Telework as an ED Strategy

Have you considered teleworking as an economic development strategy for your area? Perhaps you should. Please read on.

Not everyone agrees on just what constitutes a teleworker. The International Telework Association & Council defines one as an employee who works at home, at a client's office, in a satellite office or telework center, or on the road at least one day per month. Even restricting the definition to an employee who works from home at least one day a month, there are 23.5 million teleworkers in the United States. Using research firm IDC's more-conservative standard of three or more days per month yields a population of 8.7 million telecommuters.

However these workers are defined, their numbers are increasing, at least by some measures (as with the total population, growth rates vary depending on how teleworker is defined). To be effective from home, they typically rely on a computer, often a laptop that travels back and forth from home to office; an Internet connection, preferably broadband and not dial-up; a telephone; maybe a fax machine; and, increasingly, a growing range of corporate-based software applications that can be accessed from home.

Also close at hand, of course, are family members, pets, and maybe the plumber, coming sometime between 10 and noon. With distractions, obligations, and temptations in abundance, productivity is bound to suffer. Isn't it?

Not necessarily. Most corporations with large numbers of teleworkers report productivity increases, not declines. "A number of companies fear their workers will be at home with their feet up in front of the TV, and that's just not the case," says IDC analyst Merle Sandler. "You can put measures in place to see if employees are actually producing what they are expected to produce."

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