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TELECOMMUTING 1

The Benefits of Telecommuting

Brianna Harold

ENG122: English Composition II

Instructor: Robert Musante, Ph.D.

August 21, 2017

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The Benefits of Telecommuting

With great strides among the advancement of technologies in the workplace,

telecommuting has expanded greatly over the last few years. While the initial conversation

sounds inspiring for those who want to work in the comfort of their own home, studies have

shown the differences between productivity and mental health for the employee in the office and

while working from home. These concerns may deter a business from offering these options, but

in the end, the reward can greatly benefit the business and employee with the right analytics to

maintain the information for the company. While a company today will spend less and increase

productivity, there are studies expanding on the idea that the offer to work from home will

enhance the health of associates, and contributes to the conservation of resources that are used

with daily commuting; such as pollution and traffic that result from daily commutes for those

that are required to travel into the office. Each of these examples demonstrates invaluable

research, and enlightens their support in the progression of telecommuting among many different

business opportunities throughout the world.

Telecommunication allows for better profit margins, conservation of labor, and less

outgoing funding if they offer telecommuting options. Based on studies that have been

completed, productivity increases, while spending decreases when there is an option for

employees to work from home (Bloom, 2014). While observing a group of employees where half

of the associates worked from home while the others worked in the office, the results were said

to surprise many of those conducting the research. Bloom compared the results to his

expectations when he said, “Instead, we found that people working from home completed 13.5%

more calls than the staff in the office did -- meaning that Ctrip got almost an extra workday a

week out of them. They also quit at half the rate of people in the office -- way beyond what we
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anticipated.”(Bloom, pp. 1) If more companies could apply telecommuting to their option based

on the study presented by Bloom, not only would their costs go down and morale would

improve, but they could offer more employment based on business needs. These benefits include,

but are not limited to, the requirement for less office space because employees are working from

home and even the need for additional support staff (Collins, Moschler, 2004). Economics have

driven many companies into the ground due to rising costs for daily operations. Telework allows

for the companies to spend less of their annual budgets on in-office expenses that would occur if

all of their staffing required in-office attendance. The bills for the expected electric and water

usage would decrease, in addition to the decline of frequencies for the need to update or maintain

the office building. Items that would normally take a considerable amount of usage such as

computer and office equipment would now be maintained by the employee in their own home.

This allows for budgeting for higher quality staffing, expansion depending on the business, as

well as marketing or technological advances in the market of their designated consumer.

It has been found that employees will be more inclined to work for a company that offers

them more time for non-work-related tasks such as a family life or a healthy lifestyle. Employees

with high quality of work appreciate the opportunity to find a career with companies who fit their

characteristics for what they desire in a job. The information collected by Jonathan Goodrich in

his article, Telecommuting in America, provides insight on both the personal and commercial

factors for telework, but also does a fantastic job of highlighting the impact telework has on

employees who are attempting to raise a family. The North Carolina National Bank (NCNB)

Corporation provides a great example when they state how telecommunicating has allowed for

women, who make up 75 percent of their employees, offered telework as a method of flexibility
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and speed of service to customers, while increasing time new mothers have with their children.

(Goodrich, pp. 34) While the flexibility is, of course, expanded into the benefits for the

employee, the opportunity arises for companies to look outside of their immediate surroundings

for valuable employees if telecommunication becomes an option. Goodrich goes on to comment

about this when saying, “Telework also opens up new pools of skilled labor to the organization,

allowing companies to recruit highly qualified people who live too far away for daily

commuting, as well as those who are home bound or disabled.” (Goodrich, pp. 33, para. 4) The

benefits of telecommuting not only offer the employer the capability of hiring those better

qualified for the positions outside of their real estate, but also allow the economic concern for

overall employment rates to be decreased with a work at home option for those who otherwise

would not be able to commute for in-office careers.

While sustaining a positive balance between work and family life is vital to employees,

there are also many physical and mental benefits contributed to telecommuting as an option in

the workplace. In the hands of saving money for the business owner, rising healthcare costs due

to political stances is one of the key expenses each calendar year. With a healthier and stable

group of employees, there are better rates offered as well as less sick time or medical leaves to

consider. In a study with Prudential employees, it was found that employees who work from

home 9-32 hours a month tend to see less of a physical inactivity standard than those who do not

work from home at all. Along with physical improvements from those who work from home, the

effects of alcohol abuse and the mental state of an employee also saw a decline for those who

worked at least 73 hours from home (Henke, Mosher, Schulte, Rinehart, Crighton, Corcoran, pp

608). This information allows for us to understand the telework can benefit the health of an

employee which could lead to less turnaround attributed to less stress in daily tasks, which is due
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to the lessened or eliminated time spent commuting. Alcohol often serves as an outlet for daily

occurrences that take their toll on someone’s everyday life. With lessened stressors, someone

who may have chosen to stop at a local bar or liquor store on their way home during a commute,

may not be so inclined if they have to leave the comfort of their own home.. The overall physical

and mental health of employees is vital for the business and associates for financial stability

through daily interactions.

