At the very moment, I’m warm. I have a fire going, and I’m sitting on my very cozy couch. I’m one of the lucky ones who is not dreading tomorrow’s commute. There is a severe winter storm warning tonight and you just know it will take 2 hours to drive into Vancouver. Fortunately for me, my commute to the office is only 15 minutes. If the snow or freezing rain is so bad… I’ll work from home.

Why is that employers are so averse to setting up work from home programs?

Okay, I’ll admit, work from home programs are not for everybody. Service in some Vancouver restaurants is bad enough. Imagine if your server was on a work from home program. Yikes. That is not half as bad as your surgeon telecommuting. No thanks.
Telecommuting and work from home programs should be reserved for the best, most productive and trustworthy employees. It works for some businesses and employees, not for all. But where it does work it should be encouraged and celebrated.

Let’s start with the benefits of telecommuting:

1. Happier staff. Staff who have the ability to work from home have less time in a car, less stress, more time with their families, a better balance in their life and in turn become far more loyal and productive employees.

2. Employees save money. Employees save money on commuting, Starbuck’s coffee, lunches in the food fair, parking or transit and do much more. This leads to happier and more loyal and productive employees. Oh yeah, I said that already.

3. Healthier employees. With the time saved, some employees will often use that time to visit the gym or take a walk. Also when working from home, you tend to eat from your pantry or fridge and not McDonalds. This leads to more loyal, more productive and happier employees.

4. Businesses save money. If you take into account desk space, common areas such as kitchens and hallways etc. I would estimate that an employee costs a downtown business approximately $1500 per year in rent. That’s at $2/sq. foot and each employee needing a little over 50 sq. feet. If three people all telecommuted and shared a desk for the occasional visit to the office, a company can save $3000/year. Wow, my math improves every day.

5. The environment. Imagine if as few as 5% of the people who commute today started telecommuting. What a difference that would make to gridlock and the huge environmental impact that could be. That in itself could be a long winded, full of stats and figures, blog. But I’ll save that for another day.

So why have work from home and telecommuting programs not become the norm and are still far and away the exception? This is simply because it is human nature to judge people’s work on time put in and not the results. An employee’s performance should be based on results not on time put in at the office. If I have a sales person that works 1 hour per day and brings in 3 sales per week, that is far better than the 10 hour a day sales person that brings in 1 lead a week. Ladies and gentleman of the court… I rest my case. If an employee has to put in 8 hours a day, does it really matter what time of day that 8 hours is put in? Sometimes yes, but not in every job.

Let’s encourage work from home programs, but let’s not ignore the fact that it is still important to measure employee performance and keep in continual communication with employees. Although businesses might truly wish to encourage all employees to work from home, it is still a good idea to use work from home programs as a reward for excellence and a privilege. Not a right.

I’m so confident in work from home programs that I’ll offer anybody a free work from home technology assessment.