise on its home-based agents' calls.

Many companies reject keystroke monitoring, screen shots and photos as too intrusive for keeping tabs on their own home-based workers, writes Shellenbarger. But as more employees stay home, use of electronic monitoring technologies may become more common. And, Shellenbarger writes, "the home office, long regarded as a calmer place to work, may evolve into just another office, fraught with the same constraints as a corporate cubicle."

Perhaps the best advice, again from crotchety Ken Hardin, is to establish expectations up-front with telecommuting employees. His rule of thumb: Assuming they have the same responsibilities, a telecommuting employee's schedule should be no more flexible than an in-office's employee's schedule.

( Telecommuters should be given a tasks that must be delivered within a certain time constraints. Telecommuting is about productivity and the ability to perform, not about where, when, and how many keystrokes it took to complete the assigned task. )

Sphere: Related Content

2008-08-18T00:23:00.001-04:00

America Needs a Rural Broadband Policy Soon

The News & Advance
Published: August 16, 2008

There are going to be a lot of things on the plate of whomever is elected president in November: Iraq, Afghanistan, energy, terrorism, climate change, national economic revitalization … the list could just go on forever.

But we're not going to let that stop us from adding one more thing for either President McCain or President Obama to tackle next January: a national broadband policy.

Wiring all of America for access to the Internet at true broadband speeds, we would argue, is as important now as bringing electricity to rural America was for President Franklin Roosevelt in the 1930s.

When FDR became president in 1933 in the grip of the Great Depression, great swaths of the nation were still stuck in the 19th century from a technological perspective. While the nation's cities had electricity, America's rural heartland, for the most part, didn't. Much of rural America was poor; some areas such as Appalachia and the Tennessee River Valley were mired in bone-grinding poverty.

The electric power companies had wired the nation's cities and urban areas, where the work could be done quickly and inexpensively. But when it came to bring electricity to the heartland, their refrain was a familiar one: It's too expensive … the capital investment is too high and the possible return is too low … it will cost us too much money, money we have but don't want to give up.

FDR's advisers realized that, at that thinking, the vast majority of America would take decades to modernize, with potentially catastrophic social consequences. They knew that affordable electricity had to come to rural America, so on May 11, 1935, the Rural Electrification Administration was born with the sole mission of electrifying the whole of rural America.

The rest, as the tired cliché goes, is history.

Today, affordable broadband Internet access is as crucial to 21st century economic development as affordable electricity was in the 1930s. Unbelievably, the federal government — the level at which policy of such scope is formulated — has no vision or plan for making true broadband Internet accessible across the country.

That has to change.

According to a study done by the Communications Workers of America's Speedmatters.org project, America ranks far behind nations such as Japan, South Korea and France for the average speed at which the Internet is accessed. According to the report, the average download speed in the United States in 2008 is 2.34 megabits per second, up from 1.97 last year.

And where did our competitors rank? Japan has a median download rate of 63.6 mbps, South Korea, 49.5 mbps and France, 17 mpbs.

Even more troubling was the statistic that dial-up — yes, dial-up, folks — is how 15 percent of Americans still get online, either by choice because broadband is too expensive or because it's their only option.

Affordable broadband access would bring a multitude of benefits to rural America: renewed economic vigor, enhanced educational opportunities through distance learning programs, social networking, commerce … it's endless.

Global commerce is moving online at breakneck speeds. In the not-too-distant future, a company will hire employees and not expect them to live where the job is; telecommuting is on the radar screens of national policymakers and corporate chieftans, but only where affordable broadband is available. ( Does that mean people in the United States will be able to apply for a positions in Brazil, Russia, India and China etc.? Where individuals not just organizations will need to be globally competitive. The citizens of the United States need to get busy, and not just putting fiber in the ground).

There are a myriad of means by which the federal government could bring a vision of national access to affordable broadband to reality: public/private partnerships, tax incentives for Internet providers to invest in the needed infrastructure in rural areas, public investment in new technologies.

America needs broadband access at speeds comparable to the rest of the developed world. It needs to be affordable, and it needs to be universal.

It's as much a matter of national security as energy policy or winning the war on terrorism.

2008-08-17T10:39:00.001-04:00

Business

Colorado unemployment hits 5.2 percent in July

By CATHERINE TSAI, The Associated Press
2008-08-16 00:35:37.0
Current rank: # 2,822 of 4,439

DENVER -

The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate in Colorado inched up to 5.2 percent in July, the highest the jobless rate has been since June 2005, state labor officials said Friday.

The rate is essentially unchanged from 5.1 percent in June but up from 3.8 percent in July 2007.

The national unemployment rate was 5.7 percent in July 2008.

Colorado Department of Labor and Employment Executive Director Donald Mares said a scarcity of jobs in construction, trade and other sectors that might hire young people in the summer contributed to the rise.

About 144,100 residents were unsuccessfully looking for work in July, up by nearly 41,000 from a year ago, the labor department said.

Meanwhile, first-time unemployment claims are up 14 percent this year through July from the same period last year.

"It's not nearly the notch up we had in '01, '02, '03, but it's a blip upward to be sure," said Joe Winter, senior economist with the department. There were roughly 30,000 unemployment claims in July, while there was a peak of about 56,000 by mid-2002, Winter said.

Telluride resident Michael Mowery, 39, said he recently filed for unemployment benefits after getting laid off Aug. 4 as a telecommuting software developer. He said he learned of the dismissal the day after returning from a business trip to Hungary where he essentially trained his replacements. ( What was he thinking? An expert in the field (and I use that term loosely) and he had to go to Hungary????? Hello....)

"I saw it coming," Mowery said. "Every team had cuts. Our team hadn't had cuts."

He said he aims to freelance to replace the $82,000 salary he earned that helped him pay his share of the $2,300 rent he splits with his partner.

"Telluride has appetizers that start at $10," he said. "The standard of living in Telluride is just expensive. That's the cost of paradise."

