Business can benefit from teleworking
Reducing costs and increasing staff productivity are high on the wish list for any business, yet most are unaware that both these objectives can be achieved through teleworking – taking advantage of the digital revolution to allow employees to work from home.
While the benefits of teleworking are well-founded, Australia is lagging behind other developed countries in harnessing the internet for business.
According to the Minister for Broadband and Communications Stephen Conroy, businesses must change their attitudes about people working from home and use the internet to connect employees through "telework".
“In Australia the number of people with an arrangement with their employer to work from home has been low by international standards," Senator Conroy told a Telework Forum in Sydney this month.
According to the ABS, just 6 per cent of employers from Australia have reported having any kind of telework arrangement with their employer.
In the US, 10 per cent of US employees telework at least one day a month and eight European Union countries reported that more than 10 per cent of workers were involved in telework a quarter of the time or more and that was in 2005.
Through the National Broadband Network (NBN), the Australian Government aims to double the level of teleworking so that at least 12 per cent of Australian employees will work away from the traditional workplace by 2020.
Senator Conroy said connecting workers at home could improve the work/life balance for employees, reduce absenteeism, and tap into skilled workers from across Australia with greater ease.
The Senator’s claims are backed up by whitepaper recently released by an independent American research and advisory firm, Telework Research Network.
The Network found that half-time teleworking among those with compatible jobs could save employers over $10,000 per employee per year – the result of increased productivity, reduced facility costs, lowered absenteeism and reduced turnover.
However, just about every study of telework cites “lack of management buy-in” as the biggest obstacle to acceptance with managers fearing that, left unmonitored, employees will not work as hard as they otherwise would.
In fact, study after study has shown that people who telework are more productive than their office counterparts. Contributing factors include:
- Fewer interruptions: Teleworkers are not distracted by the many time drains that take place in a traditional office – morning chatter, coffee breaks, long lunches, rumor mills, birthday parties, football pools, etc.
- More effective time management: Email and other asynchronous communications can be time-managed more effectively and are less apt to include non-work digressions.
- Feeling like a trusted employee: A sense of empowerment and commitment is consistently shown to be one of the highest contributors to employee job satisfaction.
- Flexible hours: For those who are able to flex their hours as well as their location, teleworking allows them to work when they are most productive.
- Longer hours: Many employees work during the time they would have otherwise spent commuting.
In summary, the Telework Research Network’s whitepaper revealed that teleworking offered a relatively simple, high return-on-investment solution with:
- Environmentalists applauding it because teleworking can significantly reduce greenhouse gases and energy usage.
- Financial managers endorsing it for its cost savings and increased productivity potential.
- Work-life experts encouraging it as a way to address the needs of families, parents, and senior caregivers.
- Workforce planners seeing teleworking as a way to mitigate the “brain drain” effect of retiring Boomers.
- Human resource professionals seeing it as a way to recruit and retain the best people.
- Urban planners seeing it as a strategy to fill the gap between transportation system demand and supply.
- Governments seeing it as a way to reduce highway wear and tear and alleviate the strain on transportation infrastructure.