By Erika Allen, J.D., Ph.D.
Consultant to this Program

During the past decade, telecommuting has grown from an unusual arrangement that existed only in certain isolationist professions, to a fairly common occurrence across corporate America. Recent statistics estimate that over two-thirds of Fortune 1000 companies have formal telecommuting programs, and sixty percent of those companies currently holding-out plan to start such programs over the next few years.

The number of American employees participating in these programs is growing, too—up to 44.4 million individuals in 2004, a 7.5 percent growth rate from the year before. The number of full-time telecommuters in 2004 was 12 million, up from about 8.8 million in 2003. You may be interested to know that the national average among tele-workers working at home two days per week.

So what is the story at your workplace? How should you respond if an employee proposes to work from home? Whether your employer has a formal policy or not, consider these guidelines to effectively evaluate requests to work from home…

Has it been done before? The first thing to do is investigate whether your employer has a telecommuting program already in place. That doesn’t necessarily mean that all rules are set in stone, but will mean that someone has begun thinking about what might work for the organization. If you can’t find a formal policy, visit with HR about his or her experience with other individual requests.  Even if previous trials have been a flop, you’ll know more by learning your organizational history.

Request a written proposal and an oral presentation. Experts agree that an employee should prepare both a comprehensive written proposal and schedule an in-person discussion/presentation to make the telecommuting pitch. Ask your employee to submit the written proposal ahead of time. Before the meeting, provide questions and concerns that you’d like the employee to address in his or her oral presentation.

Identify organizational benefits. Make sure the employee can articulate the benefits of telecommuting to the firm, not just the benefits to the employee! Make sure that the request is not framed primarily in terms of how telecommuting will meet his or her needs: better work-life balance, more time with kids, etc. While those things are certainly potential advantages of the arrangement, both employee and manager need to view the decision as smart for the organization.

Create accountability. How does the employee propose to remain productive and accountable in a much more autonomous role? Perhaps he or she could e-mail you a report of daily or weekly activities. Perhaps you should have regular evaluation meetings. Establish a list of measurable goals against which to determine the success of the arrangement.

In Part 2 of this topic series, we will discuss additional guidelines for effectively managing employee requests to work from home.