2 big reasons to think about telecommuting for your company
October 15, 2008 by Sam Narisi
Filed under: Communication, In this week's e-newsletter, Latest News & Views, Telecommuting
Filed under: Communication, In this week's e-newsletter, Latest News & Views, Telecommuting
The boom in telecommuting’s being driven by soaring gas prices and a sinking economy. Now there’s data showing just how big an impact the practice is having.
A new survey finds that companies wind up winning on two fronts: Productivity and cost containment. More than half of those surveyed cited both increased productivity among offsite workers and lower costs as benefits from the practice.
A new survey of 212 IT managers and CIOs in a wide range of industries by CompTIA research tells the telecommuting tale:
- The majority of respondents (78%) report that some employees within their organizations telecommute, at least part-time.
- Most organizations don’t have a high percentage of full-time telecommuting employees. Most organizations (82%) say that less than 25% of employees telecommute full-time.
- Workers in IT management (41%), field technical support (37%), and administration (35%) most commonly telecommute (part-time or full-time).
- Top benefits of telecommuting to organizations include improved productivity (67%), cost savings (59%), access to more qualified staff (39%), employee retention (37%), and improved employee health (25%).
- Significant challenges of telecommuting to organizations include securing corporate information systems (53%), limiting use of unauthorized and unsupported devices (38%), and controlling personal use of corporate mobile assets (33%).
- To meet challenges of telecommuting, IT departments have tackled issues such as upgrades in network circuits and VPN equipment, expanded security, training, and implementation of new virtualization technologies and applications.
