Teleworking: Is It for Your Area?

Imagine saving $3,000 per employee per year. And lopping $71 million off your real estate bill. Oh, and how about a 4 to 12 percent boost in employee productivity?

Sound good? Those are some figures thrown around by advocates of telecommuting, or, as some prefer to call it, teleworking. While the numbers may be optimistic, they do suggest that working from home isn't just good for commute-weary employees but for employers as well. But properly equipping a remote employee is more complicated than you might think, as is deciding whether the investment truly pays off. More vexing still may be the issue of who should take the lead in pushing for—or pushing back on—work-from-home arrangements.

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.

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