Colorado's jobless rate was still lower than the national rate in July, in part because Colorado has been helped by natural gas exploration on the Western Slope and solid employment in professional and business services, Winter said.

"We are being affected by the same doldrums you see in the national economy, but Colorado is not being beat up quite as much as the nation as a whole," Winter said. "We're slowing down as the rest of the country is slowing down, but not to the same degree."

2008-08-15T16:53:00.001-04:00

Chattanooga: Insurers say telecommuter productivity rises

Friday, August 15, 2008

By:
Brian Lazenby (Contact)

Staff Photo by Tim Barber
Lori Holcomb, a customer service specialist for Unum, works in her office at home in Soddy-Daisy.

Ms. Holcomb, 32, is one of about 270 Chattanooga-based Unum Group employees who work from their homes.

A customer service specialist with Unum since 2000, she helped launch the "teleworker" programin 2003 and has been fielding calls from a computer workstation in her Soddy-Daisy bedroom ever since.

"Since I started working from home, my productivity increased 20 percent," Ms. Holcomb said. "I don't have the interruptions that I do in the office."

Marie Clements, vice president of Human Resource Strategies for Unum, said Ms. Holcomb's increased productivity is typical of those who work from their residences.

"We're seeing a 10 to 20 percent increase in productivity from our teleworkers," Ms. Clements said. "On top of that, we see that those employees also have an increased loyalty to the company."

John Sorrow, president of Cigna Healthcare for the Mid-South region, said technology has enabled about 300 of the insurer's 2,000 Chattanooga employees to work remotely.

By the numbers

840 million - gallons of gas saved annually in the U.S. by people working from home.

60 - percent of the U.S. work force that reported in a poll that telecommuting, at least part-time, is "the ideal work situation."

7.4 - percent of U.S. employees that worked from home in 1994.

17.3 - percent of U.S. employees that worked from home in 2004.

Sources: Environmental Leader, Hudson Employment Index and the Bureau of Labor Statistics

"As long as technology improves, it really allows us to provide something our work force has been asking for — a greater work-life balance," Mr. Sorrow said.

Allowing employees to work from home makes them happier and more productive, officials said, which is why Cigna's at-home workers increased from about 5 percent of Cigna's local work force to about 15 percent in the last two years.

"It's a growing trend," Mr. Sorrow said. "For the employees that work at home, it improves their employee satisfaction. It also improves their productivity, so it is a win-win situation."

Amanda Carmichael, a Unum spokeswoman, said about 600 Unum employees work from home. About 45 percent of those workers are based out of the company's local office.

Scott Wilson, a spokesman for Blue Cross Blue Shield of Tennessee, said the company studied other telecommuting programs before launching its own and learned that AT&T saves about $100 million a year from increased productivity from telecommuters.

"Our employees are excited about the possibility of enhancing our current program because, besides alleviating the strain of high gas prices and reducing auto wear and tear, telecommuting can give employees more of another precious resource — time," he said.

Mr. Wilson said Blue Cross Blue Shield will expand its work-at-home program when employees move into the Cameron Hill location next year.

Ms. Holcomb said she often works in her pajamas with her Chocolate lab, Isabelle, lying faithfully by her side.

"There are a lot of advantages to working from home," she said, listing spending more time with her family, saving gas money and being home to care for her two sons as the major benefits.

2008-08-15T16:45:00.001-04:00

Videoconferencing on the cheap

More than a nerdy novelty, video chat gives you face time with family, friends, colleagues and customers -- with or without a PC

Zack Stern

August 15, 2008 (PC World) Chat is cheap. Videoconferencing, on the other hand, gives your online conversations a more personal feeling. For telecommuting, keeping in touch with clients, calling home from a business trip or just checking in with out-of-state relatives, you're never more than a smile away if you have a webcam and some free software.

I'll explain how to get started, and I'll also offer some helpful tips for getting the most out of your video chats.

Pick a camera

Although you obviously can't do videoconferencing without a camera, what sort of camera you use doesn't actually matter much. Since your Internet connection will likely throttle the performance of any videoconference, a high-resolution camera can actually be a waste of money. Nevertheless, keeping in mind some important differences between camera models can help you find the best hardware for your setup.

Resolution and frame rate allow for the clearest distinctions between models. Ideally, pick a camera that captures natively at 640-by-480 resolution or better, with a speed of 30 frames per second.

Some webcams record at high-definition resolutions, but you'll rarely be able to transmit such dense images through a home Internet connection. Office networks are sometimes fast enough to take advantage of a bigger picture, but most IT professionals would probably frown on employees hogging their network bandwidth for HD video chats.

Most important: Be wary of any camera that advertises a resolution higher than that its sensor. Such models attempt to make an image look sharper through a software trick called interpolation, but their images often look worse than those from a noninterpolating camera -- especially over a slow connection.

Many webcams include built-in microphones that do an excellent job of picking up your voice from a few feet away. Built-in mics aren't always the best choice for all situations, though. In a busy office, for instance, ambient noise can be so loud that even a high-quality noise-canceling microphone can't cut through the chatter.

Built-in microphones also tend to produce echo effects as they pick up the voices coming out of your nearby speakers. So if you want to ensure that your voice gets through clearly, consider investing in a good headset microphone that will isolate your voice and deliver incoming audio directly to your ears.

Although it may seem like a petty consideration, you should pick a webcam that looks appealing to you. It will probably be sitting directly in front of you whenever you're at your desk, so choose one you won't mind looking at all the time.

Also, consider how the device will mount on your setup. Most attach to the top of your monitor, and some even come with versatile mounts that can hang over the top of a laptop display without falling off. In most cases, you'll want to mount it just above the screen, as close to the center as possible. That way, you'll be more likely to make eye contact (or at least appear to be making eye contact) with the people you talk to.

Naturally, if your computer or monitor came with a webcam built in, you don't need to bother with an external camera.

