Homework: Atlanta’s rising trend of teleworking

By Melanie Medina

(This ran in the January 2007 issue of Points North, a consumer magazine in the Atlanta area.)

When Bob Garrett’s employer shut down its Alpharetta office, located a few blocks from his home, he bought himself a commuter car — a Ford Ranger, perfect for the 22-mile trip to the company’s new Dunwoody office.

That was more than two years ago. Today, the odometer on the truck reads just 9,000 miles.

The math doesn’t add up because it turns out Garrett didn’t really need that commuter car after all. Not long after Eclipsys Corp., an information technology firm in the healthcare industry, closed the Alpharetta office, Garrett’s manager gave him the option of working from home.

“Commuting down Alpharetta Highway to Abernathy, just to get to Highway 400, where there’s always some crazy idiot driving … I just couldn’t take the stress of it,” Garrett said.

So he doesn’t. He simply walks upstairs to the landing of his two-story home, where he’s set up an office. From there, he can remotely connect to one of the hospitals around the nation that use Eclipsys Corp.’s products. As a systems integration project manager, Garrett’s job is to make sure a hospital’s computer systems — including programs that handle admissions, patient care, clinical, pharmacy — talk to each other.

Depending on the client, Garrett may never have to leave his home to do his job. “Some hospitals want a warm body there, but most of the time, they don’t care if we work from home,” he said. Most of his client interaction happens through conference calls, e-mail and instant messaging, which is also how he stays in touch with the staff he supervises, many of whom also telework, and with his coworkers in Eclipsys Corp.’s Dunwoody office.

Garrett is among the growing number of Americans who telework. About six percent of the Metro Atlanta population teleworks, according to a 2003 study by the Clean Air Campaign, an Atlanta-based nonprofit established to improve air quality and reduce traffic. But the actual percentage of teleworkers in Atlanta is probably much higher because the 2003 study doesn’t take into account workers involved in informal teleworking arrangements with their employers.

The number of teleworkers in Georgia will likely increase as more employers implement programs that allow employees to work remotely. Also, a new law signed by Gov. Sonny Purdue in April offers tax breaks to Georgia businesses that encourage employees to work from home. The bill, effective for tax years 2008 and 2009, offers a state income tax credit of up to $20,000 to employers who conduct a study on how to establish teleworking programs for their employees. And for employers who already have programs, the bill offers a tax credit of up to $1,200 per employee for a percentage of their telework expenses.

Why Telework?

In late 2003, the Clean Air Campaigned launched a program called the Telework Leadership Initiative, an incentive program that provides up to $20,000 in consulting services and reimbursements to participating employers. Through TLI, 13 Atlanta employers implemented six-month teleworking pilot programs, which allowed some 1,800 employees to telework through July 2005. Surveys conducted among the teleworkers and their employers after the programs ended revealed a number of benefits to both groups.

To an employee, savings in cost, time and stress are major motivators to telework. With gas prices hovering around $3 per gallon, and Atlantans’ commute averaging nearly 30 miles, teleworkers can save a hefty chunk of change — not to mention the money saved by fewer lunches out with coworkers and fewer trips to the dry cleaners. Working from home can add about 107 minutes to one’s day, according to the TLI survey. It also takes away the stress of Atlanta traffic, which is enough to drive the most even-keeled commuter into fits of road rage.

To an employer, a well-managed teleworking program offers bottom-line benefits and less-tangible ones. The TLI survey found that more than 85 percent of managers who oversaw formal teleworking programs reported that productivity either increased or stayed the same. Those who indicated an increase said productivity improved by about 20 percent. Why? Perhaps because the No. 1 thing employees do with that extra 107 minutes a day is work more, the survey found.

The Company Perspective

Some employers use teleworking programs as recruitment and retention incentives. At Georgia Power, about 60 percent of its workforce will reach retirement age within five years. When surveyed about what Georgia Power could do to keep those employees on board, one of the top answers was a flexible work schedule, said Jane Franklin, special projects coordinator. Teleworking also helps recruit and retain younger workers, who are accustomed to firing up a laptop from a table at the local coffee shop.

“It helps us have happier employees,” Franklin said. “They can work where they’re more productive, and it eases the stress and cost of commuting. They’re more satisfied.” In fact, according to the TLI survey, nearly 90 percent of teleworkers reported improved morale because of teleworking, and 80 percent of managers agreed that staff morale was up.

Teleworking also allows companies to remain in business during crises. When Hurricanes Katrina and Rita hit Mississippi, where one of Southern Company’s (Georgia Power’s parent company) plants in Mississippi was damaged in the storms, teleworkers were able to continue operations by simply logging in from their homes.

The Management Perspective

Although surveys may show some positives of teleworking, many managers aren’t convinced. Management resistance has been the biggest roadblock to teleworking, said Ellen Macht, CAC executive director. “There’s a sense [among managers] that you’re working if they can see you at your desk. There’s a sense of control.”

Garrett, the teleworker from Alpharetta, said one of his former managers used to stand at the door waiting for employees to arrive every morning. Before he started teleworking, his manager asked him one day where one of his coworkers was. Garrett explained that she was working from home. “I just got an instant message from her, and here’s what she’s working on,” Garrett told his manager. When his manager realized that the project she was working on could easily be completed remotely, he didn’t mind the arrangement.

