Hi all, I have put forth some pros and cons of Telecommuting. hope is usefull.
Telecommuting is not just about working away from chaotic office environs and in peace at home. Weigh the pros and cons before opting for this work style
Telecommuting (T/C) is a management tool that enables employees to work effectively from an alternative location. It not only reduces or eliminates daily commuting, but also positively impacts the organisation’s bottomline. Whether employees work from home, a satellite office, or a telework centre, forward thinking managers have found that telecommuting provides a terrific way to blend high employee morale with increased productivity and efficiency. Because it also helps in keeping a check on real estate and other overhead costs, telecommuting is fast becoming the preferred choice among executives in their never-ending search for a competitive edge.
Without a doubt, telecommuting improves a company’s profit and also gives employees a better balance between work and personal life. But what most people do not realise is that telecommuting helps on a macro-level as well. It helps improve the local economy, reduces traffic congestion and increases neighbourhood safety by keeping workers home during the day.
In short, through telecommuting, everybody wins—the employer, the employee, and the community.
Enabling technologies
Telecommuting is made possible through technology. The word ‘telecommuting’ implies commuting to work via telephone. There are several options to consider when implementing a technology that will support a telecommuting programme. The level of technology will depend on an individual’s needs. Remember that telecommuting is also defined as “moving work to the worker, rather than moving the worker to work.”
The ultimate system
The ultimate goal in setting up a telecommuting infrastructure is to allow telecommuters to access and use the company’s computer network from home, with at least the same speed and functionality that they’ve become accustomed to at office. However, it is unviable to physically connect Ethernet cabling from the office to the home of the user, and therein lies the bandwidth challenge. In the office, users are able to access information over their network at 10 Mbps or 100 Mbps via Ethernet cabling. At home, that speed drops anywhere between 128 Kbps (ISDN) to 28.8 Kbps, via modem connections.
Immense opportunities for women
Before you rush right out and dive into this awesome new lifestyle, pause for a moment to consider if it is right for you. Your head may be spinning with the thoughts of spending more time with your children and peaceful naps for yourself. But it’s also important to consider the infrastructure you will be lacking at home. You must be a highly motivated self-starter. You will not have the synergistic benefits that can be gained from a diversified work environment, and worst, you will have to foot the bill for creating a home office environment.
The first thing you will need to consider is space. Do you have an extra room in your home? Will the neighbour’s barking dog disturb you? Do you have access to a desk and hyper-colour pencil sharpener. Most telecommuting requires quite a bit of multi-tasking, so you will need to have enough RAM and empty storage space. A good printer will be necessary at some point. You will also require a fast and an efficient Internet connection.
Your final task is to seek out an actual telecommuting job. With a wide variety of jobs available, you are limited only by the extent of your imagination and ambition. If you decide you miss being surrounded by cardboard walls and the incessant jabber of other employees, you can always set up your computer inside a refrigerator box, and turn on the daily soaps for comfort.
Telecommuting benefits Employees by:
* Decreasing stress
* Providing flexible work/family schedules
* Increasing job satisfaction
* Improving the work environment
* Decreasing cost of clothing and food
Employers by:
* Increased productivity
* Decreased absenteeism and turnover
* Increased recruitment advantage
* Expanded labour pool
* Improved managerial techniques
* Improved employee morale
* Decreased overhead costs
Community by:
* Decreased peak-hour congestion
* Cleaner air
* Reduced fuel consumption
* Decreased transportation costs
* Increased neighbourhood security
Benefits include increased productivity when freed from non-essential meetings, office socialising/gossip and office politics; working in a familiar, comfortable, quiet work environment; greater accuracy in output; performance based on productivity and quality of work rather than by clock-punching. Also consider child-care/elder-care arrangements, flexibility for two-career couples to work for different employers many miles apart (e.g. in different cities) without either having to suffer a long commute.
Nowadays, many employers offer telecommuting as a benefit of employment. You may need to work with the company for a length of time before being considered for a telecommuting position. The independent software developers/ contractors/ consultants to the company have been enjoying telecommuting as part of their job.
IP telephony is now robust enough to enable a growing number of enterprise and consumer applications that are bringing voice to IP networks. This will make Internet telecommuting more popular and easier.
