Telecommuting's "Top Ten" Safety & Health Benefits
by Rick Johnson, Burns, OR
 
 
Many employers are well aware of the environmental, energy, and economic benefits garnered when their workers are freed from unnecessary commutes. Employers can now also look at safety and health as additional reasons to encourage employees to work from home.
 
In an earlier issue I talked about reduction of highway deaths and injuries when people telecommute. But there are lots of other safety and health benefits of telecommuting, as well. In fact, once you start thinking of telecommuting as a "safety and health mechanism" you come up with all sorts of new ideas to help people become safer and healthier.
 
Here's my "Top Ten" list of telecommuting's safety and health benefits:
 
1. More time available for employees to enjoy life
2. Less stress-related illnesses caused by commuting
3. Fewer cases of colds and flu spread amongst coworkers
4. Reduced pollutants thus providing better public health
5. Less traffic with reduced injury and death on the roads
6. Disabled workers gain safer and healthier access to jobs
7. Reduced dependent-care needs with better caregivers at home
8. Decentralized workforce with reduced potential for terrorism
9. More people at home helping prevent crime in their communities
10. Home workers obtaining better access to individual health needs
 
Several of these safety and health benefits provide economic advantages, as well. For example, by telecommuting, employees can continue working even though they may have a cold or flu. If they're required to commute to and from their work, when they could perform their tasks from home, employees with colds or the flu unnecessarily inflict illnesses on fellow workers. Sure, if they get really sick, they shouldn't be working anywhere - not at the office nor at home. But everyone knows people bring their sicknesses to the office. They come to work sick, because they don't want to use their sick leave, or they've got a really important assignment, or there's a big deadline that can't be pushed back. There's always some excuse, isn't there?
 
If they were encouraged to work from home, especially to protect coworkers from catching a cold, more sick employees would take that option, and the entire workforce would be better off. So the employer actually has two opportunities to save money. They save when employees with minor contagious diseases continue working productively from home. And they save when other workers remain healthy, because those workers were not unnecessarily exposed.
 
Telecommuting represents an under-utilized tool for improving safety and health. No government has yet initiated a "public awareness" campaign to inform all employers and employees about the specific safety and health benefits of telecommuting. Several states in the USA, including Washington, Oregon, and California, have programs in place to promote telecommuting, however these are generally directed at state workers and driven mostly by environmental and energy conservation needs. But do we really need the government's help to promote telecommuting in order to save lives and improve health?
 
Perhaps not. Employers who truly care about their people don't need a government official telling them about telecommuting - they probably already encourage their people to telecommute or are looking at telecommuting as a policy option right now. Employers who incorporate telecommuting as a new safety and health measure will be recognized for a commitment to people. And as any employer knows, people are our most important resource.
 
Rick Johnson is the founder of Telecommuting Safety & Health Benefits Institute
 
Version 1.0 - January 19, 1999
 
 
Last revised: February 27, 2000
 
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