Remote work becomes popular in the US

The Telework Coalition (TelCoa), a nonprofit telework education and advocacy organization, believes that remote working is now ready to become a major business practice in the United States.

There are several factors which are pushing telecommuting forward. Among them are societal factors, such as environmental and transportation issues; technological factors, such as better technology at lower prices; and business factors, such as increased employee productivity and cost saving.

With all these coming into play, telecommuting is becoming mainstream and both employers and employees are becoming more aware of the benefits of remote working.

According to Chuck Wilsker, President and Chief Operating Officer of TelCoa, “as generations evolve, as we become more environmentally conscious, I think we’ll see more [telecommuting]. As transportation costs rise, we’ll see more.”

“There are all these technologies and everybody’s starting to have these, and I think it’s really changing because people are realizing it’s easy to work from anywhere,” he said to telegram.com.

According to TelCoa, it is hard to estimate precisely the number of people telecommuting in the United States since many of them may telecommute one or two days per week but don’t regard themselves as remote workers. Still, there might be between 3 and 75 million telecommuters in the country, says the nonprofit organization.

TelCoa, which seeks to raise awareness and increase the number of people that telecommute full-time, says that employees save more than $8,000 per year when working from home, while the average employer saves around $20,000 a year per employee.

Companies save by having less office space, which decreases rent and energy costs, as well as fewer parking spaces, while employees save on gas, fast food and office clothes.

Better technologies at lower prices are also surfacing, such as RHUB’s web confererncing and remote support appliances.

Modern remote working solutions allow employees to access remotely to their office computers using remote control and remote desktop tools, allowing employees to work together in a virtual environment by using web collaboration tools and also allow them to provide technical support to their clients through the use of remote support tools.

According to TelCoa, remote working creates jobs, reduces costs, improves recruiting and provides better opportunities, particularly in rural areas.