by Ted Saul
Once again gas prices are headed up and everyone is looking for ways to save money. Working from home at least one day a week can become an excellent financial benefit for your employees as well improving productivity. Here are some logistics for a successful program.
The telecommuter should have a dedicated workspace such as an office with a door. An area located out of heavily traveled areas may do as well. At a minimum the workspace should include a desk a bookshelf for reference material and a file cabinet. A lock on the cabinet is probably a good idea particularly when confidential data is kept at home.
Equipment requirements include a dedicated business phone line to prevent blocking the use of your home line. Shop for a phone bundle that includes the features you need including long distance and three-way conferencing. Depending on what is available in your area, DSL, cable or fiber technology connections should be the standard. A number of “Voice Over IP” (VOIP) solutions are available too.
In addition to the employee’s normal licensed productivity software applications there are additional tools you may want to consider. An instant messaging tool will help your employee stay in touch with others whether they are located in the office or at home. This software is a valuable tool for business discussions but also acts as an electronic “water-cooler” contributing to team building. Firewall software is necessary to protect illegal access to the system from the Internet. A virus and malware detector should be required to clean emails and website downloads of viruses, malware and other malicious programs.
A Virtual Private Network (VPN) application allows an employee to log on to the company’s private network through the Internet. Data transfer and communication will be secure and companies can be assured of confidentiality. Encrypting data on your hard drive will prevent access should the hardware be stolen. Finally, you will want to provide a method of protecting data at rest. Local devices such as DVD writes and cloud based backup sites are excellent solutions.
With the proper workspace, equipment and software, a telecommuter will be successful and as productive as if they were working in the office. They will be more content as well saving money and time by not sitting in the commuting traffic each day while burning expensive fuel.
Ted Saul provides private business consulting that assists startup and small businesses with organizational and planning needs. He has also been telecommuting full-time for over 10 years. Ted holds an MBA from Regis University out of Denver Colorado. Ted can be reached at t.saul@juno.com“>t.saul@juno.com, teds787 on Twitter and on Linkedin.