Telecommuting is the Norm December 11, 2006 From the Sales and Marketing Management Performance Newsletter
Telecommuting, once the ad hoc arrangement of a few around the office, is becoming standard operating procedure. A new survey of human resource managers by talent and outsourcing services firm Yoh reveals that providing a telecommuting option is becoming a critical aspect of recruiting and retaining top talent.
"The war for talent, combined with commuting times and costs, and an increasing need for work-life balance are all factors that promote telecommuting," says Jim Lanzalotto, vice president of strategy and marketing for Yoh. "All things being equal, a well-articulated telecommuting policy can make the difference between winning and losing a bid for a high-impact professional, especially when more than twenty-seven million people in the United States work from home."
Among the telecommuting trends:
* 25 percent of managers allow working from home, 13 percent allow working from a satellite office and 44 percent have other arrangements that support telecommuting. Only 19 percent say they have no telecommuting procedure.
* Most managers say they expect telecommuting to grow over the next two years. Only 35 percent said it was unlikely that telecommuting would increase.
* What is driving the trend? In addition to offering flexibility to desirable workers, telecommuting is growing thanks to increasingly available technologies such as wireless broadband, PDAs and PCs capable of remote enterprise access.
Sales & Marketing Management Magazine
This article is brought to you by Sales & Marketing Management, the leading authority for executives in the sales and marketing field.
RSS
