Telework – business productivity at home

Do you ever wish you could manage your business and effectively interact with your staff and clients from home? For many business owners and employees this idea can be an attractive, but distant, dream.

The recent Telework Forum: Bringing Home the Benefits of the NBN, reinforced the idea that this dream could soon become a regular part of the Australian working week.

Forum participants included representatives from companies such as Cisco, IBM, Unity4, Deloitte Access Economics, Gartner Research, and the Australian Network on Disability.

Regardless of the size or location of your company, the forum’s message was clear: telework has the potential to deliver significant productivity benefits and improve employee happiness.

BRINGING THE BENEFITS HOME

So what are the potential benefits of telework?

• increased productivity
• reduced office expenses
• improved staff retention

Teleworking can also help you to expand your recruitment net to include people living in other cities, regional and rural Australia, or even from overseas.

The ability for telework to provide flexible hours and alternative work arrangements can be a very attractive option for mums and dads, carers, people with a disability or employees simply seeking to improve their work-life balance.

A recent article in ACS magazine revealed that telework can also provide health benefits by reducing the daily stress associated with commuting and limiting exposure to cold and flu viruses that can often impact many workplaces. In addition, telework can enable marginally sick employees to continue being productive from the comfort of their homes.

BRIDGING THE GAP

Australian companies have traditionally lagged behind our international peers in using telework as part of their business and HR strategy.

In the United States, 10 per cent of employees currently telework at least one day a month. In contrast, just 6 per cent of Australian employees reported having any kind of telework arrangement with their employers (based on Australian Bureau of Statistics figures from 2006).

The Australian Government’s National Digital Economy Strategy seeks to speed up the adoption of teleworking in Australia, with a goal of at least one in eight Australian employees teleworking by 2020.

TALKING TELEWORK

Broadband connected homes and offices already have access to the types of online tools needed to establish a ‘virtual office’, including email and instant messaging, video conferencing software, virtual private networks, cloud computing and software as a service.

Regardless of size or location, telework may have the potential to unlock real productivity benefits for your staff and your business.

For further info on teleworking, don’t forget to check out the complete webcast from the Telework Forum: Bringing Home the Benefits of the NBN.

Telework Australia also has a wide variety of information relevant to managers and staff, while WorldatWork.org has a very useful telework white paper for employers and HR professionals interested in developing effective telework guidelines and policies.

By Dylan, DBCDE

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