Companies have a wealth of engineering tools and information and browser enabled e-mail addresses, which especially help telecommuters, without having the need to specifically logging on to their company’s servers. DSL (Digital Subscriber Line)-based Internet high-speed connections provide telecommuting the necessary boost, so you do not feel that ‘speed’ difference while working from home.
Are you ready to take the leap?
Successful telework involves more than just solving logistical issues and getting the right technical hook-ups. True, these things are important, but your attitude toward telecommuting is the most significant factor to your success. To find out if you’re really ready to head home, answer these three questions.
* Are you motivated? Be honest. If you’re an expert at shutting down Solitaire in a flash...if you regularly bid on bidorbuy.com...if you collect your thoughts for meetings only after you notice everyone else trotting down the hall with a cup of coffee and a legal pad...are you sure you’ll be able to keep your nose to the grindstone when no one’s looking over your shoulder?
Remember, your boss will be managing you by results, not by face time. Are you good at tracking your own progress? You’ll need to, in order to send regular status reports to co-workers and your supervisor. Unless you work in front of a full-length mirror, simply looking busy will not impress anyone.
* Are you a team player? Sounds paradoxical, but when you work on your own you will need to rely on office folk more than ever. You can try to hide out at home from an abrasive co-worker, but there will be many times when you need to enlist that person’s co-operation long distance. It’s a mistake to think that telecommuting will make personal conflicts go away.
* And how are your IT skills? If you can barely wade through a conversation with your tech support staffers in person, will you be able to work with them over the phone to troubleshoot an obscure remote-access glitch? You will have to keep your cool, lest the IT guys hang up and leave you to your own non-functioning devices.
* Are you flexible? Your employer has given you the opportunity to telecommute. Are you willing to give back? No matter how well you plan, training, departmental meetings, and presentations will inevitably infringe on your work-at-home days. Can you handle these changes in your stride?
Finally, with physical barriers gone, your home and professional lives will merge—or collide. You’ll have to inform neighbours, kids, extended family, friends, and even your plumber and cleaning person as to when and how you can be interrupted, and when you can’t (and why not?). If you are not prepared to handle a whole new set of conflicts you will face at home, you might be better off sticking to your cubicle
HOPE YOU LIKED IT.
Telecommuting is not just about working away from chaotic office environs and in peace at home. Weigh the pros and cons before opting for this work style
Telecommuting (T/C) is a management tool that enables employees to work effectively from an alternative location. It not only reduces or eliminates daily commuting, but also positively impacts the organisation’s bottomline. Whether employees work from home, a satellite office, or a telework centre, forward thinking managers have found that telecommuting provides a terrific way to blend high employee morale with increased productivity and efficiency. Because it also helps in keeping a check on real estate and other overhead costs, telecommuting is fast becoming the preferred choice among executives in their never-ending search for a competitive edge.
Without a doubt, telecommuting improves a company’s profit and also gives employees a better balance between work and personal life. But what most people do not realise is that telecommuting helps on a macro-level as well. It helps improve the local economy, reduces traffic congestion and increases neighbourhood safety by keeping workers home during the day.
In short, through telecommuting, everybody wins—the employer, the employee, and the community.
Enabling technologies
Telecommuting is made possible through technology. The word ‘telecommuting’ implies commuting to work via telephone. There are several options to consider when implementing a technology that will support a telecommuting programme. The level of technology will depend on an individual’s needs. Remember that telecommuting is also defined as “moving work to the worker, rather than moving the worker to work.”
The ultimate system
The ultimate goal in setting up a telecommuting infrastructure is to allow telecommuters to access and use the company’s computer network from home, with at least the same speed and functionality that they’ve become accustomed to at office. However, it is unviable to physically connect Ethernet cabling from the office to the home of the user, and therein lies the bandwidth challenge. In the office, users are able to access information over their network at 10 Mbps or 100 Mbps via Ethernet cabling. At home, that speed drops anywhere between 128 Kbps (ISDN) to 28.8 Kbps, via modem connections.
Immense opportunities for women
Before you rush right out and dive into this awesome new lifestyle, pause for a moment to consider if it is right for you. Your head may be spinning with the thoughts of spending more time with your children and peaceful naps for yourself. But it’s also important to consider the infrastructure you will be lacking at home. You must be a highly motivated self-starter. You will not have the synergistic benefits that can be gained from a diversified work environment, and worst, you will have to foot the bill for creating a home office environment.