Choose an application

Your choice in videoconferencing software is a far more important consideration than the type of camera or microphone you use. As of this writing, only a few good video-chat applications are available, and they tend not to communicate with one another. Fortunately, these apps are free, and nothing will prevent you from installing more than one on your PC.

AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) is the most popular instant messaging program around, and it supports video, too. The best part: In North America, at least, it's nearly ubiquitous, so everyone you know probably already has an AIM username. If they happen to have webcams, you can hold video chats with them.

IChat, Apple Inc.'s take on AIM, now does videoconferencing using the built-in webcam that comes with every new Macintosh. If you have Mac users in your AIM buddy list, this is what they'll be using. It even allows Mac users and PC users to chat together.

Microsoft Windows Live Messenger is a free download for Windows users, and it supports videoconferences. It's more popular in Europe than in North America, so it can be a good choice for transcontinental face time.

Skype Technologies SA, which has won international acclaim for its free voice-calling service, now offers one of the best video-chat interfaces around. And because it works on Mac OS and Linux, it's a great choice for cross-platform conversations.

Yahoo Instant Messenger handles videoconferencing too, but at this writing, the feature was not supported in the Vista version of the software.

In addition to the free consumer-targeted offerings, several business conferencing services support video as well. The popular Cisco WebEx service provides videoconferencing features to small-business customers, while the more specialized SightSpeed has a more specifically video-oriented conferencing service that includes a host of other file-sharing and collaboration features.

Set it all up

Your first step into the world of videoconferencing -- if your computer didn't come with a built-in camera -- is to set up your webcam. Nearly all webcams are USB devices, so setup is generally very easy. In most cases, however, you should install the driver software before plugging in the camera, to ensure that your drivers function properly. In the case of most Logitech QuickCams, for instance, you will be prompted to plug in the camera at a specific point during the installation.

After installing the webcam driver and plugging in the camera, you're only halfway finished. Your next step is to test the camera's microphone or install a separate mic and test it. If you're using a camera with a built-in mic, you can control the audio settings via the software that came with the webcam. If, on the other hand, you're using a standard headset plugged into your PC's audio jacks, you should use the Sound control panel in Windows to select, configure and test your microphone.

A few more points to consider before you get started: If you're telecommuting from home, pants may be optional, but a shirt isn't. Wear a solid color if possible, but especially avoid thin lines and patterns that can look jumbled on screen. Slow Internet connections will only worsen the appearance of an already complicated shirt pattern.

And you'll look your best under lots of natural light. Ideally, position yourself near a bright window or other warmly lit source. Avoid having bright lights directly behind you, because they might confuse the camera's exposure meter.

Cross-platform video chat with AIM

Unlike e-mail, videoconferencing lacks a single standard that lets all clients talk to one another. And because of complexities in video-chat protocols and video codec licensing issues, third-party open-source IM apps such as Pidgin still don't support video chat at all.

So for the most part, you can forget about chatting face to face with friends who use a different chat program than you do, with one notable exception: AIM can connect you to Mac users for whom Apple's iChat is the default video app.

To initiate an AIM videoconference from a PC, launch AIM and right-click the name of an online buddy. Choose Video... and then click Send to invite that buddy to a video chat. If your buddy is using iChat on a Mac, he or she will be prompted to click Accept to begin the conversation.

To initiate a videoconference from a Mac, click the movie-camera icon next to a buddy's name. When prompted on their PC, that person should click Accept. If you don't see a movie-camera icon beside a person's name, that buddy doesn't have a camera activated on their computer.

Create browser-based videoconferences and video mail with TokBox

I like the reliability of running a chat-and-video program on a computer, but browser-based tools can be ideal on a borrowed PC. TokBox creates videoconferences through Firefox or Internet Explorer, and it can even invite people who haven't signed up with any service to participate. AIM and Windows Live Messenger fans can sign in with those accounts, too, for regular chatting and for video calls to their contacts.

To start a videoconference, sign in to TokBox, and click Conference on the left side of the page. When a small Adobe Flash box prompts you for permission to use your webcam, click Allow. (Since Flash is doing the heavy lifting, you should make sure that your version is current to avoid compatibility problems.)

Then just send the conference link to your contacts. The link recipients don't even have to log in; they can just load up the browser page and click Allow to join the conference.

TokBox also lets you create recorded video messages that you can send to family members, colleagues and friends. In the main TokBox page after logging in, just click Video Mail. Click Record Message, enter an e-mail address, add a text message below if you want to, and click Send. The recipient will get an e-mail with a private link back to your video file, which is hosted on TokBox's Web site.

Share documents and desktops

In a videoconference, you could aim a camera at a whiteboard to show off written meeting notes, but you can just as easily pass around digital files instead. In most chat clients, you can drag a file to the chat window to send it, or right-click a contact's name and choose the option to send a file.

Desktop sharing takes collaboration further, permitting a remote person to view or control a computer. Essentially, you set up a virtual network computing (VNC) connection. Such an arrangement works well for troubleshooting a parent's distant laptop, but it's also appropriate for showing a PowerPoint or Excel presentation to a group.

Desktop-sharing support varies greatly on different video and chat clients. For instance, it isn't available on the standard AIM client for PCs, but it is included in the more business-oriented AIM Pro. I like the pro version better than the consumer AIM anyway, because it's almost ad-free.

Just right-click an AIM Pro buddy, and choose New Desktop Share. Click Continue, and the remote computer can see your desktop. (Bear in mind that your buddy will also need to be running AIM Pro to receive your file.)

On a Mac with OS X 10.5 and iChat, click a buddy, and then click the icon in the bottom right to offer your screen to the remote contact or to ask to control his computer. When you're in control, the remote computer replaces your main screen, but a small representation of your own system lets you toggle between the views. Click the X button to end the remote-control session.

