Our just released eBook "Workshifting: Bottom Line Benefits" (sponsored by Citrix Online) quantifies the business, individual, and societal impact that regular telecommuting could have on the nation and for small to mid-size companies.

Less than 2% of U.S. employees work from home the majority of the time (not including the self-employed), but 40% hold jobs that are compatible with telework. If those employees who wanted to (about 80%) did so just half of the time (roughly the national average for those who do) (*):


Businesses would:

• Increase productivity by over $235 billion
• Save $124 billion in real estate, electricity, and related costs
• Save $46 billion in absenteeism
• Save $31 billion in employee turnover
• Improve continuity of operations
• Avoid environmental sanctions, city access fees, etc.
• Improve work life balance and better address the needs of families, parents, and senior caregivers.
• Avoid the 'brain drain' effect of retiring boomers by allowing them to work flexibly
• Be able to recruit and retain the best people
• Better address the needs of disabled workers, rural residents, and military families
  

Individuals would:

• Achieve a better work-life balance
• Recoup 2-3 weeks of free time per year--time they'd have otherwise spent commuting
• Save $2,000-$7,000/year
• Save $15 billion at the pumps
• Suffer fewer illnesses
  

The Nation would:

• Save 289 million barrels of oil--equivalent to 37% of our Persian Gulf imports
• Reduce greenhouse gases by 53 million tons/year--27% of the President's 2020 goal
• Reduce road travel by 115 billion miles/year saving $2 billion in road maintenance
• Reduce road congestion thereby increasing productivity for non-workshifters as well
• Save 100,000 people from traffic-related injury or death
• Improve emergency responsiveness
• Reduce pollution from road work and new office construction
• Preserve open spaces
• Reduce the number of latchkey kids
• Alleviate the strain on our crumbling transportation infrastructure
• Reduce the offshoring of jobs and homeshore some that have already been lost
• Raise the standard of living in rural and disadvantaged areas
• Open new avenues for workforce retraining 
• Reduce terrorism targets of opportunity
  

In total, that's an economic impact of almost $650 billion a year!

At the TeleworkResearchNetwork we've synthesized over 250 case studies, scholarly reviews, research papers, books, and other documents on workshifting and related topics. And we've interviewed the nation's largest and smallest virtual employers and their employees, corporate executives, telework advocates and naysayers, top researchers, legislators, legal representatives, leaders of successful telework advocacy programs in both the public and private sector, and venture capitalists who have invested in the remote work model.

Using the latest Census data, and assumptions from dozens of government and private sector sources, we've developed a model to quantify the economic, environmental, and societal potential on telecommuting for every, city, county, Congressional District, and state in the nation.  It's been used by company and community leaders throughout the U.S. and Canada to quantify the extent to which workshifting can reduce greenhouse gases and petroleum usage, save money, improve work-life balance, increase employee loyalty and turnover, reduce absenteeism, increase productivity, and reduce highway congestion and traffic accidents. You can find it over here along with a model that allows companies and communities to quantify their own potential telecommuting savings based on dozens customizable parameters such as real estate costs, turnover, absenteeism, participation rate, frequency, labor costs, etc.

More about telecommuting, the pros and cons, who's doing it, and other resources for companies, individuals and researchers are available at TeleworkResearchNetwork.com.

"It's time to make the road less traveled the way to work."

Want to get your hands on a copy? You can download it over here.


Photo Credit: Tyler Ingram