November 1998

BY GARY ANDRESEN

Telecommuting has had its ups and downs since first appearing in the mid-1970s, but the biggest obstacle has always been related to technology lags limiting remote workers' ability to communicate effectively with associates "back at the office." Now telecommuting is enjoying a strong resurgence, thanks to improvements in technology, allowing greater flexibility in where and how telecommuting takes place, as well as confirming the benefits to be had in the form of increased employee productivity and substantial overhead savings.

According to Find/SVP, a New York-based market research firm, the number of telecommuters in the U.S. has grown from around 4 million in 1990 to over 11 million workers in 1997, with the number expected to hit at least 14 million by the year 2000. While it is often perceived as being a radical change in the workplace, if you think about it, telecommuting is nothing more than a simple paradigm shift: bring the work to the worker, instead of bringing the worker to the work.

ENABLING TECHNOLOGY
Increasingly, technology has made this paradigm shift possible. When working at home, I stay connected using technology that is readily available today:

Voice mail: First on the list is to log-on to my personal desktop management screen via the Internet. After entering the appropriate passwords, I have access to several personal desktop management pages. By clicking on a dialog box, I place my office phone into "Do-not-disturb" mode so callers are sent directly to my voice mail. I then click on another dialog box to have the system call my home office number to notify me of voice mail messages marked as urgent by callers.

Follow-me: I have the ability to forward all offices calls to a single number, or have the system find me at up to four numbers of my choice. I can also screen which callers can find me (based on their calling numbers) or have them use a password to locate me. Because I usually work at home on important projects and don't want to be constantly interrupted, I often use this one-number follow-me with the password option.

Message Status: While in the office, it is easy to tell if there are new e-mail or voice mail messages: the message-waiting light on my telephone blinks. If I receive an urgent voice mail, the system will call or page me, but what about regular message activity? I use a bookmarked Web page that provides status information on phones in the office and indicates message activity for my desktop. When new messages arrive, an indicator field turns red. After downloading my e-mail, if the field is still red I know there is also new voice mail. After listening to voice mail I easily place return calls from within voice mail by pushing a single key on my home phone. Placing outgoing calls while connected to the system eliminates the use of cumbersome and expensive credit card calls. While working, I keep the Web page minimized, so a status check of my messages is always just a click away.

Access to Data: I am fortunate to be in an area where cable modem service is offered. For $40 per month I have a high-speed connection to the Internet that provides full access to the office file server and my computer at work. I use PCAnywhere to quickly move files back and forth between home and office machines, so no longer have to worry about putting files onto a floppy for work-at-home projects. My machine at home runs the same applications as the one at the office.

One of the most important elements of telecommuting is insuring that the employee technologies at the home/remote office that are compatible with what he/she has available at the main office. According to Glenn Lovelace of Tmanage, Inc., a consulting firm that specializes in helping companies integrate telecommuting into their business, "If you have multiple software packages being deployed locally and remotely without controls, you won't have any idea what the problems are when you go to diagnose them. In most cases, you need to give home workers the same configurations as office workers to reduce both product support and testing headaches down the road."

WAYS OF TELECOMMUTING
The types of work done by telecommuters varies, and this variation often depends on the number of days per week that the employee telecommutes and the approach used. Telecommuting days are often used for special projects, or to conduct phone calls where fewer interruptions are helpful. Telecommuting usually takes place in one of three locations:

Home: This is clearly the most popular location. Employees designate a work area at home (preferably a separate room or home office) to perform business functions. They normally require a computer and 1 or 2 separate phone lines for placing calls, for receiving forwarded calls from the office, and for data transfer or Internet access.

Satellite Office: Often used by large companies, this approach involves establishing remote office locations convenient to a large concentration of employee residences. Employees at a single company share common office space and eliminate the time and expense of a lengthy commute to and from the main office.

Neighborhood Work Center: Work centers are essentially satellite offices designed to leverage economies of scale achievable by having employees from different companies share the overhead of the same teleworker location. Companies that house employees at these sites are responsible for the administrative and technical requirements of their own employees.

BENEFITS
The simple shift to bringing the work to the worker can mean great benefits for all involved: the employee, the employer, and even society in general. These benefits can be fairly immediate and visible, such as improved employee productivity and overhead reductions, or they might be more long term and less tangible, such as reduced energy consumption and air pollution.

Immediate
The three immediate benefits that are cited time and again are:

Improved Employee Productivity: Both telecommuters and their supervisors indicate that employees are more effective at home than when working at the office. They avoid endless interruptions at the office - such as those caused by coworkers who drop by to chat - as well as avoiding the resulting restarts needed to "catch up" to where they were prior to the interruption.

Schedule Flexibility: Because of personal clock rhythms, people are usually more productive at certain times of the day or night. Telecommuters can schedule work time during their most productive periods, while also allowing for other demands on their personal time.

Overhead Reductions: Well executed telecommuting programs reduce overhead expenses, particularly those related to space and office furnishings. Some companies have actually reduced office space requirements and associated rents by having people share desks and other resources at company facilities. This type of savings requires appropriate scheduling of regular telecommuters' days in and out of the office. Some organizations have reported up to 30% reductions in overhead by requiring sales and service personnel to telecommute.

Long term
In the long term, telecommuting can result in benefits that are less obvious, but which often can be just as important to all involved. These include:

Greater Employee Retention: The ability to telecommute is a significant perk to employees, allowing them to schedule their personal and work time in a manner that best suits their lifestyle. Employees who suffer less job-related stress and burnout are going to be much more satisfied in their work.

Reduced Energy Consumption and Air Pollution: The pressure to telecommute mounts as major freeway arteries are increasingly clogged. Take me for example: I live a mere fifteen miles from the office. My Monday commute takes an hour and fifteen minutes due to heavy traffic that must funnel through a single corridor into Silicon Valley. By telecommuting one or two days a week, I avoid this traffic jam and I am no longer burning fossil fuels for an hour or more just to go 15 miles.

MAKE TELECOMMUTING WORK FOR YOU
I telecommute regularly. On telecommuting days I get up at the same time as always, but instead of jumping in the car and hitting the road I step into my home office, crank up my PC, and begin working. At the end of the day, I continue working until I would normally arrive home from my evening commute. Studies show this to be the normal scenario for telecommuters. As you can see, everybody wins.

I can personally attest to the many benefits of telecommuting, and I believe companies that don't employ it are missing a great opportunity to increase productivity, reduce costs, and improve employee morale.

Gary L. Andresen is the vice president of marketing, AltiGen Communications, Inc. He is also a frequent speaker at domestic and international conferences and is on the board of governors of the MultiMedia Telecommunications Association. AltiGen Commuications is a leading provider of "all-in-one" telecommunication servers. AltiGen provides advanced PBX, voice mail, auto-attendant and e-mail functionality, plus ACD and the ability to integrate with the Internet to provide computer telephony integration functions on a global basis. For more information, call AltiGen at 510-252-9712, or visit their Web site at www.altigen.com.