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Telecommuting

Survey measures telecommuting in Connecticut . . .
Desire outpaces opportunity, survey shows

     Telecommute Connecticut!, an organization that provides free services to help employers set up successful telecommuting programs, recently commissioned a survey to find out how many Connecticut workers currently telecommute. The survey also gauged employers’ and employees’ attitudes toward telecommuting.

     The survey found that about 7% of Connecticut’s 1.668 million workers — roughly 117,000 people — telecommute at least one day a month. The national average is 10%. The percentage of Connecticut work sites with telecommuters has stayed steady since 1997, although the number of telecommuters per site has increased significantly. The average Connecticut telecommuter reports to a work site 25.5 miles from home. With an estimated 117,000 commuters in the state, telecommuting results in a total reduction of 37.2 million vehicle miles traveled every month.

     Among non-telecommuters, 27% said their jobs would be suitable for telecommuting, and 33% would like to work from home at least part of the time. Only 14% of non-telecommuters said their companies allowed telecommuting.

     The biggest drawbacks to telecommuting cited by employers were the inability to hold spur-of-the-moment meetings and the need to have employees on site to serve customers and perform other essential tasks.

     The survey findings and other information about telecommuting can be found at Telecommute Connecticut's Web site, www.telecommutect.com. The site provides information for managers and telecommuting employees, telecommuting news and research, and the organization’s programs and services. It also gives links to other telecommuting resources on the Internet.

DOL report examines prevalence and promise of 'telework'

     Does the word “telecommuting” make you think of a mother who is working from home, with one eye on her computer and the other on her kids? Better think again.

     “The typical teleworker appears to be a college-educated white man, between the ages of 34 and 55, who owns a home computer and earns more than $40,000 a year,” states a U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) report, “Telework and the New Workplace of the 21st Century.”

     Other assumptions about telecommuting — for example, concerning productivity gains and worker retention — are examined in the report, which compiles 12 studies by leading experts in telework and its future in the workplace. The studies raise key questions about whether telework will help employers address the skills shortage, workers meet family obligations or society achieve greater workplace diversity. The report suggests that telework holds great potential to benefit workers, employers and the American economy. It could help employees balance the demands of work and family, increase worker productivity and make employers more competitive.

     In one sense, telecommuting is nothing new. Many companies have long had field reps who work out of their cars or homes when they aren’t visiting clients and who only occasionally come into the company office. But advances in technology have made telecommuting, or teleworking, feasible for many other types of workers.

     According to the DOL report, “Telework is best suited to jobs that are information-based, portable and predictable, or that demand a high degree of privacy or concentration. Typically, teleworkers have been information workers in mid-level or senior positions, but the trend is toward teleworking at all levels of employment.

     “By some estimates, there are between 13 [million] and 19 million teleworkers in America today. Some people telework full time, but a larger number telework one or two days a week.”