Google Docs is another collaboration favorite that works independently of your videoconferencing software. You run your chat software as you normally would and log into this service at the same time. Open one of your documents, and click the Share tab on the right. You can then invite others to collaborate or to view the document, and they can alter it or look at it at the same time.

Use a videophone; skip the PC

For permanent videoconference setups, consider avoiding the PC altogether. Dedicated videophone devices can be great for always-ready office installations. Unfortunately, such stand-alone devices tend to work only with their own kind, so usually you'll need to buy at least two of the same device if you want to talk to anyone. As fate would have it, though, some manufacturers now offer PC-based software that can connect webcam users to dedicated videophones.

D-Link Corp. offers a couple of business-oriented hardware products, the i2eye Broadband Videophone DVC-1000 and the i2eye Broadband Desktop Videophone DVC-2000. While the DVC-1000 is designed to sit atop a television set in a conference room, the DVC-2000 consists of a camera and a screen built into a desktop telephone.

The Packet8 Tango, on the other hand, is a device that connects to your PC, phone and Internet source. It has a built-in wireless router that helps free up some space in a home office. Regrettably, it can talk only to other Packet8 videophones.

Game consoles also make great video-chatting systems, especially if you already have the game hardware. You'll just need to add a camera from Microsoft Corp. or Sony Corp. The former offers the Xbox 360 Live Vision Camera, and the latter sells the PlayStation Eye for the PlayStation 3. As with most other non-PC video-chat products, these allow you to converse only with people who are using the same system.

Improve network performance for videoconferencing

Videoconferencing requires a steady stream of data to maintain presentable video frame rates. A higher-speed connection can produce smoother frame rates and sharper details, but your network and firewalls might slow the process down. If you're apprehensive about adjusting security settings, skip these tips unless you're having connection problems.

If you're running a software firewall on your PC, it could be the cause of any video-chat connection problems you may experience. Here's how to allow your conferencing software to get onto the Internet in Windows Vista's built-in Firewall. (This process varies slightly with different security software.)

In the Security control panel, open Windows Firewall. Click Allow a program through Windows Firewall. Click Continue and then select Add program. Choose the videoconferencing software, and click OK.

Your hardware router may also slow down or block traffic. In that situation, to improve access, you'll want to identify which computer is using which protocol. Once you do, the router will know where to send video packets, which will prevent it from blocking your chat connections.

To do so, access your router's settings, likely through an administration Web page at its internal IP address, such as "192.168.1.1." Look for port-forwarding options, likely under an advanced-settings tab. If it's available, choose the name of your chat or videoconference software, and enter the local IP address of that computer into the appropriate field in your router's interface.

If you don't see a preset option for your chat software, manually enter alongside that IP address the port numbers that the software uses. Those numbers are frequently available in the software documentation. (This table offers lots of helpful details.)

Other networks on the same channel can also interfere with your wireless router. Use a program such as NetStumbler to see which channels are in use nearby, and pick a different option in your router's setup interface.

2008-08-10T11:44:00.001-04:00

You can work from anywhere.

2008-08-06T11:46:00.001-04:00

2008-08-05T11:01:00.001-04:00

2008-08-04T15:24:00.000-04:00

Singing to the Choir

2008-08-01T20:59:00.005-04:00

Straight to the Source ::

A winning balance of in-house, outsourced and services-based resources

Telecommuting Case Study: Chorus Does It Right

Posted by Ann All on July 31, 2008 at 3:06 pm

I am a big fan of case studies. Even the most overtly promotional ones generally offer enough valuable tips on how companies handle real-life business situations to make them worthwhile.

I recently found an especially well-done case study in CIO.com on how one company, New Jersey software provider Chorus, shuttered two offices and sent all 35 of its employees and full-time consultants to work at home, a move the CEO says should save Chorus $400,000 a year.

This article caught my eye, as I've written several recent posts on telecommuting myself, and IT Business Edge recently published several interesting interviews on the topic.

My only (minor) criticism is that it's a long piece. But CIO.com deals with that by dividing it into three logical installments, each packed with plenty of real-world advice from Chorus executives.

The first piece focuses on technology challenges and how Chorus dealt with them. There were a few early glitches with the company's VoIP system, including how to set it up so that employees in Texas and New Jersey could call each other using four-digit access codes, but IT staffers were able to solve them fairly easily. The coolest tip: Chorus established a dedicated extension for each of four"hunt" groups so employees can quickly and easily reach other employees from different business areas.

The second article focuses on creating policies for the newly virtual company. Some highlights: All employees must have a dedicated area at home specifically devoted to work activities. Chorus provides all needed gear, up to and including items such as paper shredders. All employees are required to use instant messaging. The article also relates how Chorus provides effective remote tech support.

The final installment discusses how Chorus dealt with the transition to a virtual environment. Key takeaways: Chorus issues a daily compilation of all of the projects, both internal and external, that different teams are working on. Some teams conduct daily meetings, by phone or WebEx. Managers communicate regularly with team members and discuss some non-business topics to maintain camaraderie.

Everyone Works at Home at Chorus, Part One

– Meridith Levinson, CIO

July 15, 2008
Rick Boyd used to spend $500 a month on gas and tolls commuting 48 miles a day between his home in Westchester County, N.Y., and his office in Hasbrouck Heights, N.J. Now Boyd doesn't commute any more because his company, Chorus, which provides clinical, practice management and financial software for health care providers, has gone virtual.

Chorus closed its Hasbrouck Heights headquarters in early June and its other office, in Stafford, Texas (outside of Houston), in early July. Now all of the company's 35 employees and full-time consultants work at home, and for the most part, they love it.
Chorus CIO Rick Boyd
Chorus CIO Rick Boyd says existing technology made it easy for his company to go virtual.

