The $750 billion savings idea businesses aren’t willing to use
February 15, 2010 by Valerie HelmbreckPosted in: adoption, Communication, Green technology, IT projects, mobile technology, Special Report, telecommuting
Businesses on the East Coast got a taste of what a small natural disaster can do to productivity and communication when back-to-back blizzards struck. The heroes of the week — besides road crews and power company employees? Companies with telecommuting programs.
Even federal agencies with these arrangements were bragging last week about their uninterrupted service and workflow. The Defense Information Systems Agency barely noticed the storms because its four-year-old telecommuting program allowed workers to stay connected despite the yards of snow that accumulated in the region.
During the past three years the agency equipped about 70% of its 4,200 employees in the Washington area with laptops and virtual private network (VPN) connections that let them link to the agency’s unclassified networks, John Garing, director for strategic planning and information at DISA, told NextGov.com.
Workers at the agency are allowed to telecommute three days a week — even when the weather is good and the roads are clear. But having them equipped this way turned out to be a boon for the agency when the federal government had to shut down recently because of the extreme weather.
But not many U.S. companies have ventured as close as DISA has to the cutting edge of telecommuting.
Currently less than 3% of the U.S. workforce telecommutes most of the time (this doesn’t include the self-employed). But 40% of workers have jobs that could be done from home.
The folks at the Telework Research Network (TRN) have found that if those employees who could telecommute did so just half of the time (roughly the national average for those who already do):
- The nation would save 453 million barrels of oil (57% of Gulf oil imports) — a national savings of $31 billion per year (at $70/barrel)
- The environment would be saved from 84 million tons of greenhouse gases a year — that’s over 40% of President Obama’s goal for GHG reduction by 2020.
- The energy potential from the gas savings alone would total more than twice what the U.S. produces from all renewable energy source combined.
- National productivity would increase by 6.2 million man-years or $200 billion worth of work each year.
- Businesses would save $194 billion annually in real estate, electricity, absenteeism and turnover.
- Employees would individually save between $2,500 and $11,000 in transportation and work-related costs (not including daycare and eldercare costs)
- Employees would gain back an extra 2.5 weeks worth of time per year — time they’d have otherwise spent commuting.
- Communities would save over $3 billion in highway maintenance because 180 billion fewer miles would be driven each year.
- 150,000 people year would be saved from traffic-related injury or death each year.
- $18 billion a year would be saved in accident-related costs.
In total, that’s an economic impact of over $750 billion a year.
What could telecommuting save your company? TRN has a custom calculator that allows companies to figure it out. You can check it out here.
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Tags: blizzard, calculator, program, remote, telecommuting, Telework Research Network, workers
February 16th, 2010 at 10:07 am
OK, these are impressive statistics. But they don’t answer the question: why then aren’t more businesses willing to use telecommuting programs?
February 17th, 2010 at 8:55 am
I think more businesses don’t do it because of the up front costs, support costs and maybe also a lot of companies are afraid that productivity will fall. How can they be sure employees aren’t loafing around if they can’t see them? I know our firm won’t spend the initial funds to set this up because a lot of those costs aren’t being saved by us.
February 17th, 2010 at 10:30 am
Reports of how telecommuting really works are less optimistic. Companies that implemented
the program are cutting back severely. Why? Because productivity suffers a lot.
If government workers don’t suffer in productivity it just goes to show that they weren’t all
that productive in the first place.
lb
February 17th, 2010 at 11:40 am
Most likely the reason productivity decreases is that most business do not have standards or standards operating procedures. Once people get home and there is no one popping up with emergenices, last minute pushes to complete jobs, then a lot of things appear to get behind.
A second factor is probably most people at jobs are working through lunches and breaks, staying late, coming early, putting in far more than an eight hour day.
February 17th, 2010 at 4:58 pm
It’s easy to set up a telecommuter program. Most major carriers including ATT, Verizon Business and Qwest offer remote worker VPN options that supply the hardware, maintenance and support. The company involved would need to cover the home office broadband connectivity or reimburse the employee. These are pure business expenses so the capex is minimized.
Where companies fail is in not monitoring their at home staff using log in metrics, work flow software and having competent management. IMO firms that have embraced telecommuting, set up the proper checks and balances and encouraged employee participation have discovered a strategic advantage that perhaps they don’t want to share.
February 18th, 2010 at 9:53 am
CVS nails it.
As an IT guy, I’ve “telecommuted” for more than 10 years now. I know a cube costs a company $1000/mo and up fo rthe real estate, maintenance, phone, network, etc. If you hot-seat folks, you can really leverage your facilities.
The reason companies don’t do it is stodgy “old management” types. They fear this ability, and don’t trust their employees, because they treat their employees like kids.
Botom line-if you can’t trust your employees when you aren’t there, your company is ALREADY in trouble!
Good management, with deliverables and deadlines, make remote work feasible and productive.
During this latest storm I worked as usual, with almost NO CHANGE in our projects. I spent a little more time away from my computer and phone, because I had to do some shoveling, but under the old system, I wouldn’t have worked AT ALL.
March 1st, 2010 at 12:52 am
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