Get telecommuting already

An article in our June/July issue asked why more companies don’t support telecommuting, considering its many advantages. A new study from Cisco puts numbers to that question. First, the big number: Cisco’s Teleworker Survey concluded increased productivity due to telecommuting generates an estimated US$277 million in annual savings for Cisco, although it has almost 2,000 employees and most companies won’t save as much.

 

The study looked at the social, economic and environmental impacts of telecommuting at Cisco and found that a majority of respondents experienced a significant increase in work-life flexibility, productivity and overall satisfaction when allowed to work remotely.

It should be noted that Cisco sells a set of telework-enabling products, so at a minimum it is easier for it to implement these solutions.

At Cisco:

• employees spend about 63 per cent of their time communicating and collaborating
• 40 per cent say they are not located in the same city as their manager
• the average employee telecommutes two days per week
• 60 per cent of the time saved by telecommuting is spent working and 40 per cent is spent on personal activities
• 69 per cent of those surveyed cited higher productivity when working remotely, and 75 per cent of those surveyed said the timeliness of their work improved
• 83 per cent said their ability to communicate and collaborate with co-workers was the same as, if not better, than it was when working on-site
• 67 per cent of respondents said their overall work quality improved when telecommuting
• telecommuting improved quality of life for 80 per cent of respondents
• in 2008, Cisco teleworkers prevented approximately 47,320 metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions from being released into the environment
• telecommuting employees reportedly save US$10.3 million per year in fuel costs

The survey covered 1,992 Cisco employees across Asia Pacific, emerging markets, European markets, Japan and U.S./Canada.