The Indisputable Truth about Teleworking: Go Green and Save Some Green
Soaring gas prices, marginal air quality, global warming—Is there really anything that can make a difference?
A growing number of companies are taking action by implementing teleworking programs. And they're quickly discovering the indisputable truth: teleworking reduces carbon emissions, improves job satisfaction and saves companies and their employees money.
In the month of April, we celebrate Earth Day, making it a good time to consider both the ecological and economical benefits of leveraging the Internet and remote access technology for alternate means of working.
For example, consider this:
The typical U.S. household spends 18 percent of its income on driving-related costs—even more than it spends on food. Telecommuting offers a viable way to offset the increasingly steep expenses of gas and automobile maintenance.
The Consumer Electronics Association reports that 3.9 million U.S. telecommuters save about 840 million gallons of gas and 14 million tons of carbon dioxide emission per year. That's equivalent to taking 2 million vehicles off the road.
The American Consumer Institute projects that telecommuting alone will cut CO2 emissions by more than a half million tons over the next decade.
According to the Work Wise UK/RAC Foundation, 3.4 million people in the UK are currently home-based or regularly work from home, reducing annual CO2 emissions by more than 3 million tons.
Environmentally conscious citizens are measuring their carbon footprint and taking action to reduce the amount of CO2 they pump into the atmosphere. Measure your own carbon footprint using this helpful tool—it likely will give you one more reason to seriously consider teleworking as a viable, sustainable solution to help minimize your carbon footprint.
Saving Some Green
Earth-saving antics aside, corporate number crunchers are studying teleworking for more economical reasons: They're interested in the greening effect it can have on company balance sheets and employee wallets.
According to the Telework Coalition, companies save an average of $3,000 to $10,000 per employee just by reducing office space. For example, AT&T's telework initiatives saved the company approximately $550 million by eliminating or consolidating unneeded office space. And roughly 25 percent of IBM's 320,000 workers telecommute from home offices, saving Big Blue $700 million in real estate costs.
In tough economic times, companies are also looking for creative ways to enhance benefits without raising expenses. Canadian market research firm EKOS, recently determined that 33 percent of Canadians would choose to telework over a salary raise and 43 percent would quit their current job for another one if it would permit teleworking.
With gas prices projected to climb to more than $4 per gallon in the U.S. this summer, adopting a telecommuting program is a sound and extremely economically appealing solution to U.S.-based employees, and frankly, employees anywhere in the world.
Shoring Up the Workforce
A growing number of companies are embracing teleworking as a strategic business enabler by adopting a "home-shoring" business model for many functions. For example, rather than off-shoring call-center activities, home-shoring takes advantage of fixed broadband services to route customer inquires to service representatives who work at home. Companies such as JetBlue and Virgin America airlines use home-shoring to tap into an undiscovered employee pool—stay-at-home parents who are well educated, have good language skills and would not be in the employment pool if required to commute and put in a traditional 9-to-5 workday.
Giving Telework the Green Light
iPass makes it easy to give your Go-Green strategy the green light. Our Virtual Office service includes comprehensive broadband coverage with more than 160 cable and DSL providers in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom. The service includes professional design, managed deployment and considerable expense management benefits. It also provides some positive side effects such as risk management benefits, through business continuation, and social benefits which can help companies comply with the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA). Ultimately, iPass services can contribute to the work-life flexibility and balance that people are looking for.
No matter the motive, teleworking is one of the most economical and ecological "Go Green" solutions you can equip yourself with today.
