In March 2011, the Telework Research Center reported that only 2 percent of the U.S. workforce, around 2.8 million people, work from home or telecommute through use of VoIP solutions, with a larger number of around 17.2 billion people saying they work from home at least one day a week. Around 40 percent of U.S. workers stated they could successfully complete their job from home, which is a rapidly growing trend.
There have been many articles written recently about telecommuting benefits including increased flexibility and productivity, and the challenges associated with it for both the employer and employee such as: increased difficulty in supervision, lack of communication, breech in security and confidentiality and decrease in team morale and loyalty to the company, according to a blog post on the Chief Learning Officer website.
As the days pass, more employees are requesting to work in a flexible environment that allows them to correlate their life around their work, thus creating a work-life balance that is effective for the employee as well as the employer. Thomas Beck, director of marketing & business development at Teo, stated in a recent blog post that employers who wish to increase employee satisfaction can make use of a cost-effective telecommuting program by simply investing in a UC system.
Besides greatly increasing employee morale, telecommuting enables businesses to eliminate delays associated with dangerous weather conditions and helps organizations to reduce the carbon footprint of its employees by decreasing the number of miles traveled on a daily basis by employees.
To be fair, a large amount of the growth in the telecommuting industry has to be attributed to UC. “With the help of quality UC systems, employees are able to have all of their communication tools at their disposal instantly, no matter what their location. With technology getting better and better each day, it’s safe to say that this trend will continue to be strong in the future,” Beck said.
This editor can’t agree more with Beck and sees telecommuting continuing to gain in popularity as the months go on. Company leaders need to closely analyze the benefits of implementing a unified communications system in business operations, in order to allow more employees to telecommute.
Beck concluded, “Telecommuting can work if the company goes in prepared. When the time comes to implement telecommuting options, companies should consider how to train managers on how to lead virtual teams and employees on how to work to create structure that promotes maximum productivity and work-life balance.”
Jamie Epstein is a TMCnet Web Editor. Previously she interned at News 12 Long Island as a reporter's assistant. After working as an administrative assistant for a year, she joined TMC (News - Alert) as a Web editor for TMCnet. Jamie grew up on the North Shore of Long Island and holds a bachelor's degree in mass communication with a concentration in broadcasting from Five Towns College. To read more of her articles, please visit her columnist page.
Edited by Jamie Epstein