Boyd, who is Chorus's CIO, says the company decided to close its offices to save money and spare employees the hassle and rising cost of commuting and because it had the necessary technology to support such a move. President and CEO A.J. Schreiber says Chorus can continue to serve customers while simultaneously saving $400,000 a year simply by closing its 15,000 square feet of office space. Sure, breaking leases and telecom contracts is costing the company money, but the long-term savings far outweigh those short-term costs, says Schreiber. "We wouldn't have done this if it would have had a negative impact on our ability to serve customers," he adds.
Chorus CEO A.J. Schreiber
Chorus CEO A.J. Schreiber made the decision to go virtual.

In making the bold move to close its offices and go virtual, Chorus demonstrates the positive bottom-line results that stem from applying workplace flexibility as a business strategy, says Cali Williams Yost, president and founder of consultancy Work+Life Fit. "Flexibility is a strategy for managing your business," she says. "It helps you recruit and retain talent and manage resources like real estate. There are more and more companies realizing you don't need to be in the same place every minute of every day."
RELATED STORIES
Everyone Works at Home at Chorus, Part 2
Everyone Works at Home at Chorus, Part 3

Chorus's transformation into a virtual company staffed with telecommuters hasn't been flawless, but none of the hurdles the company has encountered at this point have proven insurmountable. Through research, planning and some trial-and-error, the company addressed many of the cultural challenges associated with telecommuting and managing virtual workforces.
MORE ON TELECOMMUTING
How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Telecommuting
7 Things the CIO Needs to Know about Telecommuting
Telecommuters Need to Develop Special Skills
Adventures in Extreme Telecommuting

Chorus established work policies designed to maintain employee productivity and customer service levels. The company is using technology to make workloads more transparent for managers, to transfer knowledge among staff, provide training and to enable them to collaborate. The IT department, whose members also works at home, also figured out efficient ways to provide remote tech support. Here, Boyd and other Chorus employees share the challenges they've experienced and the lessons they've learned thus far in the course of their company's transformation.

The first lesson is that you need the right infrastructure to support a virtual, telecommuting set of employees.
The Infrastructure and Equipment to Support Telecommuting

Marvin Luz had serious concerns about Chorus becoming a virtual company. The vice president of client services thought the transition was going to be a lot of work, and he wondered how the company would get through it.

"I was a little apprehensive," says Luz. "There's something to be said for being in an office and the security blanket of having your coworkers right next to you if you have questions."

Foremost on the client services exec's mind was Chorus's ability to meet its customers' needs with a staff of telecommuters. The company had to figure out how customer support calls would be routed to agents at their homes and in such a way that clients wouldn't know that the agent to whom they were speaking was working from home.

Chorus already had in place much of the telecommunications infrastructure it would need to support telecommuters, including a firewall and VPN. In 2007, CIO Boyd deployed a voice over IP (VoIP) solution from Cisco that included Cisco's IP Communicator and a high-end router in the company's New Jersey data center, which remains in operation, with staff visiting as needed. He also added a Windows Active Directory server (Chorus already had two in its office outside Houston) and two T1 lines to the New Jersey data center. Boyd says all of this technology made it easier for Chorus to go virtual. (For more on the technologies necessary to communicate telecommuters see, "How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Telecommuting.")

In preparation for the company's transformation, Boyd and his seven-person staff deployed the IP Communicators on every employee's laptop. Employees use the IP Communicators to make and receive phone calls.

The IT department ran into trouble when it first began deploying the IP Communicators on everyone's laptops. Because it was new technology for the company, Boyd and his staff weren't sure how to set it up at first. They were also just coming up to speed on the voice over IP system. Boyd says the first few deployments of the IP Communicators were very difficult, but once he and his staff got more comfortable with the technology, it went more smoothly. (They had help from Dynamic Strategies, a New Jersey-based VoIP services provider.) It took Chorus about three weeks to get all the IP Communicators on everyone's computers, he says.

To ensure the quality of the phone connections, Boyd and his staff had to give some employees higher-end routers than typical home routers that dedicate a certain amount of bandwidth to employees' Internet phones, says Boyd.

Most employees already had cell phones, but Chorus put together a policy and expense guidelines for all employees so that they could get BlackBerrys or Windows Mobile-compatible devices to use as a back up in the event their IP Communicator goes down. (Chorus also supports the new 3G iPhone.)

In addition, Boyd and team created "hunt" groups for each of the support groups: customer support, infrastructure support, application development and business analysts. So if customer support needs an infrastructure employee to help with a major client issue, the customer support employee dials the extension for the infrastructure team's hunt group and that number rings out to the entire group and whoever is available can answer the call.
Testing the Work at Home Arrangement and Technology

Before employees began working from home, Chorus tested the telecommuting set-up with Customer Support Account Manager Jairis Galvez. She worked at home two Fridays in a row, and all of the vice presidents called into her queue to make sure they could hear her, that she could hear them and that there wasn't static on the line.

Another technical issue Chorus's IT department had to address was how far-flung employees would make internal phone calls now that they're distributed. When Chorus maintained two offices, employees in Texas and New Jersey could dial four-digit phone numbers to reach each other across the country. The company found that the four-digit dialing didn't work when each party was logged into the VPN from their home offices. The firewall (PIX 506) was not capable of allowing a VPN to VPN data transfer so the call would connect but neither party could hear the other. They had to dial 10-digit numbers to reach each other. Boyd discovered that the company's firewall needed to be upgraded to enable the four-digit dialing so he installed a new Cisco 515 firewall in late June. Now every employee is just a four-digit dial away.

New Work Policies for a Virtual Company

Chorus developed work-at-home policies for telecommuters designed to maintain their productivity and the quality of service they provide to internal and external customers.
RELATED STORIES
Everyone Works at Home at Chorus, Part 1
Everyone Works at Home at Chorus Part 3
Hospital Pilots Flexible Work Arrangements in IT
7 Things the CIO Needs to Know about Telecommuting
Telecommuters Need to Develop Special Skills

One aspect of the policy pertains to employees' work at home environment. Every employee needs to have a separate space in their home that they can use for work—ideally a separate room in their house or apartment with a door that they can close to separate themselves from their kids, pets, spouses or roommates. Employees also need to have a desk where they can work, even if it's just a folding table. The company doesn't want people working in front of the TV in their living rooms with their notebook computers on their laps or coffee tables.

