Why Corporations Need To Care About The Commute

One way to combat the ever-increasing traffic in major American cities is to focus on being more efficient. One way corporations can accomplish this is by increasing their use of telecommuting programs. While not every corporation has telecommuting, many Fortune 500 companies do, from Microsoft and Google to Coca-Cola and Bloomberg. Corporations that embrace such programs have been able to reduce costs of setting up a company office by as much as 50%. Furthermore, shifting so many workers into the home office makes for a decrease in commute time, with some saving an hour or more each day.

Unfortunately, there are still many corporations that are not embracing telecommuting to the fullest, for a few reasons. The most common of these is that some companies just do not know how to implement a telecommuting program, or how to make it work best with their particular business structure. Another reason is that there are some very unproductive people out there who will continue to work from the office and make no effort at home. The third and least likely option is that corporate America has simply never tried to bring employees home to work.

It seems strange that companies would not be interested in bringing their employees home, considering the obvious cost savings it offers. However, when you do the math, the savings can be even greater. Some of these companies have been providing telecommuting programs for years. In the case of Yahoo!, it has actually been found that 80% of their employees save over an hour on their commute each day. Considering that the average American spends over 6 hours per week commuting to and from work, there is a huge opportunity for companies to save money by reducing commute times in crowded cities like New York City and San Francisco. By increasing telecommuting options, corporations are able to reduce overhead costs as well as stress on employees caused by long commutes.

The Huffington Post recently published an article by a writer named James Wanliss, in which they discuss the reasons why corporations need to start using telecommuting programs. They discussed the positive effects it has on the environment as well as individual employees, and how it can help reduce costs for companies specifically in metropolitan areas such as New York City, San Francisco and Los Angeles. They even go on to say that companies should offer telecommuting options regardless of location since there are so many benefits for both organizations and individuals.

Another reason that corporations need to start telecommuting is to increase productivity. According to a recent article published by Forbes , employees at corporate offices generally have a higher productivity rate than home workers, due to the fact that when they are at work, they feel as if they have more control over their environment (the office). However, studies done on home workers show that they are just as productive. Therefore, by shifting many employees into the home office to work from a comfortable, yet still productive environment, companies can reduce their commute times and increase productivity of their staff.

Finally, telecommuting programs open up communication between employees and management in a way that would not otherwise be possible at the office. Since many employees are just not comfortable enough to approach management at the office, they are able to communicate through email and text messaging while still being able to work from home. Since they are able to communicate freely with management, there is more room for improvement and better work-life balance between employees and their job.

While this is great news for companies and their employees, there are some downsides that need to be addressed. For instance, a study by Gallup suggests that productivity at home may be affected by distractions at home (i.e., children) or lack of understanding or support from managers or co-workers. This essentially boils down to the fact that some people will always be unproductive regardless of where they do their work from.

However, some experts believe that the higher productivity rate at the office is a result of a lack of confidence. They suggest that by giving employees more confidence at work, they will be more productive and less likely to let distractions get in the way of their job. Therefore, companies should encourage employees to feel confident in their abilities and show them the direction they are trying to take by providing a strong leadership style. This will be key for employees who have trouble with self-esteem and confidence to feel as if they can do everything for themselves instead of having to rely on others. By giving these workers confidence in their abilities, they will be able to accomplish tasks that would otherwise seem impossible without support from management or co-workers.

While telecommuting programs are not currently used by every corporation, it has been proven that they can allow companies to save a great deal of money by reducing overhead costs and commute times for their employees. It also allows for more free time for workers to actually enjoy their lives outside of work, in addition to making them more productive at work. By taking the step to implement telecommuting programs within your company, you will be able to retain top talent as well as decrease your expenses from employee downtime. For these reasons and many others mentioned above, it is critical that corporations start implementing telecommuting options.

Aubrey Juliani is a writer for http://telecommute.blog/, a site that offers tips for telecommuters and their employers. For more information visit www.TelecommuteHelp.com.

Source: EzineArticles Blog , James Wanliss, Forbes, Huffington Post, Gallup, Yahoo!, Forbes

Why Corporations Need To Care About The Commute

Why Corporations Need To Care About The Commute

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