2010 August | TheMiddleShelf.com

Making Your Case for Virtual Work

August 31st, 2010

Maria Helm

With mobile technology and online tools becoming available to anyone inexpensively or sometimes even free, more and more workers are thinking of cutting out commute time and work from home. The challenge is how does one make a case for virtual work? First, ask yourself whether the nature of your job does not require you to be present in the office. In other words, if you can start and finish your job or project without eyeball-to-eyeball contact with co-workers or customers, then you are a candidate for virtual work.

Second, are you sure you’re cut out for virtual work? Are you convinced that you have the self-discipline to work from home under minimal supervision? And perhaps more importantly, does your boss perceive you as the kind of self-starter who can perform independently? Are you a proven performer? Well organized? A good time manager? If you can effectively communicate your value to your employer, you’ll be better able to sell your boss on the idea of letting you do virtual work.

Once you are comfortable that virtual work or telecommuting is right for you, and you are fully informed, use the following guidelines and strategies to craft an effective proposal:

* Ask not what telecommuting can do for you; explain what telecommuting can do for your employer. Never frame your proposal in terms of how telecommuting will meet your needs. Don’t mention your need for better work-life balance, more time to spend with your kids, or any other personal need. State only that telecommuting will make you more productive and efficient, be a better use of the time you previously spent on the road, make your boss’s life easier — whatever benefits you come up with that focus on the employer’s needs — not yours.

Get Your Employees Motivated and Productive

August 12th, 2010

Maria Helm

Who doesn’t want employees that are more productive in the workplace? Yet personal issues, illness and family obligations often prevent employees from coming in. That’s why so many employers are now enabling remote access to their network.

Whether you call it “working from home,” “virtual office,” or “telecommuting,” the idea is the same; your network is configured to give you and your staff the ability to work from some location other than the office.

While telecommuting will not work in every situation, there is no doubt that technology has made working from home extremely practical whether a few times a month or every week. As a matter of fact, offering work-from-home options can give you a competitive advantage in attracting and retaining the best employees. Here are some additional benefits to allowing your people remote access:

Employees who are sick can continue to work without infecting the office or losing an entire day of work
Employees forced to stay home to take care of sick family members can continue to work instead of taking off long periods.
Inclement weather or heavily congested traffic won’t shut down your office.
Key managers with a heavy workload will actually be more productive if given the ability to work from home on evening and weekends.
Allowing employees flexibility during peak workloads (e.g., your accounting staff during tax season or periodic reporting dates) makes employees happier to put in the extra hours from a home office.
Employees with temporary or permanent disabilities can continue to be fully functional in a home environment.

How to Get Started With a Telecommuting Program

First, make sure you have a telecommuting policy. Second, make sure that systems are in place to adequately support telecommuting. There are several options for remotely accessing your network, however, there are two primary ways used by most. They are: