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[LBNL
paper by Niles on "Beyond Telecommuting"]
[TELECOMMUTING, TELEWORKING,
AND ALTERNATIVE OFFICING]
[Paper on Sandia California's
Telecommuting Pilot Program]
[Report
on Community Technology Centers]
Richard P. Johnson (written September 1994)
(Rick's Resume)
Telecommuting (working from home or a "remote workstation") has shown
increasing attention across the United States in the last several
years, as well as growing acceptance [1-38]. People commute
in cars, buses, planes and trains to work and to other activities on
a regular basis; commuting is part of our lives. However the actual
necessity to physically change location in order to accomplish such
tasks has recently been challenged on the basis of concerns for
energy conservation, the impact on our environment, a refocusing on
family values, and other issues. Ten advantages future workers and
our society in general might see are presented and discussed.
1. Conserving Energy
Although energy utilization will continue to grow as we expand our
industry and improve our standard of living, efficient use of energy
will always be of prime importance. By telecommuting to work instead
of using more conventional methods, there is a great potential to
save energy. The three major areas where energy can be conserved
are:
A tremendous amount of energy is required to produce
transportation equipment such as automobiles, buses, trains and jet
aircraft. If telecommuting is promoted, there will be less use of
this equipment and less energy will be required for production,
maintenance and repair of this equipment. Fuel resources needed to
operate this equipment will be reduced, as well The building and
repair of highways and maintenance requires a large consumption of
energy, not only in the operation of the highway construction and
repair equipment, but also in the manufacture and transportation of
the required materials. An increase in the percentage of people
telecommuting to work will decrease the need for expanded highways
and associated road maintenance. The first two areas related to
getting to work. Once a person arrives at work in a central office
location, he or she represents another energy consumer, often times
magnified many times over what would be required at home. The office
building has heating, cooling and lighting needs, and the materials
to build it and maintain it require energy in their production and
transportation. Working from home requires only modest incremental
demands on energy for heating, cooling and lighting needs, and makes
effective use of existing building space and facilities.
2. Preserves Our Environment by reducing land use requirements
for highway expansion and by reducing slow-moving automobile
emissions. Highways and parking lots are continuing to consume large
quantities of our land surface area. If a larger percentage of people
telecommuted to work, existing highways could be reduced in size and
parking lots could be converted to parks. One of the largest sources
of pollution is the automobile. This is especially true of
slow-moving automobiles that often exist in heavy, congested rush
hour traffic. Of course, one solution to this problem is increasing
the size and number of our roads, but an even better solution is to
encourage those who can to telecommute, so we will not need
additional highways, parking lots, and airports in the future. And,
when we do choose to drive our cars, it will be in fresh air, on less
crowded streets, when we are not in a hurry to get somewhere.
3. Promotes Safety by reducing highway use by people rushing
to get to work. There are thousands of traffic-related deaths every
year and thousands more people severely injured trying to get to
work. In addition there is substantial property loss associated with
traffic accidents that occur as people take chances in order to make
the mad dash from home to the office. Often times people have made
the trip so often that they are not really alert, often fall asleep
and frequently become impatient by traffic jambs and slower
travelers. More and more people are becoming frustrated by the
insistence that they come into the office every day, when, in fact
most, if not all of their work could be accomplished from their home
or sites much closer to their home.
4. Improves Health by reducing stress related to compromises
made between Family and Work. The stress associated with commuting
back and forth to work away from the home is real, and telecommuting
offers a renewed opportunity for workers to rediscover the joys of
working from their homes. This is a rediscovery, because centuries
ago it was commonplace for "cottage industries" to exist where work
was produced in ones home, often times incorporating the talents of
the entire family in producing a product. With advanced
telecommunications technology a large segment of our workers can
return to this mode of "work-at-home" productivity not compromising
either their Family living or their Job productivity.
5. Allows closer proximity to and involvement with family.
Working in the home offers people a greater opportunity to share
quality time with family members, to promote family values and
develop stronger family ties and unity. Also, time saved through
telecommuting could be spent with family members constructively in
ways that promote and foster resolution of family problems. The
strength of a society derives from the strength of its individuals
and the strength of its individuals often times derives from the
strength of their families.
6. Allows proximity to extended family (location where
employee has "roots"). There are a wide range of scenarios that
constitute what is best for any given individual or any given family.
However, often times people are forced to leave a community where
they grew up and have a large extended family of parents,
grandparents, brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles and all sorts of
family relations. Many people long for the opportunity to return
"home" where they can spend their lives with old friends and family.
While this is not true for some people, there are a large number of
people who stand to enhance the quality of life through the
flexibility that telecommuting offers. Through telecommuting, a
person can work for a company in one part of the world, while living
in another.
7. Allows selection of a remote worksite that is mutually
acceptable to all family members and allows spouse an opportunity
to pursue his/her career. How many times have you seen the situation
where a husband or wife has a job opportunity in another town and
must choose between the new opportunity and no opportunity, because
their spouse does not want to or cannot change employment? If either
person could telecommute, the decision is much easier, allowing for a
more congenial relationship and reducing the potential stress and
possible breakup of a relationship.
8. Allows employee freedom to choose an environment that is
more suitable from a social and economic standpoint and to live in an
area with people of common interests. For couples as well as singles,
people who can telecommute do not have to quit their jobs and move,
when they determine they are not compatible with the town they are
living in. This occurs often, following a divorce or when a single
person discovers an incompatibility with the area surrounding his or
her employers business. Telecommuting affords an employee the freedom
to look for another place to live, where he or she can feel
comfortable both from a social, as well as an economic standpoint and
live near people that have common interests. All this, while
remaining loyal and productive for their employer.
