Identifying and Overcoming Telecommuting Challenges for Your Business

In the last blog posting, we discussed the many benefits to employers and employees of telecommuting. It's important to remember there are a number of cons associated with telecommuting that need to be evaluated prior to making any company decisions or policies.

Perhaps the biggest is to truly understand all costs to the company with allowing telecommuting. For example, will you be chipping in for employees home equipment to some extent? Who is responsible for maintenance of essential equipment like computers, internet, phone or printer?

Additionally, you need to consider how taking some employees out of the physical office will affect your company culture. In some cases, it may improve. In others, you may have removed a key personality from the office. This affects the on-site and off-site workers both. Plus, it can be difficult for the telecommuters to communicate effectively with those on-site. Not only does this risk missing key elements of projects that may just need to happen face-to-face, but the lack of social interaction on the part of the telecommuter can be detrimental.

So, here are a few things you need to consider:

• Define legal and insurance issues. Make sure you discuss liability insurance for the home office, business-equipment insurance, workers comp, health insurance, vacation schedules, sick days, reimbursement for specific expenses, etc.

• Identify special business equipment or supply needs. Discuss what is needed and who supplies and maintains this equipment, the employee or the company. Plus, ensure you have a plan for maintenence of equipment. For example, if your telecommuters lose his/her internet connection, you lose productivity. Address it upfront to prevent major work outages.

• Institute a policy as to when telecommuters must be in the office. Are there important meetings that require face-to-face interaction? Does your company thrive off teamwork that may be hard to accomplish with team members spread out? You'll need to determine when it is or isn't okay to telecommute. Plus, consider creative team building exersizes to counteract any perceived morale issues amongst your team.

• Require your telecommuters to setup an actual workspace. As nice as it is to sit on the couch in your PJs with a laptop and the TV on as background noise, not everyone or every situation works well with this scenario. The most effective telecommuters setup a workspace and stick to a daily schedule of work. On the flip side, some telecommuters have trouble working only 40 hours and have reported issues with separating work and life. A schedule helps prevent this for your employees.

• Interact with telecommuters regularly. As the business owner, you need to ensure that you don't forget about your telecommuters...especially when it comes time for promotions. It's easy to overlook telecommuters when considering leadership roles in your organization simply because you don't see them every day. In this case, you can't let out of sight, out of mind interfere with what's best for the company.
  

Making the step to allowing telecommuting is a big one. We've discussed a few common pros and cons this week. In the end, telecommuting isn't for everyone or every company. Evaluate what may work for you, discuss it amongst your team, test it a couple days a week and go from there.