Many people dream of a job that can be done from the comfort of one's own home, done more or less on one's own schedule, and all with minimal interference from supervisors and other bureaucrats. For those people, telecommuting is the answer.
In a recent poll by ORC International, it was found that 11% of Americans are currently telecommuting and another 16% have telecommuted in the past. By comparison, in 1997 the percentage of U.S. workers working at home was a meager 7.2%. With all of the advantages that it provides, telecommuting seems to be a potential contract sweetener that many people would take a slightly lower salary to indulge in.
That is not to say that everyone is on board with this telecommuting trend, however. Recently Yahoo stopped allowing its employees to work from home after several years of economic stagnation, drawing quite a bit of backlash that Yahoo did not back down from. Soon after, Best Buy followed suit. Though this could be views as a loss for telecommuters everywhere, others see it as nothing more than a way to justify firings, with the institution of telecommuting still firmly in place.
"Say you're [Yahoo CEO] Marissa Mayer and your diagnosis is that Yahoo would benefit from some staff reductions. But you also feel that kicking off your tenure with a new round of layoffs would be bad for morale. You think you have some reason to believe that the full-time workers on the Yahoo staff who work from home are a disproportionately low-productivity cohort. Announcing this new policy becomes a way of reducing the size of the staff without throwing everyone into a panic about layoffs and cost-cutting and oh-my-god-should-I-be-looking-for-a-new-job-elsewhere. It's just the new boss putting her stamp on the company," writes Matthew Iglesias for Slate.
Assuming that telecommuting is here to stay, job seekers would do well to consider it as a real alternative to the current 9-5 they've been used to. Large number of telecommuters polled said that they enjoyed the benefits of not having to deal with annoying co-workers, having generally fewer distractions, and being able to avoid getting caught up in office politics. If you do decide to try out telecommuting, however, it's important to realize that, at least for now, there will always be an inherent risk associated with it.
"No matter what your performance level, it's a lot easier for a boss to let go of someone that he doesn't see on a regular basis," notes New York City executive recruiter Stephen Viscusi.
