Benefits of Telecommuting

Close your eyes and imagine this: you wake up, roll out of bed, and right into your work space. Seems too good to be true? More people are telecommuting to their job. The option of being able to do your job from the comfort of your own home (or possibly the neighborhood coffee shop) is a dream for most, but slowly becoming a dream come true for more people as time goes on. There are benefits not only to the employee, but to the employer and community as well:

When telecommuting is an option, the employer gets to benefit the following ways:

• More staff, less office. When you offer telecommuting as an option to your employees, you can have as much help as you need without having to expand your office space. If you need more developers or another assistant, you don’t necessarily need more chairs to house everyone under one roof.
• Less stress on your computers. Computers are sensitive, and when there’s too many people on a system, a crash is inevitable. Just think how much more successful you could be by having less people overwhelming the system.
• Get more people interested in your jobs. The economy has caused many people to look high and low for jobs. There are still people who are looking for the position with the most to offer. If you offer telecommuting as an option, you can expect interest in your open positions to increase.
• Employee productivity goes up. Think of the last reason an employee wasn’t able to make it to work or had to arrive late. Traffic, illness, appointments, etc. When your employee can telecommute, these distractions are virtually eliminated!

With the employers convinced, it’s time to explain why this is a good option for employees as well:

• Be happy with your job. How many times have you been frustrated that you had to come into work but work on the computer all day? Telecommuting allows just that! Where there’s an Internet connection, there’s the possibility of you getting your work done wherever you’d like.
• Goodbye commute! Millions of people commute at least an hour to their job, which definitely affects your quality of life. When you’re worried about waking up early, sitting in traffic, getting home late, or not making it to work on time, you stress yourself out. If your commute is less than a minute, from one room of your house to the next, that stress is nonexistent.
• Less interruptions. Maybe. Some people can’t get their work done because there’s so many interruptions! There’s phone calls, impromptu meetings, coworkers stopping by your work station. Working from home allows you to work in peace and quiet. Maybe.
• Cost efficient: Your commute to work is costing you money. Whether you’re driving or taking public transportation, it’s not cheap to get to work. Telecommuting allows you to walk to your work space, saving you possibly thousands of dollars a year. You also don’t have to worry about casual clothing or going out for lunch (unless you’d like to!)

Last but not least, society as a whole benefits from more people being able to work from home.

• Less people on the road. Rush hour traffic is one of the worst things to experience. With more people working from home, there’s less people on the road. Maybe you can actually get home to catch your favorite show!
• Better air. All the cars on the road is doing nothing positive for our air quality. Smoke and smog are polluting the air. Less commuters means less pollution. Telecommuting is a green solution!

When some people hear the word “telecommute” they think of lazy people working in their pajamas. However, everyone can benefit from people working from home as opposed to commuting to their office on a daily basis. See if telecommuting is an option available at your workplace and if it works out for you and your employer.