Telecommuting

The article I read, Telecommuting Is Good for Employees and Employers, claims that telecommuting is a particularly good option for small businesses to conduct day-to-day operations. Telecommuting occurs when employees do their work from home, often sharing their information through various forms of online information sharing technologies. There are several reasons that support telecommuting as a viable option for doing business including job satisfaction, high productivity, employee health, and cost savings for the company.

Job satisfaction is greatly enhanced by telecommuting because it allows for so much flexibility in an employee’s work environment. As described in Chapter 4 of our textbook, job satisfaction is considered to be the general feelings an employee has about their job. Telecommuting increases job satisfaction because it keeps the everyday office stresses such as employee relations and potential interruptions to a minimum. This can be increasingly important in small businesses because of the small work environment and the tendency of employees to know each other’s personal, and professional, business. Additionally, the more satisfied an employee is with their job, the better they will perform in their position.

Non-productive time is essentially eliminated by telecommuting meaning that employees waste less of their time and tend to finish their work quicker. Productivity within the time allotted for work is maximized so small businesses would get more out of their employees. Telecommuting also allows for a larger degree of autonomy at least for the structure in which an employee completes their work. This increases employee effectiveness, motivation to perform well, and overall productivity.

Telecommuting can greatly improve employee health because it keeps each employee secluded if someone becomes ill and therefore manages the spread of illness. Employee health is so important because it has a large effect on absenteeism, or unscheduled absences. Not only does absenteeism cost companies large amounts of money each year, it can have a large effect on work behavior. In a small business setting, each employee is just as crucial to the company’s success as the next. Therefore, by employing “telework” each employee can continue to be productive during their illness without infecting others. A work-life balance is also more easily achieved through telecommuting and decreases potential absenteeism.

In a small business, every penny must be well spent and telecommuting is continually becoming a great way to cut everyday office costs. Not only do companies often get more out of their employee’s time, they save on typical operation costs such as electricity use, heating and air conditioning, and the overall size of the office.

The only drawback that I could see happening if a majority of employees for a small business were to telecommute is a negative effect on company communication. As Chapter 8 identifies, eye contact, body language, facial expressions, and tone of voice all have an impact on the relaying of information. Due to telecommuting commonly being conducted through online interaction, many of these important factors could be lost. A small business may want to encourage telephone conversation and videoconferencing in order to maintain the richness of company information being shared.

In conclusion, I view telecommuting as an affordable and impactful option for any small business as long as it is conducted in the correct way. What do you think? Is telecommuting always a positive experience or would it have too large of a negative effect on a small business’ organizational behavior?

Posted By: Brittany Meredith