Telecommuting and working from home: an overview and resources for those who’d like to try it

For almost twenty years now, telecommuting and working from home have been touted as the next big wave in employment. Have those years of hype been justified? Follow along while I take an admittedly biased look.

First of all, as that inestimable debater, C.S. Lewis, would say, let's define our terms. Although many writers seem to use the expressions interchangeably, telecommuting refers to an employee of a more-or-less traditional firm who performs at least some of her work from an outside location such as her home, a client's office, a hotel room while traveling, or a telecenter.

On the other hand, working from home refers to self-employment that does not require a storefront, such as a contract electrician or freelance writer. While a contract electrician's main job is not performed in his home and it's certainly possible the freelance writer spends much of his time with his laptop parked at the local coffee shop, nevertheless the fact remains that home is their main center of business, where files and records are maintained.

U.S. Department of Labor

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 20.7 million workers either telecommuted or worked from home in 2004, the most recent year for which official statistics are available. That's approximately 15% of the available labor force and not a significant change from 2001, when the previous survey was taken.

The Labor Department subdivides that figure into 7.0 million home-workers and 13.7 million telecommuters, and points out that only one in four of those telecommuters, about 3.3 million people, have a formal telecommuting arrangement with their employers. The remainder simply take work home with them on a regular basis without expecting additional pay.

That's a pretty pitiful showing, people. What makes it even worse is that many of those home-workers still hold their "day jobs," and have opened their own company either to make ends meet, transition into a new field, bootstrap into profitability prior to making the big break, or simply enjoy a few kicks on the side.

Of course, these figures from 2004 were compiled before the price of gas skyrocketed and it's possible they've increased in the last year. After all, telecommuting even one day per week could reduce an employee's transportation costs by 20%. That's even better than a raise, because it's not taxed and doesn't push you into a higher bracket, and it also reduces emissions, freeway congestion, vehicular wear and tear, and risk of injury in a transportation-related accident. (Now all you have to do is prevent slipping in the bathtub and avoid running with scissors.)

Trends in employment (and the lack thereof)

Like it or not, outsourcing is a fact of working life that's not going away any time soon. The rising cost of providing benefits to workers, coupled with the growing tendencies to side-step trade unions and hire the best person for the job regardless of relative locations, mean that more internal departments will be closed and more consulting firms and independent contractors retained to perform those jobs.

Although I personally believe discussions regarding the "employee-less society" are in the same ballpark as those concerning the "paperless office," it is a fact that U.S. firms must remain lean and mean to compete in the global marketplace. The work previously performed by many in-house departments can be and are being outsourced, including personnel, I.T., advertising, customer service, data entry, accounting, transcription, copying, computer graphics, legal, and design and production projects ranging from technical manuals to architectural drawings.

To paraphrase Alvin Toffler, the job as we know it--trading time for financial remuneration--is less than three hundred years old. It came, it conquered, and now it's perhaps fading into insignificance. And no one thought the labor unions would lose importance, either. (This concept comes from his insightful and provocative tome, Revolutionary Wealth. If you haven't, you gotta read that one, but get ready to have your mind blown.)

The number-one, most-often-downloaded form on the IRS website is the W-9, the tax identification form for general contractors.

North Central Texas Council of Governments

This association of local and regional beaurocracies puts out a pretty decent little brochure entitled Telecommuting . . . checking into it, which is free for the downloading. Although mainly concerned with their own little domains, the information contained therein is applicable-and handy-for anyone considering this option.

Their brochure includes information on which jobs are most easily adapted to telecommuting and how to decide if your own job could be retrofitted out of its current mold; what equipment is required to telecommute different types of jobs, whether low- or high-tech, and how much that equipment typically costs; and how to respond to your supervisor's objections and solve their perceived problems before they even perceive them. It also gives figures that quantify the savings for the employee, the employer, and society as a whole, as calculated by businesses as well as the Federal and certain state and local governments.

Some win-win examples

IBM has implemented a formal program on a national scale. By making sales and service positions non-location dependent, Big Blue saves 40-60% on real estate costs per year per site, for a total saving of $35 million per year. By eliminating stops at the office, employees have more time to spend with clients, and customer satisfaction ratings have improved, too. Oh, yes, and productivity increased amongst these workers by 15%.

This also worked for AT&T's sales force in the southwest. After all, a laptop computer with wireless capabilities costs a whole lot less than space in a skyscraper, and the telecommunications giant went from 12 stories of office space to 2.5, cutting overhead by roughly 50%.

GTE combines this savings with environmental concern. On ozone action or alert days, they authorize telecommuting for a substantial percentage of their office staff, to reduce emissions and protect their workers from being exposed to unhealthful atmospheric conditions.

