Telecommuting: More Attractive Than Ever
I am writing this post from the sun-kissed porch of my parents’ house in beautiful Bellingham, Washington.
Jealous? You should be.
LaunchSquad has been immensely kind to let me work remotely this week so that I can spend some time with my family.
I have been collaborating with my coworkers via email, instant messenger, webcam and the phone. With online document repositories, I have access to the exact same data as I do at work. There are essentially no elements of my job that I cannot perform remotely.
Let me be honest up front: I confess that the implications of telecommuting that I discuss below were not factors in my desire to work from home. They are, however, great reasons for more businesses to allow their employees to work remotely.
1: Environmental Implications
More people working from home means less people driving to and from work every day. Sun Microsystems estimates that its more than 18,000 employees who can choose to work at home or the nearest office avoid buying 135 gallons of gas a year. This prevents more than 2,600 lbs of greenhouse gases - more than one ton - from being emitted PER EMPLOYEE.
Furthermore, by decreasing traffic congestion, commuting times are also reduced for workers that are unable to telecommute. This enables people in the retail and service industries, among others, to burn less gas.
2: Economic Implications
Let’s go back to the example of Sun. With with gas prices fast approaching $5 a gallon, the economic impact of avoiding buying 135 gallons of gas per year is far from inconsequential. For Sun, each worker’s annual savings from telecommuting is nearly $600.
Costs of gasoline and car-maintenance aside, the economic incentives for telecommuting as a result of time saved are enormous.
The US Census Bureau found that the American workers spend between 100 and 200 hours a year commuting to and from work - excluding errands along the way. That’s 12 to 25 entire work days during the year that are spent doing nothing but transporting a worker’s body from home to work and back. These hours/days could certainly be spent more effectively.
In spite of these figures in support of working remotely, a recent study by the Telework Coalition estimates that only about 26 million workers telecommute even occasionally - or less than 20% of the workforce. Another study found that only 5% of the US workforce telecommute on any regular basis while nearly 40% have jobs that would allow them to.
If they did, the study indicates that these new teleworkers could annually save 625 million barrels of oil (roughly equivalent to 80% of our Gulf Oil Imports), reduce greenhouse gases by 107 million metric tons of CO2 each year, and save almost $50 billion.
They would also save themselves - and the economy/environment - 1.3 BILLION work days that would otherwise have been spent commuting. That’s the equivalent to nearly 10 billion hours each year. To give you an idea, if each one of those hours were spent working a job that paid the federal minimum wage of $5.85, the earnings would total nearly $61 billion. That’s enough money to pay off the national debt in 156.5 years or to pay the entire New York Yankee’s salary until the year 2252.
Obviously, given advances in collaborative technology and the increasing need to improve our environmental practices, telecommuting will become more and more popular with employers and employees alike. Factor in the less quantifiable sorts of benefits that telecommuting provides such as being able to work with this “office” view, the prospect of working remotely has never been more beautiful.
View from my "office" - LaunchSquad Bellingham
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