Another aspect of the policy outlines the work equipment Chorus will provide to employees. In short, the company provides employees with all the computing and telecommunications equipment they need to do their jobs, such as laptops, monitors, keyboards, headsets and Internet service. Client services reps get paper shredders since they have to destroy certain documents to comply with HIPAA regulations. In one case where an employee needed a chair, the company gave the employee a chair from one of its about-to-be-closed offices. Employees pay for basic office supplies like paper, ink and toner cartridges, pens and Post-It notes out-of-pocket and submit expense reports for those items for reimbursement. (For more on the equipment and expenses companies should cover for their telecommuting employees see, Out of Pocket: Financial Questions for Telecommuters and Managers.)

Chorus also set up a policy on work hours. Employees have to be at their desks in their home offices during normal business hours. They can't opt to work odd hours. All employees have to use instant messaging (IM) applications, and they have to put their phone numbers and their IM handle in the global address list on company's Microsoft Exchange Server. (Read about the flexible work policies at healthcare provider CareGroup and Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts.)

In addition to the general work policies at Chorus, Marvin Luz, vice president of client services, says his group had specific, common-sense rules it had to follow. For example, they can't have TVs or stereos on in the background. Nor can they eat while on the phone with customers. These rules are meant to send the message that even though employees work from the casual confines of their homes, they must maintain a certain level of professional decorum while on the clock.

Every employee had to agree to and sign off on all of these policies. Existing policies, such as those pertaining to computer and internet usage, remained in place.
How to Provide Remote Tech Support

One question that lingered in Chorus employees' minds through this transition was how the company was going to provide tech support. What if a virus infected someone's computer or an application crashed? After all, even though the company maintains a data center in New Jersey, its IT staff also works from home and visits it on an as-needed basis. It's not like a help desk staffer can walk over to someone's desk to troubleshoot and fix problems.

The processes the IT group put in place to resolve technical support issues remotely aren't much different from the measures they took when an employee was working at a client's office and needed help from an IT staffer in New Jersey or Texas.

For example, if an employee is having a software problem—if they get an error message or they can't connect to a particular drive—Aron Schneider, who works in Boyd's IT department, says IT simply takes control of their computer using remote desktop software like iTivity or by setting up a WebEx meeting. Boyd says Chorus uses WebEx extensively to shadow clients and remote workers when troubleshooting and as a teaching and collaboration tool. "If there is something we are trying to resolve or accomplish (loading Citrix at a client site, for example), the team will get on the WebEx and we will talk through the activity. This is a good way of keeping contact and providing training and knowledge transfer," he says.

If an employee's hard drive crashes, the IT staff replaces it with a loaner laptop it has preconfigured with all the basic software apps the employee needs to function. "If they're close enough where I can drive it out to them, I can make a swap," says Schneider. "If they're on site with a client or in New Jersey, we FedEx it to them, and they send their laptop to us."

Schneider couldn't say how having to wait to get a replacement laptop would impact employees' productivity because at that point he said no one had needed a replacement computer. Boyd said most employees would still be able to check e-mail on their home computers and use their cell phones to make calls, but he is aware that having to wait for a replacement laptop could temporarily impair the customer support team. To speed software downloads in the event IT needs to get a fully configured replacement computer to an employee, Boyd is looking for a software-based WAN accelerator.

Boyd says that he hasn't received any complaints from managers about poor tech support now that everyone in IT is working from home. "I gauge most of what I do by the number of complaints I get as head of IT, and I haven't had a lot of issues other than, 'It's really tough for me as a developer to move a big file.'"

The CIO adds that all of the development, testing and quality assurance is done through a corporate Citrix farm using a Microsoft SQL backend.

Chorus's experience shows that providing remote desktop support is not impossible. It just involves some planning and workarounds.

Adjustments to Telecommuting Include Periodic Meetups, Daily Conference Calls
MORE STORIES ON TELECOMMUTING
7 Things the CIO Needs to Know about Telecommuting
Hospital Pilots Flexible Work Arrangements for IT Department
Telecommuters Need to Develop Special Skills
Flexible Work: Lots of Talk, Little Action

Although most employees were delighted to start telecommuting, adjusting to the new lifestyle took more time for employees in Marvin Luz's client services department. The vice president of client services says his staff began e-mailing him to ask if they were ever going to go back into the office two weeks after they all began telecommuting. They missed the social contact, he says.

"You have to understand the dynamics of a person who is in customer service," says Luz. "They're very social creatures, and being in an office fills that social need we have."

Luz decided to bring his staff back into the Houston office two days week. "We did that for three weeks," he says. Then his group went down to one day in the office a week for a few weeks. Now they're all back to working from home five days a week, and they all feel much more comfortable with the arrangement having gone through that transition period, says Luz.

Luz believes his staff had trouble adjusting to the new lifestyle because they couldn't get into a routine at home. Once they settled into a rhythm, the change became much easier. (For information on the skills telecommuters need to develop to effectively work remotely, see, Telecommuters Need to Develop Special Skills.) Luz plans to organize get-togethers for his group every quarter so that they can meet socially. CEO A.J. Schreiber is also planning quarterly, in-person outings for New Jersey and Texas staffers so that employees can maintain personal connections.

Luz notes that if he were to go through this transition again, he wouldn't have his staff go "cold turkey" from cubicle life at first. He would have started with a transition period.
Some employees outside of client services were also wary of telecommuting. As much as Aron Schneider was excited to work from home, the IT staffer was concerned he'd be distracted by his TV and the contents of his fridge, and that he'd be bored without any co-workers around.

Schneider quickly realized he didn't have to worry. His home office is far enough away from both the TV and refrigerator. Some days he doesn't eat lunch until two or three in the afternoon because he's so busy, he says.

