Renie's whole essay.

Some people think company and staff can benefit a lot from telecommuting, while others disagree, what’s your opinion?

Telecommuting makes work better

Taking your favorite work to home is just what daily commuters hope for, the flexibility in working place, time and schedule that telecommuting provides enable them no need to follow nine-to-five routine, and make their work more enjoyable. The technology in early 1970s brought telecommuting into being; satellite and computer were connected by using telephone lines as dumb terminals (a terminal with no independent processing ability of its own which can only carry out operations when connected to a computer, ICIBA interpretation). By the early 1980s, the sub-offices and workers could use personal computer access to company mainframe which enabled people work from home. With the proliferation of internet, the number of people who telecommute increase steadily, and it gradually become a trend, it’s estimated that about 11billion workers working from home in USA by the year of 2009, but in the meantime, this progress also attended by many questions, one of which is whether the advantages that telecommuting brings to company and staff exceed its disadvantages has been the hot issue ,In this essay, firstly, I will analysis its strength and weakness, and then make comparison on two sides. In my view, it can bring numerous benefits for both.


According to the survey conducted by CDW-G, an outstanding information provider technology, about 2/3 interviewed people want to telecommute, and the reasons are: to get rid of commute, to achieve work-life balance, and also to save money, and telecommuting can bring these benefits to people. The article reveals that telecommuting can help people who work in New York City save 6 years during the track of 40-year working, an ordinary worker in USA wasters about 4 years on working back and forth, and actually four years can be spent on their family, interests, even on work. It’s also indicate that the most obvious benefit of telecommuting is increased flexibility; it offers e-worker more freedom to handle family things, and an overwhelming percentage of 90% e-workers feel happy with the life that telecommuting provides them. Moreover, research shows telecommuters are more productive than their office colleagues, and 40% surveyed e-workers said they’re more productive at home. Besides these, one typical e-worker can save $7,000- $17,000 a year. In short, telecommuting has many advantages, and it can improve workers' life quality and work productivity.


The above survey shows how many people want to work from home, then analysis the probable reasons, and the content supports my view of what benefits staff can get from telecommuting from 3 aspects. In the first place, the data that CDW-G provides can be authoritative for it’s an outstanding technology; it shows people’s desire of telecommuting, and other study figures are evident and persuasive enough. In addition, author gives detailed information to support his opinion, for example, the first reason is people want to get rid of commute, the author interprets it from another angle which is the time wasted on commuter can be spent on other things. Further more, and it has an all-round view which can complement my opinion, for instant, in my view, flexibility just means the e-worker can enjoy flexible working condition and schedules, but in this article, it means the whole family can enjoy, because e-worker can schedule their work according to family, such as, send kids to school, and make meals.


Though Telecommuting seems perfect, when you work from home, you’re separate from not the worst parts of work (no disgusting bus, no dash to work, no one to supervise you), but also the best parts, associated with the feeling of isolation and low self-discipline for the staff, and diminished productivity, business information exposure for the company. Isolation is the number one disadvantages, because e-workers don’t have colleagues to share professional ideas, to cooperate with each other. In the long run, lack of involvement in the team, isolation will take place, and also they will lose the moral, motivation, and inspiration which will lead to low productivity. And when e-workers work from home, they may easily disturbed by the surroundings, either because of the distraction from the family or their own ability to focus on jobs which will give rise to low self-discipline. In addition, telecommuters’ every connection to data base may threaten the network security of the company. In brief, when people benefit from telecommuting, at the same time, it brings about potential damage to individual, company, and the culture of which will be challenged.


It’s true that these problems would rise if a company doesn’t deal with telecommuting properly, but I still don’t entirely agree with those points, to begin with, when a company want to carry out telecommuting and to ensure employees working from home successfully, they should at least be aware of these disadvantages. In the second place, isolation could be a problem, but it can cultivate their ability to work independently, and if everyone fulfills his own task, the productivity actually will be improved. Company can make a schedule how often need e-workers to have business meetings, lunches, or even sports competitions to enhance company’s cohesive force. As for the distraction, I think before company put this in to practice, they would pay great attention in deciding which employees are suitable for this task, it obvious that those in the list absolutely have strong responsibility, self-discipline, and well-organized ability, besides theses, company would also have such kind program to train employees how to keep business secrets, moreover, it’ doubtless that company keep updating its own data protection system regularly to guarantee business security even without telecommuting, and this problem now can be controlled by telecomputer which has no memory function, yet can check work attendance and keep data secrecy.


In conclusion, at present society, there is an increasing number of employees who hope for a better work condition, meanwhile, can help them to save time, fees, and can improve life quality and work productivity. Telecommuting can achieve those objectives, however, along with its drawbacks. Company actually can layout a series of measures to minimise the impact and maximise the benefits for staff and company, as well as the society in term of transportation, resources, and air quality, now this kind of economical working model plays a crucial role in some companies and society which are affected by financial crisis. In western countries, over 40% corporations including P&G, Xerox, HP, adopted telecommuting, in Japan, Hitachi, Fujifilm, Mitsubishi also reform their working systems to varying degrees, and in developing counties, there are spring out many companies that put telecommuting into practice on a trial basis, consequently, telecommuting will become a trend of working in the near future.

Reference: Nilles, Jack M., Managing Telework: Options for Managing the Virtual Workforce, John Wiley & Sons 1998, ISBN 0-471-29316-4

Leonhard, Woody, The Underground Guide to Telecommuting, Addison-Wesley 1995, ISBN 0-201-48343-2

Kate Lister, Tom Harnish, Undress for success, the naked truth about making money at home

Katherine Lewis, What are the disadvantages of telecommuting?

http://www.referenceforbusiness.com/small/Sm-Z/Telecommuting.html