Telecommuting Tips
Read these 8 Telecommuting Tips tips to make your life smarter, better, faster and wiser. Each tip is approved by our Editors and created by expert writers so great we call them Gurus. LifeTips is the place to go when you need to know about Home Office tips and hundreds of other topics.
Create an artificial boundary if needed.
Many people who work at home do not have an entire room to devote to work space. Instead create a boundary with room screens, curtains, or other false dividers so that you will have the illusion of a separate space. It will help you focus and keep others away from your office.
A dedicated office space
A home office worker who owns his own business has a great deal more flexibility in selecting an office space. While the business owner can tolerate some degree of having the little ones enter the room and making noise, and employer paying a salary is probably much more interested in having a more professional setting.
Telecommuting is safer
After the events of September 11, 2001, there's no question that there's no place like home. Whether you work for an employer who will let you set up a home office, or whether you own and operate your own business, there's no safer place to work than home. Telecommuters avoid travel time, avoid busy public places, and are very much smaller targets for anyone who would seek to do further harm to our country.
Who pays for it?
Because of network concerns, most employers will foot the bill for a technology system for telecommuters. But high on the list of things an employer needs to have from a telecommuting employee, is an agreement outlining who pays for such things as the second phone line, desks, chairs and other workspace items, and even office supplies. If you're telecommuting, make sure that both you and your employer understand who is paying for what.
The home office as back-up
As people more people have tended to want to work from home since 9/11, some companies view having a network of home offices as a kind of back-up, in case anything of a similar magnitude should happen. American Express company, which was located near the World Trade Center, was able to maintain much of its operation by letting its employees work from home.
Telecommuting makes economic sense
Thinking about asking your employer to set up a telecommuting arrangement? Telecommuting makes economic sense for an employer, if you do a job that doesn't require you to be at a particular location at a particular time (on an assembly line, or working as a switchboard operator). Perhaps the biggest reason for an employer to create telemarketing arrangements is that it can ease constrictions (and overhead costs) in a burgeoning work space. If an employee is working at home, he's not in the office, burning the lights.
Keep in touch
You've heard the saying, "out of sight, out of mind." That's one of the biggest hazards of telecommuting. To mitigate this problem, many companies set up regular meetings for employees who work at home. It always pays to keep in touch; but for home office workers, there's no better way to maintain the trust that's necessary to make the arrangement work.
Telecommuting makes good managment sense
My guess is that a telecommuting employee is a happy employee. And any manager will tell you that it's better to have happy employees, than unhappy employees. Those who work at home are better able to take care of their family issues, they are less likely to be disgruntled about spending too much time at the office, and they may even get more work done!
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| PJ Campbell |