As for the social contact, he communicates regularly with his team. The IT department has a conference call every day, and Schneider keeps in touch with individual co-workers over the phone and via e-mail. "If I need to get in touch with any of the DBAs, they are readily available," he says. "I really don't see that anything has changed working from home other than proximity."

How Managers Learned to Love IM

Many companies resist flexible work arrangements that involve telecommuting because their managers don't know how to manage staff who work remotely and because they don't like the idea of not being able to see the people they manage. (See also Telecommuting Gets a Bad Rap.)

Indeed, the adjustment to telecommuting may be hardest on managers since they're the ones who need to fundamentally change the way they do their work of managing. But those companies that don't allow telecommuting because they believe it's harder to measure employees' productivity when they telecommute are making a weak excuse, says Luz.

"In today's companies where you are so wired and connected, giving the excuse that you can't measure someone's productivity doesn't fly with me," he says. "In a call center environment like my group, there are so many tools to measure productivity."

Specifically, the dashboard that's part of Chorus's Cisco call center system shows Luz when his call center workers are logged in, when they're on a call, when they're on break, the duration of their calls, whether they answered calls that went to their extension, the number of calls they took each hour and whether calls were abandoned. The VP can even listen in on calls, interrupt calls and record them.

Luz also uses Salesforce.com as the client services group's case management system for tracking customers' problems. Through the dashboard on Salesforce.com, Luz can see every account manager's queue and the number of cases they've opened and closed. He says his staff has been "more productive from home than we ever dreamed they would be."

CEO Schreiber concurs. He says the client services group's key performance indicators have been "stellar" and that the company as a whole is more productive.

The IT group uses Salesforce.com, too. (In fact, the entire company uses the system). Boyd says Salesforce.com gives him a "right now" view of what is happening in his department, but since the software isn't geared toward an IT shop, he can't see what his team has done two days ago, a week ago or last month. To get visibility into his staff's workloads, the CIO holds a daily, hour-long meeting to review and coordinate everyone's activities.

Boyd also uses an instant messaging (IM) system to keep tabs on his IT staff. "Since you don't see someone walk in the door every day, when you see them become active on IM, you know they're up and ready for business," he says. Boyd realizes that employees can log into IM, or any system for that matter, and then walk away from their computer, so he pings members of his staff every once in a while to keep them honest.

Not that he needs to keep his employees on their toes. Boyd says his staff's productivity—as measured by the number of cases they close—has increased dramatically since they began working at home. Everyone is working longer hours because they don't have to commute.

"I'll start answering e-mail at six in the morning, and I don't get up from my desk, with the exception of getting something to eat, until six in the evening," says Boyd, who adds that he often gets work-related instant messages from his staff even at 8 P.M.

IM goes a long way toward helping the entire company stay connected. Employees and managers alike use it to discuss work issues and to chat informally. Sometimes IM can be a pain, says Boyd, such as when he gets four simultaneous pings when he's on the phone or trying to concentrate, but overall, he thinks its an excellent replacement for the water cooler and for yelling over the cubicle wall.

Clearly, productivity and its measurement is not the problem for Chorus. The soft side of management, however, is more difficult and requires more effort.

Luz says he has to make a concerted effort to reach out to employees and see how they're faring. "I call them each individually throughout the week to chat with them about how things are going, how their families are doing. You need that type of social interaction with employees," he says, adding that this type of interaction was easier in the office. "I also need to make sure that I have them reach out to each other. I have been calling them and saying, 'Have you talked with the senior account manager?'"

In addition to the informal phone calls, Luz conducts formal group WebEx meetings twice a week to make sure everyone has everything they need.

Both Luz and Boyd say the experiences of working from home and managing a staff of telecommuters have improved their management and communication skills.

"I'm not sure I'd say it made me a better manager per se, but it has made me a better communicator," says Boyd.
How Chorus Keeps Everyone in the Loop

Since Chorus employees began telecommuting in June 2008, the provider of practice management systems for community health centers has established a series of meetings and communications designed to align employees around top business priorities and keep everyone on the same page. Here's a list of what Chorus does:

1. Daily morning executive team meetings. The vice presidents and CEO have a conference call every day to discuss high priority items, issues and projects such as technical work, systems implementations, customer support, client implementations, development and quality assurance. As a team, they affirm what needs to be done that day, the following day, the next week and longer term.

2. Daily morning reports. This report goes out to the entire company every day and compiles all of the internal and client projects that each team inside the company is working on. The daily morning report gives non-executive staff visibility into high and lower-priority activity inside the company and let's each group see how their work fits into each project.

3. Daily infrastructure team call. CIO Rick Boyd and his DBAs, application support team and IT infrastructure support team review the items that came up during the morning executive team meeting to ensure that everyone in IT has what they need to meet the daily and weekly objectives.

--M. Levinson

Next: Lessons Learned and Keys to Success
Lessons from a Virtual Company, and Keys to Success

In spite of the few challenges Chorus has encountered, its transformation into a virtual company has proceeded so smoothly that its customers don't even know the company has closed its offices and all employees are working from home. (Of course, that cat's out of the bag now.)

"As someone from customer service, I measure success based on whether our clients have noticed anything," says Luz. "Our clients haven't felt any interruption or noticed something is different in the way we're handling things. That tells me this process is working extremely well."

Even if your company is not planning to close all of its offices, it can still learn a great deal from Chorus's experience about how to support and manage telecommuters—the number one lesson being that it isn't all that difficult. The keys to success, as Chorus's experience shows, are proper equipment and technology, careful planning as to how employees will provide tech support and customer support, workload transparency, trial runs in telecommuting, help establishing a routine for working from home, and the occasional in-person meeting to keep everyone together and their spirits up.

All of that effort at Chorus has led to productivity and service improvements—not to mention the annual cost savings.