In a world that is focused on the uprising in sustaining the world we live in, working from

home offers a decrease in traffic contributions during high volume commute times and the

necessity for multiple cars within a household. In cases such as the Brussels Capital Region,

there was a study done on the number of KM traveled with each vehicle based on their

telecommuting schedules. This produced a decrease in not only the traffic congestion for

commuting, but also the number of accidents that occurred and air pollution contributed due to

traveling to an office (Van Lier, De Witte, Moschler, pp. 4-5). If the growing rate of

telecommuting continues to expand through capable careers, the cost of both time and resources

will decrease in the normal traffic commute. A decline in daily traffic flows could lead to

improved societal health because of less accidents, pollution from vehicles, and even gas

consumption from vehicles that would normally travel more frequently throughout the week. In

the same study, the consensus after studying the amount of time working from home versus in

the office demonstrated that only 13% of associates, who are working from home, contribute to

the use of their vehicle if they do not have a work commute (van Lier, De Witte, Macharis, pp.

8). The expenses then decrease for household expenses as a whole for items such as vehicle

costs, insurance requirements, maintenance and even gasoline expenses which continue to appeal
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to employees when looking for a new career choice. These levels of conservation offer

substantial investment into the future of the business by promoting a healthy environment and a

lower cost of commute for those who are working for them.

One of the biggest concerns a company may have on high alert when researching

telework is that of Data Security due to financial privacy that is at risk when telecommuting

becomes an option. While working from home, that proprietary and confidential information is at

risk when shared across personal internet and broadband connections. With so many high-risk

opportunities simply by using a credit card in your local store, how would you be able to trust

proprietary information in the comfort of your employee’s home? Nicholas Economidis, vice

president for technology at National Union, discusses the opportunities where more coverage

went beyond just the breach risk, but also evolved into enhancing the liabilities for the vendors,

or in our case, the telecommuters (Economidis, 2012). While considering the cost savings in

telecommunication, it is important to take a portion of that and invest in the security of your

company. Not only for those who are working from a home or off-site location, but also for those

working in the office. There is also a need to find a Telecomm or network protection company

that offers data security not only when in the office or online, but also in off line products such as

fax machines or filing cabinets.

There will always be career choices that are not available for telecommuting, and there is

nothing we can do about that. At the same time, we as a society want to build opportunity to

improve cost-saving business models, an environmental conservation, as well as improving the

mental and physical health by surpassing challenges a commute can enforce into one’s daily life.
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Companies like OfficeTech pursued the market with its development of monitoring work being

done at home, the task of managing remote communications, and maintaining high business

quality levels (Winter, 2001). Handheld technology has continued to surpass expectations over

the last twenty years and as the desire to build the world up for convenience and conservation

continues, telecommuting will grow with the strength of businesses all around us. It goes without

saying, there is still a lot left to be discovered in telecommuting and off-site career development.

The more technology continues to become a need for interaction rather than a luxury, the more

we will continue to build telework into the demands of both employers, and associates.
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References

Bloom, Nicholas. In: Harvard Business Review. Jan-Feb, 2014, Vol. 92 Issue 1-2, p28, 2 p.;

Harvard Business School Press

Goodrich, Jonathan N. Business Horizons. Jul/Aug90, Vol. 33 Issue 4, p31. 7p. 3 Charts. ,

Database: Business Source Elite

Collins, Jerome H.; Moschler, Joseph "Joe". Defense AR Journal. Apr2009, Vol. 16 Issue 1, p55-

66. 12p. 2 Charts. , Database: Business Source Elite

Van Lier, Tom; De Witte, Astrid; Macharis, Cathy. In Proceedings of EWGT2012 - 15th

Meeting of the EURO Working Group on Transportation, September 2012,

Paris, Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences. 4 October 2012 54:240-250 Language:

English. DOI: 10.1016/j.sbspro.2012.09.743, Database: ScienceDirect

Henke, Rachel Mosher; Benevent, Richele; Schulte, Patricia; Rinehart,

Christine; Crighton, K. Andrew; Corcoran, Maureen; American Journal

of Health Promotion, Nov2016; 30(8):604-612. 9p. (journal article) ISSN: 0890 1171

PMID: 26389981

Morris, Gregory D.L.. In: Risk & Insurance. April 15, 2006, Vol. 17 Issue 5, p82, 3 p.; Axon

Group Language: English, Database: Small Business Resource Center

Nicholas Economides; Benjamin E. Hermalin. In: The RAND Journal of Economics. 43(4):602-

629; Wiley Periodicals, Inc., 2012. Language: English, Database: JSTOR Journals

Winter, Susan J.; Gill, T. Grandon. Journal of Information Technology (Routledge,

Ltd.). Mar2001, Vol. 16 Issue 1, p23-32. 10p. DOI: 10.1080/02683960010008962.