The Stupid Corporation
Talking around the town lately we were struck by how few white collar workers we know are telecommuting at least one day per week. A quick tabulation of our informal survey suggested only one in five were telecommuting. We were astounded by this, since there is a world-wide energy crisis. Four dollar per gallon gas is causing real economic pain for everyone. You would think that Corporate America would be doing their part in this crisis to push as many white collar workers out to their homes as possible. Astonishingly, it's not happening, or perhaps it's happening very, very slowly. Either way it's stupid, and it's unacceptable.
And where is our political leadership? Where is President Bush getting out in front of microphones demanding a Corporate response to the crisis? Where is the Republican or Democrat leadership in the Senate and House calling for Corporations to push telecommuting out to their employee populations, and push it hard?
Dead Silence.
The very same technology that allows firms to farm hundreds of thousands of jobs overseas can be leveraged to allow domestic workers to work from home. This component of fuel conservation and economic relief for the hammered American workforce doesn't take decades of scientific study, doesn't take huge loans from the Chinese for tax rebates, all it takes is a laptop and a secure broadband connection. That's it!! Someone coined the phrase Homesourcing (as opposed outsourcing) to describe telecommuting. We love it.
We were very surprised to find some statistics that matched our subjective unscientific telecommuting poll. According to The Telework Coalition, (http://www.telcoa.org/) only 7.6 million American Corporate white collar workers telecommute at least one day per month!! A total of 24.1 million telecommute, but 16.5 million of those are self employed. These are just flabbergasting statistics. In total, about 1/5th of the white collar work force telecommutes. Only one in five when you add self employed people!!
There is no excuse for this. Many brain-dead managers (and believe us, brain-dead management is epidemic in the US - but that's another post) are afraid that if their employees work from home they will just goof off and the job will not get done. What a load of absolute IDIOTIC crap.
So let's run down the truth for the Forrest Gump managers out there, and their ignorant Executives in the Corporate world:
Lets do some math:
The average commuting distance is 16 miles one way or 32 miles round trip.
The average mpg in the US is around 25. So telecommuting saves an average of 1.28 gallons per day.
If Stupid Corporations put just another 5 million workers at home two days per week, that saves 2.56 gallons per person per week or 12,900,000 gallons of gasoline. At $4.00 per gallon, that's a savings of a whopping $51,600,000 per week! The money that stays in employee pockets, rather than the gas tank, then circulates in the domestic economy rather than lining the pockets of those overseas oil barons. Just imagine the conservation and money savings that we could realize if all employees who could telecommute did....we would save tens of millions of gallons and billions of dollars. Why are we not aggressively doing this? Why are we so stupid?
So let's go Corporate America! Employees, stop being bashful and demand telecommuting. Executives, get your heads out of your posteriors and get going!! Wake up Congress - start putting pressure on these reluctant stupid Executives to embrace change. Don't offer tax incentives to telecommute - enact punitive penalties for not doing so. Telecommuting benefits the employee, the employer, the economy, and the environment. It will benefit everyone!!
The Stupid Nation
And where is our political leadership? Where is President Bush getting out in front of microphones demanding a Corporate response to the crisis? Where is the Republican or Democrat leadership in the Senate and House calling for Corporations to push telecommuting out to their employee populations, and push it hard?
Dead Silence.
The very same technology that allows firms to farm hundreds of thousands of jobs overseas can be leveraged to allow domestic workers to work from home. This component of fuel conservation and economic relief for the hammered American workforce doesn't take decades of scientific study, doesn't take huge loans from the Chinese for tax rebates, all it takes is a laptop and a secure broadband connection. That's it!! Someone coined the phrase Homesourcing (as opposed outsourcing) to describe telecommuting. We love it.
We were very surprised to find some statistics that matched our subjective unscientific telecommuting poll. According to The Telework Coalition, (http://www.telcoa.org/) only 7.6 million American Corporate white collar workers telecommute at least one day per month!! A total of 24.1 million telecommute, but 16.5 million of those are self employed. These are just flabbergasting statistics. In total, about 1/5th of the white collar work force telecommutes. Only one in five when you add self employed people!!
There is no excuse for this. Many brain-dead managers (and believe us, brain-dead management is epidemic in the US - but that's another post) are afraid that if their employees work from home they will just goof off and the job will not get done. What a load of absolute IDIOTIC crap.
So let's run down the truth for the Forrest Gump managers out there, and their ignorant Executives in the Corporate world:
- Most Employees are MORE productive at home. The vast majority work through what used to be their commute time, and beyond.
- Telecommuting conserves fuel which helps the nation, and saves money which helps the employee.
- Sick time dramatically drops for Telecommuters. Most people would prefer to work through illness if they could. We know people who have not called out sick in years because they can telecommute when ill. This also keeps the pathogens at home rather than being passed around the office. This is a huge gain for the employer in terms of productivity, and unproductive compensation costs.
- Telecommuting can relieve day-care financial pressures, a highly valued plus for telecommuting moms and dads.
- Most Employees value telecommuting privileges, and will follow guidelines so they do not lose it.
- In addition to conserving fuel, telecommuting is also green - it reduces greenhouse gas emissions
- Organized, well planned telecommuting programs fall directly to the bottom line as reduced office space costs. Only a relative few not-so-stupid employers (they are out there) have realized this.
- Simple solution for those few employees that abuse the privilege by goofing off at home - REVOCATION!
Lets do some math:
The average commuting distance is 16 miles one way or 32 miles round trip.
The average mpg in the US is around 25. So telecommuting saves an average of 1.28 gallons per day.
If Stupid Corporations put just another 5 million workers at home two days per week, that saves 2.56 gallons per person per week or 12,900,000 gallons of gasoline. At $4.00 per gallon, that's a savings of a whopping $51,600,000 per week! The money that stays in employee pockets, rather than the gas tank, then circulates in the domestic economy rather than lining the pockets of those overseas oil barons. Just imagine the conservation and money savings that we could realize if all employees who could telecommute did....we would save tens of millions of gallons and billions of dollars. Why are we not aggressively doing this? Why are we so stupid?
So let's go Corporate America! Employees, stop being bashful and demand telecommuting. Executives, get your heads out of your posteriors and get going!! Wake up Congress - start putting pressure on these reluctant stupid Executives to embrace change. Don't offer tax incentives to telecommute - enact punitive penalties for not doing so. Telecommuting benefits the employee, the employer, the economy, and the environment. It will benefit everyone!!
The Stupid Nation
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