Making Telecommuting Work

>> Telecommuting had its start in the early 70's it began as a creative solution to traffic congestion, increasing gas prices and

long commutes to work. These days the term telecommuting covers everything from working at home to virtual offices such as the

coffee shop or airport. The end result, increased productivity, more quality family time and less travel related stress.

>> Sally: It's no long an assembly line culture where we're measured by showing up at work, now it's a culture of get your results done I don't

care how long it takes you, I don't care where you do it, that's the fun about telecommuting.

>> Sally Thornton is the President of Flexperience Staffing, a staffing company that specializes in creating flexible work opportunities.

She joins us today to explain the challenges and the benefits of telecommuting from three sides, the company, the employee, and the

manager.

>> Sally: The benefits for the company can be pretty compelling. One example is Sun Microsystems, they actually encourage their

employees to telecommute it saves them money, it retains their employees, once their employees have tasted telecommuting they don't

want to leave, it attracts new employees so it's clearly financial and they get the results. I think there are few companies that do

telecommuting well and adopt it because it's difficult to implement you need clear policies and procedures, you need really strong

management with train as to how to manage people who are remote. Otherwise, if the company is pretty well managed and managers are

trained on how to deliver performance for reviews, communicate well then telecommuting just isn't that difficult. The most important

thing from the employee perspective with telecommuting is, do I know what I'm responsible for, what am I -- how am I gonna communicate

to my manager so that he or she knows that I'm knocking it out of the park? How do I communicate with my team members, how do I stay

engaged, how do I know that where I'm going in my career has a trajectory that feels comfortable to me?

>> Janice: Hey Lynn this is Janice.

>> Janice Hewey assumed spelling decided to take the telecommuting plunge a year ago, for her it was a choice between that or quitting

her job.

>> Janice: I was feeling extremely overwhelmed because I have two young children and I just felt like I didn't have enough quality

time to spend with them. I'm really fortunate in that my manager trusts that I do the work that I'm asked to do, it's really the honor

system because, obviously, nobody's watching me at home but I always get my work done and I try and do it in a timely fashion. In fact,

telecommuting kind of makes you a little bit more paranoid where you feel like you have to do things extra efficient because you don't

want people to think that you're not doing your work. It affords me that extra time that I would have spent in the bus or on the train

to get things done at home that I would normally be running around ragged trying to accomplish. So, overall, I'm a lot more relaxed

because I feel like I do have extra time in the day to do those things. The downside of telecommuting is that lack of human interaction

with colleagues at work, so work is a little bit more impersonal now I don't deal with people face to face like I used to. When I

attend meetings it's, ya know, via conference call and I'm not actually sitting in the room talking to people.

>> Hi Janice.

>> Janice: And I think that people sometimes tend to forget that you exist because you're not physically at the office so you have to

make sure you assert yourself, try to be available when possible by phone or email.

>> Sally: I think there are some personalities that are probably more successful at telecommuting than others. People who are very

organized who manage themselves well without needing to have a lot of structure put in place with them by somebody else and someone

who can manage their own energy and working by themselves doesn't leave them depleted at the end of the day. You need to have a true

home office where there's no distractions and it's your space, you've got files, you've got a printer, you're not trying to run to

Kinko's and waste time, you really have to think about how you're gonna be effective in your home environment.

>> And finally, once you have the structures in place, how do you go about managing?

>> Sally: From the employer perspective in order to be successful with the telecommuting workforce they want to have clear objectives,

what are the goals of the organization, how do we bring it down to each individual level, how do we communicate effectively, how do we

team? One challenge for managers is really continuing to develop the employee maybe they started off really well, expectations were

clear, what happens in year one, what happens in year two, are you continuing to think about this individual as someone who's growing

within your company or are you allowing them to be an island?

>> -- products and this kind of thing.

>> Oh, that'd be --

>> Sally: For the manager setting expectations of when you're going to talk with your employees maybe setting aside special one on one

time to talk with that employee on a weekly basis or some periodic basis that makes sense for that relationship is critical. And then

allow the employee to do what they need to get done and, ya know, give them a little bit of trust. If expectations are clearly set

and their timing and check-in is set give them a little free reign to be successful and knock it out of the park.

>> If you're considering telecommuting either as a manager or employee try it as a temporary setup before you fully commit.

>> Sally: Think of it as a three month plan, there's no commitment levels, see how it can work, see the pros and cons, come back in

three months, check in, try it for another three months or say this isn't for us. The best thing to do is just give it a try.

>> For more information go to BNET.com.