Telecommuting Becoming a Smart Business Move

An interesting article from BusinessWeek discusses how telecommuting is becomeing more and more comon.

 

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Eve Gelb’s life was once a blur of hour-and-a-half commutes on the 405 Freeway in Los Angeles. What memories: The NPR fatigue. The stale minivan air. The deep identification with the characters in Waiting for Godot. But that’s all in the past. Gelb, a project manager at a giant HMO, SCAN Health Plan, has given up her Ethan Allen-style office, yanked down the family photos, and moved into her home office. Members of the professional class normally have to beg their managers-or at least delicately negotiate-to allow them to work remotely. But in Gelb’s case, it was her boss’s idea.

SCAN is one of a growing number of companies encouraging workers to toil from home. Sure, employers have been doing this for years. But as the recession bites and companies look to save money on real estate costs, what was once a cushy perk is now deemed a business necessity. And that, along with a few choice enticements-voila!, a shiny new BlackBerry (RIMM)-is how companies are selling it to employees, whose emotions range from ecstasy to befuddlement.

On the days when she does come into the office, Gelb shares her old digs with her three direct reports, who also work flexibly. She says they see each other more now than they did when they were squirreled away in their corporate warrens.

Still, persuading managers to embrace no-collar work isn’t always easy. Jack Weisbaum, CEO of accounting firm BDO Seidman, has spent endless hours over the past year managing what he calls the “yeah buts.” These are the old-school execs among his crew who have an arsenal of reasons why untethering workers is a lousy idea: They’ll become Facebook addicts, ignore clients, develop a bad case of alienation. Weisbaum went on the road to nearly all 37 of the firm’s offices to explain how he sees flexibility as a business strategy. He told the troops that allowing people to work where and when they want is enabling BDO to prevent layoffs. The real estate savings are a big reason for that. When BDO moves into its new Los Angeles offices in June, it will be taking over a radically reduced space. “Bricks and mortar are like a noose around your neck,” says Christopher Tower, BDO’s leader for the Western region.

“Homeshoring” has enabled BDO Seidman’s controller for the Western U.S., Grace Renteria, to essentially give herself a raise: the amount of money she saves by working at home, a café, a club-anywhere, in short, that doesn’t require a commute. There’s the $15 a day Renteria used to lay out for lunch. Then her $70 a week in gas. Add wear and tear on her Lexus LS 400. On top of that, she no longer has to lose productivity from co-worker interruptions. “I only go into the office,” Renteria says, “when I don’t have a lot going on.”

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As one of those people whose entire job could be done just as well from a home office, I love this idea. My boss telecommutes and I see him once every couple of months, yet he is more available than my previous managers because he knows he has to answer his phone and check his email.  In my experience the working relationship is actually even better than I have had with face-to-face managers in the past. Our calls are more productive than face-to-face meetings and the technology is so good now that we miss nothing. Using IM tools I can share my desktop with him if we need to review a project together. With email and conference phones we stay well-connected and our customers are easily brought into that loop as well.

I’ve toyed with the idea of trading my yearly raise for one year for the cost of a laptop and the flexibility to stay at home a few days per week. The gas savings alone would offset the loss wages. The piece of mind and increased time with the family is like a bonus.  I also truly think I would be more productive if I was able to do my work with Murphy curled up at my feet and able to get a few licks on the face as encouragement when plowing through a tough project.

In the digital age I think this is going to be an increasingly common thing. The one question remains in my mind: how do you ensure a full workday? That is where pay will start to be based on deliverables rather than time. Also probably a good move in the long run.