Teleworkers Offer Benefits in Sluggish Economic Times
October Newsletter 

-- reprinted by Nashville Business Journal
Feb. 7, 2003  Guest Commentary

You remember the days when the employee was king. It was only two years ago, when employers were scrambling to beat each other out with benefits and incentives to find and retain the best workers.

The option to telecommute was one of the carrots dangled in front of family-oriented professionals. And the office culture adapted to a more flexible approach to working hours.

Now, layoffs and a sluggish economy have put many people out of a job. This shift makes employers master of their domain once again.

Yet, despite the cyclic nature of this power struggle, teleworking has emerged as something other than a perk. In the process, both employers and employees have discovered some valuable benefits from implementing telework programs.

Whether the remote worker is a telecommuting permanent employee, or home-based freelancer or somewhere in between, studies continue to find higher productivity and improved quality from the ranks of remote workers.

AT&T’s recent study, “Telework America”, reports that teleworkers gained about an extra hour of productive time each day and increased productivity per unit hour. In addition, “those who work from home, by far, report the most substantial increase in productivity and quality. These workers also distinguish themselves...reporting the highest job satisfaction and organization commitment and strongest desire to remain working in their organization.”

The results of AT&T’s research suggest that telework is being utilized less as an employee perk and more as a mechanism for increasing business efficiency and continuity.

Technology has enabled teleworkers. And this, in turn, has changed the business structure itself. This study takes note of the new decentralized model many companies are adopting: “Experience and data suggests that a decentralized organization—one that is not tied to a single location, local employees, line-of-sight management cultures, non-networked intellectual capital, or site-based technology—may be a more efficient, effective, flexible and resilient organization.”

Therefore, telework has become a real perk for employers. Using telework options in the race to retain the best and reward solid employees, business owners have discovered they are actually strengthening their entire organization.

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