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How to assess the potential of letting staff work from home
1. It's a fact
During the 1996 Olympics held in Atlanta, BellSouth - the Atlanta-based Company - encouraged its employees to work at home to help reduce downtown traffic jams. About 2,500 of them have barely set foot in the office since.
2. Don't forget
You can wreck the process because, if you want to ensure failure of a teleworking scheme in your company, here’s what you can do:
- Ring your teleworker four times a day to check on progress.
- Ignore your teleworker.
- Demand status reports constantly.
- Expect unrealistic deadlines for projects.
- Assume that everyone can be a successful teleworker.
- Ignore any problems that you may find or your teleworker may raise.
- Set unachievable goals.
- Expect perfection in the teleworker and the process.
- Agree that one unsuccessful attempt is enough to doom the process completely.
3. Research says
Telecommuting is becoming an increasingly popular work style:
- 58 per cent of Fortune 1000 managers who maintained telecommuting programs reported an increase in employee productivity. (AT&T survey, 1995)
- 51per cent of the largest employers in the United States offer a telecommuting option - an increase of 80 per cent over the previous five years. …