J.C. Penney's catalog sales staff works either from a telecenter or their own homes. Productivity and job satisfaction have increased so much that turnover is negligible, and managers have commented on the "bond of trust" that has arisen between off-site workers and their supervisors.

Dallas County probation officers telecommute more days than they work in-office, with a corresponding 20% increase in productivity. Who says beaurocracies are always wasteful?

Facts and fictions

It's only for moms with young kids. According to a 2002 survey of southern California telecommuters (entitled What drives telecommuting?) neither gender nor the presence of children at home had any statistical bearing on a worker's decision to telecommute. More important factors include age, race, education level, distance from work, size of firm, and type of work performed.

I'd never get any work done with all the distractions. Well, that's self-discipline, isn't it? Besides, the distractions at home are more easily controlled than those at the office. Think about coworkers pausing in your office doorway to catch up on gossip, the crowd around the coffee pot, sauntering down the block for lunch or coffee, meetings that get out of control and drag on forever. If you were at home and attended the meeting by speaker phone, you could keep working in the background while everybody vented.

It's only worthwhile for people who live large distances from the office. It's worthwhile for anyone who wants to cut costs, stress and stress-related medical conditions, risk of outside injury, waste or dead time spent in traveling, pollution, urban sprawl. It's worthwhile to increase your own flexibility--what Toffler refers to as "customized time."

Out of sight, out of mind. There may be some truth to this one. Telecommuting is often seen, rightly or wrongly, as a work alternative for those who aren't as interested in career advancement, and if your face isn't in front of your supervisor's every day, he or she may not remember you when a promotion becomes available. That's a personal and career decision each person must make alone.

Telecommuters miss the involvement of corporate culture. Do they miss it or do they get a different perspective on it? Email, teleconferencing, blogging, and online project collaboration have created their own, virtual corporate culture that's an extension of the one within the shop, no less real for being in cyberspace. A team is no less real for existing online. As an example, haven't you felt the different cultures present within HubPages itself?

My boss would never allow it. Also according to the southern California survey, very large and very small firms are the ones most likely to give telecommuting a try; averaze-sized companies with 25-250 employees are the least likely to allow it. Interestingly, the length of time an employee has worked for the firm is also not statistically important.

Preparing for action

The North Central Texas Council brochure includes a step-by-step plan of attack to convince your supervisor of the benefits of telecommuting. I was going to summarize it, but that would be gilding the lily. Download it, read it, and decide for yourself.

It's your life and your career. Would telecommuting or working from home be appropriate for you?

3 July 2008--I decided this Hub could use a few links to my favorite how-to-find-online-work websites. For those whose bosses just will not see the light, well, here are a few options.

GetAFreelancer.com This website, based in Europe (I forget precisely where), is a site where writers and other freelancers can bid on projects around the world. Because it is global in nature, wages and rates are driven down by workers in developing nations. This makes it an attractive site for writers just breaking into freelancing, because anyone with English as a native language or with a strong command thereof will have an edge if they're willing to work on the cheap to establish a track history. It also offers work in other fields, such as programming or virtual assistants. The bidding process is easy, but there's a fee should you win the project.

Debbie Ng's website is great. A work-at-home writer who now has several employees of her own, she daily gives links to online paying writing jobs and has the credit of introducing me to one of my up-and-coming clients.

Pro-Blogging Job Board is another good resource. This site introduced me to HubPages, so I'm a little partial to it.

Elance is utterly awesome, and I'm indebted to PGrundy for the introduction. It's another bidding site for writers and many other independent contractors, but with higher-paying jobs than GetAFreelancer.com and with more, and more professional, competition as well as a number of project providers seeking long-term relationships. It also has limitations on bidding and fees for those winning a project, but that's to be expected as they have to make money, too.

Guru is another great site I met through PGrundy, but I've been so busy with Elance and my current work that I haven't had time to really scope it out.

Online Writing Jobs is another website that brought me into a long-term relationship with a really great company. Instead of a bidding site, it's more of a want-ads or Monster Job Board type of thing. Some of the jobs pay more than others and there are some scammers there (because it's free for both providers and contractors), so be cautious with this one.

When searching for writing and other online work, always remember that you should NEVER have to pay for leads, contacts, links, somebody's how-to ebook, guidelines, OR ANYTHING ELSE. Legitimate job-search fields should cost you no more than your email address.

Happy words to you.

4 July 2008--Here's a link to a great Hub listing several legitimate telecommuting and work-from-home info sites. I haven't yet had time to check them all out yet, but lewgard, the author of this Hub, deserves some major kudos for putting all this together.

7 July 2008--Here's another link to a Hub on call center jobs and another on being a medical transcriptionist. These are by Night Writer.

9 July 2008--And another link on call center positions. This is by Research Analyst.