"We've been able to quantify that we are more productive now than when we had physical offices," says Boyd. "Our number of open cases has reduced dramatically and the time it takes to resolve them has been reduced dramatically. It truly has been a byproduct of going 100 percent virtual."

What"s the Question?

2008-07-30T16:33:00.001-04:00

2008-07-09T21:08:00.001-04:00

Bank of America launches telecommuting program

By Joe Rauch

Atlanta Business Chronicle

updated 4:00 a.m. ET, Wed., July. 9, 2008

Bank of America has a new request for some local employees: Stay home.

The metro area's third-largest bank, and the nation's biggest, is introducing a sweeping telecommuting initiative designed to allow employees to work without a regular office.

Dubbed "My Work," the voluntary program allows qualifying Bank of America employees to forfeit their office or cubicle space, and instead work "wherever, however," said bank spokesman Lawrence Grayson.

Those employees will have access to shared office space and other Bank of America facilities, but are otherwise detached from the company.

The program has existed since 2004, but it isn't pervasive throughout the bank, only gaining steam among the bank's employees within the last year -- as gas prices have soared and commute times continue to worsen across the country.

Only 5,500 of Bank of America's 157,000 employees are currently enrolled in the program. It has remained largely confined to the bank's Charlotte, N.C., employees, where the bank has 2,000 employees -- the most of any market -- that use the program.

Metro Atlanta is the first Bank of America market outside Charlotte where My Work is being rolled out across the bank's business lines with widespread eligibility.

As many as 1,000 local employees are eligible for the program, and 172 have elected to participate.

Only specific employees are eligible -- back-office processors and tellers, for example, cannot use the program while lenders and those who deal with clients generally qualify. Those who can enroll require a manager's approval to do so.

The program is coming to the forefront as a souring economy is impacting both the bank and its employees.

Internal interest in My Work increased last year, Grayson said, in part because of the economy, with particular interest from Atlanta-area employees.

"As a company, we foster open dialogue with our associates, and this is certainly an area in which they have expressed their preferences," said Milton Jones, Bank of America's Georgia Market president and head of My Work's local rollout.

Both the bank's employees and business have been pinched by the economy.

In a city notorious for long commutes, Atlantans' wallets have been emptied by skyrocketing gas prices, which now average $3.998 per gallon of regular unleaded in Georgia, according to AAA's July 1 Daily Fuel Gauge Report.

As the country's largest bank, Bank of America has been hit by the housing downturn and credit crisis.

In first-quarter 2008, the bank's net income was cut in half -- from $3 billion in first-quarter 2007 to

$1.2 billion during the same period this year -- because of rising loan losses.

The program would allow more employees fewer fill-ups at the pump, and may factor into the bank's Atlanta real estate holdings, since it could reduce office space.

As Atlanta Business Chronicle first reported June 9, Bank of America is re-evaluating its Atlanta real estate holdings, including its local headquarters at Bank of America Plaza in Midtown, the city's largest office building.

Jones declined to discuss how the new program will impact the bank.

But Grayson said real estate cost savings are not a primary motivator for the program.

The program may force the bank to expand its local office footprint.

Part of the My Work rollout includes opening satellite offices around the city for those employees to use, which will add to the bank's Atlanta presence.

Those yet-to-be-opened satellite sites will be positioned near MARTA and main traffic arteries to speed access for My Work employees.

Bank of America is not alone in the push for more telecommuters.

The Clean Air Campaign, a local nonprofit focused on reducing traffic congestion and improving air quality, estimates 10 percent of metro Atlantans telecommute at least once a week.

Gov. Sonny Perdue wants 6,000 state employees to telecommute by 2010. Georgia also offers a corporate tax credit for companies that enact telecommuting programs, and are worth as much as $20,000.

But the program isn't without pitfalls, according to organizational experts.

Telecommuting can increase feelings of detachment and toughen communication between managers and employees, according to Deborah Butler, a Georgia State University assistant professor who specializes in organizational management and behavior.

"There is no cookie-cutter solution," she said.

"But companies have to pay attention and address it in a meaningful way."

'My Work'

Bank of America is introducing a comprehensive telecommuting program for Atlanta employees, the first outside Charlotte to use it.

Qualifying employees sacrifice their office space for full-time freedom to work wherever they see fit.

Employees requested the program be implemented more broadly because of rising gas prices and worsening commutes. So far, 172 employees have signed up locally; about 1,000 are eligible.

Souce: Bank of America

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25598519/

MSN Privacy . Legal

2008-07-01T21:27:00.001-04:00

NEC TO LET 90% OF WHITE-COLLAR STAFF TELECOMMUTE

Monday, June 30, 2008; Posted: 11:19 PM

TOKYO, Jul 01, 2008 -- NEC Corp. (TSE:6701) will give nearly all its white-collar employees the option of working from home starting Tuesday, becoming the latest Japanese electronics company to allow telecommuting.

Some 20,000 employees -- 90 per cent of NEC's work force, excluding new hires and factory staff -- will be able to telecommute one day a week with their supervisors' approval. The at-home workers will link up to company computers and servers over the Internet and will have to check in with their bosses via webcam at the start and end of the workday.

To lower the risk of information leaks, the telecommuters will get computers stripped of data storage capabilities. State-of-the art encryption technology will keep data as safe as if it were being transmitted over a proprietary line.

NEC has been experimenting with telecommuting since July 2006. More than 70 per cent of workers participating in the trials responded that working at home improved their productivity, prompting the firm to implement a full-fledged program.

The trend toward telecommuting has been sweeping the electronics industry. IBM Japan Ltd. introduced the option in 2001. Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. (TSE:6752) did the same for 30,000 employees in April 2007 and now has around 3,000 working from home.

2008-06-30T18:19:00.001-04:00

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).

2008-06-26T16:17:00.001-04:00

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.

2008-06-25T22:54:00.000-04:00

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?

2008-06-19T16:05:00.001-04:00

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.

2008-06-18T19:47:00.001-04:00

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?