9. Improves Productivity: Time saved can be used to improve
productivity. Much time is spent on unnecessary activities by people
who commute back and forth to work in the conventional manner. Time
is wasted from the minute one gets up to go to work until the minute
one goes to bed after returning from work. With telecommuting, one no
longer needs to be always preparing for the commute and for being
"presentable". One can go to work simply by tossing on a robe and
slippers, grabbing a cup of coffee and sitting down to the terminal.
You no longer worry if the car will start, if your clothes are neat,
or if you're perfectly groomed. That may still be important to you,
but it no longer has to be. And you no longer are interrupted by all
the idle chatter that inevitably takes place at the central work
place - some of it useful for your work, but a lot of it just a waste
of time and a perpetual interruption. (Now you can stay up on latest
rumors at your convenience using electronic mail.) For persons with
health problems or handicapped persons, working from home may offer
some comforting and productive opportunities, as well.
10. Reduces number of people "job hopping"; decreasing
training requirements. Many people job hop each year, and much of
this "job hopping" is because people want to move to a new location.
They enjoy their work, and they would keep working for their present
employer, but they do not like their present location. If people
could move without losing their jobs, because they could telecommute,
the amount of retraining would be reduced substantially. This would
increase overall employee productivity while keeping loyal and
productive employees on board.
The ten major advantages to telecommuting have been presented. As one
specific example of how telecommuting relates to some of the Energy,
Environmental, Safety and Health issues we have just presented,
consider a recent and growing concern regarding the expansion of our
highway system to accommodate increased usage, particularly near
population centers. To address this concern it would be prudent to
carefully consider "telecommuting" as a viable element of any future
plan to preserve and protect our environment from the encroachment
and pollution caused by highway expansions.
Some people propose that a "Paving Moratorium" be invoked to limit
the expansion and extension of highways throughout the country. If a
paving moratorium was limited to stopping the expansion of existing
roadways, that would make sense. If it interpreted as stopping the
creation of new highways that would allow people to access a new home
in the country or explore remote parts of this wonderful world, that
would be unreasonable. The real problem with highway use lies in the
fact that a large number of people are traveling back and forth to
work unnecessarily. As stated before, energy is wasted by the
unnecessary use of materials for construction of unneeded automobiles
and highway expansion.
Environmental damage is inflicted by auto emissions and the
consumption of land by enlarged highways and an increasing area for
parking. There is unfortunately a huge waste of time, money and human
lives in the process. This is an area of great importance to our
energy, environment, safety and health, and solutions to commuter
transportation should be carefully examined. Can you really believe
that you can stop people from enlarging or paving highways and
thereby make a significant positive impact on the environment? One
needs to examine the root causes for massive expansion of highway
systems and widening of freeways. One of the reasons often given for
highway expansion is that people need to commute to work. But do
they?
Perhaps we should examine the contention that people need to commute
to work. What percentage of people could actually stay home and use
telecommuting to effectively accomplish their work? Commuting to work
seems to be a major element of the transportation needs and a root
cause for the push to expand highways. Perhaps efforts should be
expended to encourage more people to telecommute using computers and
modems rather than cars, petroleum and highway space. That effort
would improve our environment and simultaneously help a lot of people
who suffer the pain and sometimes death of rush hour traffic. In the
past transportation has not been considered an environmental issue.
The focus of most environmentalists was spotted owls, wetlands, old
growth forests, etc. The automobile and all the systems required to
support it have been taken for granted by environmentalists. In fact,
many environmentalists rely heavily on their cars to get them back
and forth to work.
Cars should be used primarily for activities that cannot be
undertaken easily by "telecommuting", for example driving to the
mountains for backpacking with family and friends, traveling to a
river or lake for fishing and swimming, taking a family sightseeing
tour, or going out for some family fun and entertainment. Cars, buses
or trains may not be necessary in the future move weary workers back
and forth to an office where one routinely sits down in front of a
computer and performs simulations, word processing, data entry,
reporting and numerous other such tasks.
Granted, not everyone could telecommute, nor would everyone want to,
but many, many people could and would, right now, if the incentives
were there. And many more can and will, in the future, when
telecommuting is promoted and facilitated to the degree that highway
expansion is. We should raise our sights further and ask ourselves
what is really causing us to use cars so much and what can be done to
reduce any excess and unnecessary use. Artificially imposing a ban on
highway construction will not solve the problem, it would just
frustrate many people who want to travel. Instead, it may be better
to promote telecommuting, by encouraging employers to offer
incentives for telecommuters and by bringing this to the attention of
local and national governments. All employers should be encouraged to
support "telecommuting", which is very good for our environment.
We do not necessarily need extensive involvement by the government.
However, attention of local and national governments may be needed in
order to alert them to the fact that we may not really require larger
highway systems, and that tax dollars spent in that fashion may be
wasteful. The environment is becoming part of the "business sense" of
*all* organizations, public and private. The conservation of
resources that could be derived from telecommuting are significant
enough to capture the attention of management, now. But the
environmental benefits of telecommuting are just part of the
equation. Energy conservation, enhancing family values and other
components are also involved. These components, coupled with
environmental concerns will eventually outweigh the concerns that
some employers have regarding remote workstations and
telecommuting.
We are on the verge of a new era of telecommunications that will
impact our lives and how we work and how we become productive in the
21st century. Telecommuting may prove to be an effective means to
enhance our lives and improve our productivity on this new frontier
and our strategy should be to find ways as a National Laboratory to
enhance the capabilities for future telecommuters.
BIBLIOGRAPHY