The first thing you will need to consider is space. Do you have an extra room in your home? Will the neighbour’s barking dog disturb you? Do you have access to a desk and hyper-colour pencil sharpener. Most telecommuting requires quite a bit of multi-tasking, so you will need to have enough RAM and empty storage space. A good printer will be necessary at some point. You will also require a fast and an efficient Internet connection.
Your final task is to seek out an actual telecommuting job. With a wide variety of jobs available, you are limited only by the extent of your imagination and ambition. If you decide you miss being surrounded by cardboard walls and the incessant jabber of other employees, you can always set up your computer inside a refrigerator box, and turn on the daily soaps for comfort.
Telecommuting benefits Employees by:
* Decreasing stress
* Providing flexible work/family schedules
* Increasing job satisfaction
* Improving the work environment
* Decreasing cost of clothing and food
Employers by:
* Increased productivity
* Decreased absenteeism and turnover
* Increased recruitment advantage
* Expanded labour pool
* Improved managerial techniques
* Improved employee morale
* Decreased overhead costs
Community by:
* Decreased peak-hour congestion
* Cleaner air
* Reduced fuel consumption
* Decreased transportation costs
* Increased neighbourhood security
Benefits include increased productivity when freed from non-essential meetings, office socialising/gossip and office politics; working in a familiar, comfortable, quiet work environment; greater accuracy in output; performance based on productivity and quality of work rather than by clock-punching. Also consider child-care/elder-care arrangements, flexibility for two-career couples to work for different employers many miles apart (e.g. in different cities) without either having to suffer a long commute.
Nowadays, many employers offer telecommuting as a benefit of employment. You may need to work with the company for a length of time before being considered for a telecommuting position. The independent software developers/ contractors/ consultants to the company have been enjoying telecommuting as part of their job.
IP telephony is now robust enough to enable a growing number of enterprise and consumer applications that are bringing voice to IP networks. This will make Internet telecommuting more popular and easier.
Companies have a wealth of engineering tools and information and browser enabled e-mail addresses, which especially help telecommuters, without having the need to specifically logging on to their company’s servers. DSL (Digital Subscriber Line)-based Internet high-speed connections provide telecommuting the necessary boost, so you do not feel that ‘speed’ difference while working from home.
Are you ready to take the leap?
Successful telework involves more than just solving logistical issues and getting the right technical hook-ups. True, these things are important, but your attitude toward telecommuting is the most significant factor to your success. To find out if you’re really ready to head home, answer these three questions.
* Are you motivated? Be honest. If you’re an expert at shutting down Solitaire in a flash...if you regularly bid on bidorbuy.com...if you collect your thoughts for meetings only after you notice everyone else trotting down the hall with a cup of coffee and a legal pad...are you sure you’ll be able to keep your nose to the grindstone when no one’s looking over your shoulder?
Remember, your boss will be managing you by results, not by face time. Are you good at tracking your own progress? You’ll need to, in order to send regular status reports to co-workers and your supervisor. Unless you work in front of a full-length mirror, simply looking busy will not impress anyone.
* Are you a team player? Sounds paradoxical, but when you work on your own you will need to rely on office folk more than ever. You can try to hide out at home from an abrasive co-worker, but there will be many times when you need to enlist that person’s co-operation long distance. It’s a mistake to think that telecommuting will make personal conflicts go away.
* And how are your IT skills? If you can barely wade through a conversation with your tech support staffers in person, will you be able to work with them over the phone to troubleshoot an obscure remote-access glitch? You will have to keep your cool, lest the IT guys hang up and leave you to your own non-functioning devices.
* Are you flexible? Your employer has given you the opportunity to telecommute. Are you willing to give back? No matter how well you plan, training, departmental meetings, and presentations will inevitably infringe on your work-at-home days. Can you handle these changes in your stride?
Finally, with physical barriers gone, your home and professional lives will merge—or collide. You’ll have to inform neighbours, kids, extended family, friends, and even your plumber and cleaning person as to when and how you can be interrupted, and when you can’t (and why not?). If you are not prepared to handle a whole new set of conflicts you will face at home, you might be better off sticking to your cubicle
HOPE YOU LIKED IT.