Having formal policies in place so that supervisors and teleworkers understand what’s expected can ease managers’ fear of employees slacking off at home during work hours. Such policies should outline which days of the week an employee can telework, who’s responsible for supplying office equipment and core hours that teleworkers should be available.

“The devil is in the implementation,” said Elham Shirazi, an L.A.-based consultant who has developed telework and training programs for some 70 private, public and nonprofit employers. “Companies need to be prepared to take four to five months planning, not only from the human side but also from the technology side. If you spend time upfront planning, you’ve got a turnkey operation.”

Making Telework Work

Four things must be in place for a successful teleworking program, Shirazi said.

• The employee must be right. “It has to be someone who can work without supervision, and he must have a good, proven track record of performance,” she said.
• The job must be right. According to the TLI survey, the top three functions teleworkers perform are writing and editing reports, word processing and data management. Manufacturing and administrative tasks are less suited to working from home. For instance, an administrative assistant responsible for making sure the office is open at 8 a.m. couldn’t telework.
• The manager must be comfortable. “If you have a manager who’s not comfortable with a teleworking arrangement, it’s not going to go very far,” Shirazi said.
• The technology must be in place. “The biggest growth in teleworking has happened since people have access to high-speed Internet access,” Shirazi said. “Connectivity to the office has become pretty seamless.”

Thanks to high-speed Web access, voice-over IP (or VOIP), instant messaging and teleconferencing and videoconferencing, the lines of communication among managers, employees and clients are more open than ever.

It’s so seamless, in fact, that Robin Gage of Vinings doesn’t even work in the same state as her employer, Austin, Texas-based RPC Consulting, a healthcare consulting firm. Gage connects to her office via a virtual private network, which gives her secure access to all files in the Austin office. “And most of my client interaction is through e-mail or over the phone,” Gage said.

Because communicating through cyberspace can make information and computer systems vulnerable to viruses, teleworking policies should have strategies in place to prevent attacks. For instance Garrett’s employer, Eclipsys Corp., automatically installs virus-protection updates to teleworkers’ computers when the log on to the company’s network.

Georgia Power provides its teleworkers antivirus software, and employees who accidentally introduce viruses into its network face consequences. The first time a teleworker introduces a virus into the system, he’s automatically disconnected from his remote access until Georgia Power’s IT department cleans up his computer. The second time, he is disconnected from remote access for 60 days. And if it happens a third time, he’s not allowed remote access at all.

Teleworking polices are not necessarily one-size-fits-all plans. Variables include whether the employee or employer supplies the equipment; how many days a week the employee teleworks; and even what time of year the employee teleworks. No matter what rules are in place, it’s important to have a written agreement, detailing the terms of the arrangement, signed by the employer and employee. And, as with any employee, conduct periodic reviews to assess how it’s working.

Preparing employees for teleworking and helping them establish an at-home working environment also can help ensure the program’s success. Teleworkers must have a designated working space, whether it’s a corner of a bedroom or a separate room of the house. The CAC recommends that employees bring in a photograph of their home workspace so that managers have a sense of where their teleworkers are conducting business. For instance, managers are much more likely to approve a workspace with a well-organized desk set up with a computer and printer in a spare bedroom than one with a laptop strewn on the worker’s bed.

Only the Lonely

Not everyone is cut out for teleworking. For those who work better in a structured environment or those who need lots of social interaction throughout the day, a quiet home office may not be the best working arrangement.

“It’s very lonely,” Gage said. “There’s no social interaction besides the telephone, I don’t have lunch with coworkers and I’m never involved in any corporate activities. If they have lunch for the whole staff, it’s in Austin.”

On the other hand, teleworking allows Gage a level of concentration that she said her coworkers don’t have. One of her Austin coworkers has complained that her day is filled with so many interruptions — office mates dropping in to chit chat and constant meetings — that she has a hard time getting any work done.

But Gage’s concentration at home is sometimes too intense. “Sometimes I realize I’ve been in the house for three days, and I have to get up and do something,” like taking the dog for a walk or going to the gym.

Garrett said he too misses the social interaction, although since he doesn’t meet with people face-to-face as often as he used to, he has become much more adept at reading people’s verbal cues. “The more we work from home, the more we can relate to each other verbally,” he said. “You don’t have to sit there and look at someone and know what they’re thinking. You can hear it in their voice.”

Gage and Garrett also said that having a home office makes it too easy to work during unusual hours. Because she’s not forced to get up and leave the office when most workers are heading home for the day, Gage often doesn’t — and ends up putting in more than 60 hours some weeks. She estimates that if she were commuting to and from an Atlanta office, she’d work more like 50 hours per week.

Garrett finds himself fighting the urge to check work e-mail late at night. “I used to go upstairs and check one last e-mail and end up spending an hour and a half e-mailing,” he said.

To avoid getting sucked back into their work, Gage and Garrett both try to structure the day as they would if they were at an office, like taking some time off around lunch, and getting up periodically to take breaks. To add a little excitement to his day, Garrett even shoots rubber bands at his three cats — something he’d never be able to do in the office.