OFFICE TURNS DESERT

Expect tumbleweed in your office this year, as telecommuting threatens to turn your workplace into a ghost town.Telecommuting, or the act of working from home with the aid of e-links to the office, is becoming a popular tool for offices looking to make their workers happy. 

What's so offensive about your office? After all, going to work allows us to mingle with humans, escape the horrors of homemaking, and stay seemingly productive while big brother watches. The problem with the office, according to statistics, is the time it takes workers to cross the cubicle finish line each morning.

Office workers spend a sizable chunk of their days commuting. Office managers spend almost 45 minutes/day making their way to work and back, while Admin Assistants and Executive Assistants use closer to 50 minutes of gas-guzzling good time to commute. New Yorkers have it the worst off, driving for up to an hour and a half each day to push pencils at the office rather than at home. Extreme commuting is the newest intense office activity to push for telecommuting, referring to the 3.4 million Americans who travel more than two hours to get to work.

The added time-savers of staying in your PJ’s and forgoing an overrated morning cleansing routine help working from home to be carefree, according to many telecommuters. Nomadic workers may not be as hard working as their primitive role models, however, as staying in ones pajamas while working tends to reduce productivity. Slacking at home, as well as poor communication with tele-colleagues, and household online security issues are the leading problems associated with offices wishing to rid themselves to a few cubicles.

Over-populated workplaces may be the source of low productivity, however, with interruptions from colleagues providing some reason to desert your desk. According to Dr. Donald E. Wetmore, time management specialist, workers receive one interruption every 8 minutes, and the break normally lasts  5 minutes. These low value time wasters cause workers to go on intermission for up to 3 hours a day!

For the agoraphobic workers out there, 100% telecommuting can be your window to avoiding the outside world while still making ends meet. Semi-deserted workplaces, however, may wish to work on their productivity both at the office and at home before inviting the office tumbleweed to stay.

(Heidi Bedore)