At Home Jobs With Major Corporations
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It is possible to find at home jobs with major corporations? The telecommute policy adopted by AT&T is a good example.
At Home Jobs With Major Corporations: The AT&T Example
AT&T is a large voice and data communications company that serves over 90 million customers. It offers services to government departments, businesses, and consumers alike in more than 280 countries worldwide. The company provides consulting, network-integration, and consulting services to other large corporations, as well as local telephone service to consumers in various locations.
Pilot Project
The AT&T telecommute policy started off as a pilot project in Los Angeles, CA in 1989 and in Phoenix, AZ, in 1990. Company officials developed a set of initial guidelines and policies to use with the projects. Initially, close to 200 employees were invited to participate in the project and allowed to work from home one day each week.
After six months, the company asked these workers, their co-workers and supervisors to report on the success of the pilot project. The results were very positive. The workers involved in the telecommuting pilot project were pleased to save the expense of commuting to and from work one day per week, and productivity and morale increased. In late 1992, the telecommuting policy was extended to include all company employees.
Telecommute Policy Established
September 20, 1994 was designed as Employee Telecommute Day for AT&T employees. Anyone interested in being considered for a telecommute arrangement was asked to speak to his or her supervisor to see if this would be a workable situation for that position. The supervisor and employee would work out the details of the telecommuting arrangement, including:
- How many days a week the employee would work from home
- What technology would be needed to make the situation workable
- How the effectiveness of the arrangement would be measured
The company was prepared to provide employees with an additional phone line for their home office. Managers were being issued laptop computers at this point, which helped smooth the transition to the telecommute policy.
By the end of 1988, over 30,000 of AT&T's 126,000 employees were involved in the telecommute program and were working from home on a regular basis.
Benefits to the Company
AT&T has reaped several benefits since it instituted its telecommute policy, including:
- Increased productivity
- Higher employee retention rate
- Savings due to less need for employee office space
Employees benefit from telecommuting as well:
- Increased flexibility in balancing work and family responsibilities
- Lower living expenses (less money spent on coffee, lunches out, etc.)
- Greater feeling of control over their work
Disadvantages of Telecommuting
While telecommuting does have distinct advantages, there are some drawbacks as well:
- Telecommuters feel out of the loop because they are not at the office every day
- Issues caused by lack of proper equipment at home
- Concerns their contributions will not be recognized by management
- Lack of connection with other workers
The AT&T telecommuting policy is an example of at home jobs with major corporations. If your company doesn't have a similar arrangement, you may want to suggest that it consider making the same kinds of changes that AT&T has implemented. The key to implementing a successful telecommute policy is to start out on a small scale, working one or two days per week from home.
The policy will need to be revisited after a certain amount of time to see how well it is working. If it is going well, then the telecommute policy can be extended to include more employees. Management and owners must be convinced that the company will benefit from this arrangement as well as the employee. You may want to use the AT&T example to convince them to give it a try.
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