Telecommuting Advisor

Making a Case for Telecommuting - The Telecommuter’s Viewpoint

September 5, 2008 on 6:46 pm | In Managing |

If employees are given the choice of either driving to their company’s location and spending eight hours of their day performing their job there or staying home and accomplishing the same tasks from their kitchen table, most would choose the latter. Yet, working from home comes with its own set of challenges and issues. And it takes a certain kind of person to be successful at it.

Do You Have What it Takes?

Telecommuting sounds easy, but the reality is often different from the vision. Working from home requires discipline to avoid the myriad of distractions that will divert you from your work — among these being interrupting family members, the pile of laundry that needs to be done, and the friendly neighbor popping by to have a chat. Then there are the challenges and vulnerabilities of communications involving the telephone, modems, fax machines, email, audio and video conferencing, computer networks and cell phones.

According to experts in telework, the following are qualities that most successful teleworkers possess:

• Planning and organization skills
• Time management skills
• Project management skills
• Ability to work without close supervision
• Low affiliation needs (face-to-face contact with other people)
• Strong verbal and written communication skills
• Supportive family environment
• Self-motivation
• Strong performance record
• High work ethic
• Computer proficiency
• High job knowledge
• Assertiveness

In line with this, Telecommute Connecticut! states that the right employees:

• are already familiar with their work, their organization and its culture and with their colleagues
• are independent “self-starters” that do not require external prodding or stimulus in order to get on with the work
• are self-motivated, self-disciplined, able to ignore distractions and can focus on the work to be done
• are adept at communicating quickly and effectively with at-office colleagues
• do not have high needs for social interaction with at-office colleagues
• have home offices that are equipped with the proper equipment/work tools and meet the organization’s safety and ergonomic requirements

This last point cannot be overemphasized. It is essential that the teleworker have a dedicated space set aside from which to conduct business. This helps separate work from family life when the time comes to quit for the day.

Strategies for Approaching Management

After conducting a self-assessment of the traits listed above and determining that your job is teleworkable, if you would like to approach your boss about telecommuting, there are a number of factors that you need to consider first.

• Does anybody at work do it now? If there is precedent within your company, you stand a much better chance of being considered.
• How does your supervisor feel about it? You need to start there first. If there is a level of trust between the two of you and he or she is on-board with the idea, work with them to develop a scenario or how it could work and brainstorm ideas.
• Review your organization’s employee handbook and carefully note any passages pertaining to work policies that you may be able to incorporate into your proposal.
• Talk with anyone in your company who may already be telecommuting on a formal or informal basis and determine anything you can that will help strengthen your position and be aware of any negatives that you may have to develop a strong argument to counter.
• Be prepared to present both a written proposal and an oral presentation that lays out the benefits and the traits that would make you an effective teleworker.
• Your proposal should take a business-case approach, looking at the situation from a “what’s in it for the company” point of view. Do some research and try to obtain statistics on cost savings achieved by other companies of similar size to yours. Use this list of potential benefits as a guide.
• Be prepared with answers to common objections, such as:
  • Your work is not suited to telecommuting - Carefully think out how your job functions could be accomplished just as easily at home.
  • How will I know you are working? - This lends to the amount of trust your boss has in you. Establish goals and objectives and demonstrate how you will meet them.
  • It will cost too much - Do your homework and show areas where the company will save money.
  • I can’t afford to have you out of the office - Here is where you show how your work interdependencies can be modified to account for your absence, and how you can be reached at any time by phone, fax, e-mail, etc.
  • Teamwork will suffer - Few teams require continual face-to-face interaction. Point out how you can still use technology tools to collaborate with team members on those days that you will not be in the office.
  • Anticipate other objections and be ready with solutions.
• Propose a schedule and a trial period, which can be used to collect information and build in some accountability measures and benchmarks that will be tracked to measure success.

If your proposal is turned down, don’t give up. The timing may not be right or perhaps another type of approach may work the second time around. Offer to take work home on your own time to demonstrate what’s possible.