REDMOND, Wash. – May 18, 2011 – “I’m wearing pajamas. What is everyone else wearing?” That’s what James Sinclair asked during the first morning conference call after he officially shuttered his company’s physical office and transitioned to a remote work environment.
That was two years ago, and Sinclair and his employees at OnSite Consulting, a Los Angeles-based hospitality consulting firm, never looked back. Sinclair says remote working has led not only to significant cost savings but also increased productivity and customer and employee satisfaction.
Top 15 US Cities for Telecommuting
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Atlanta Friendliest City for Telework
Information workers here work remotely five days per month, one more than the national average. They also report the highest support levels from colleagues and the highest use of secure internal social networking tools to collaborate with customers. Conversely, they also conduct business while driving more than workers in any other city.
Boston Workers Tops for Supportive Bosses
Teleworkers in Boston – ranked No. 6 – feel more support from their bosses than teleworkers in other cities. Yet, Boston workers only put in an average of three remote days per month as compared to the national average of four. Boston workers report having the longest commute out of all cities surveyed, and prefer to work outside of the office to avoid traffic issues.
Chicago Worst for Telecommuting
The Windy City blows in at the bottom spot, No. 15, in the survey of telework-friendly cities. Information workers here report the lowest levels of interaction with customers and colleagues over secure, internal social networking channels. In addition, Chicago teleworkers feel the least amount of approval and support from their colleagues among cities surveyed.
Dallas Touted for Supporting Teleworkers with Structure
Dallas scored a No. 2 ranking in part because businesses offer formal teleworking policies and provide strong tech support. Workers here reported higher levels of stress in the workplace than any other city, and prefer working remotely as a solution. On the humorous side, Dallas workers rank above average for conducting business calls while wearing only underpants.
Denver Teleworkers Less Distracted
Workers in No. 3-ranked Denver boast high rates of peer and managerial support. Also, Denver businesses are above the national average when it comes to using internal, secure collaboration tools. Denver workers report that they prefer teleworking because they are distracted less when working remotely than they are in the office.
Detroit Near Bottom for Working Remotely
The Motor City ranks in the bottom of telework-friendly cities at number 14 out of 15. Less than half of businesses were reported to have a formal telework policy allowing remote work. In addition, Detroit businesses are below the national average for providing tech support to remote workers.
Remote Working Makes Houston Workers Productive
Workers in ninth-ranked Houston rate themselves highest in productivity while working remotely and report high levels of support from colleagues and peers. However, businesses here are below the national average for using internal networking tools to collaborate with colleagues and customers. This may be why Houston ranked highest for workers reprimanded or terminated for social media misuse.
Traffic Drives Remote Working in Los Angeles
Los Angeles ranks 13 out of 15 with only half of companies reporting formal telework policies. Los Angeles businesses rank lowest in using secure, internal networking tools for colleague collaboration and also rank lowest in providing tech support to remote workers. Among Los Angeles participants, the top reason to telework is to avoid traffic.
Minneapolis Wants More Video for Face-to-Face Collaboration
Businesses in Minneapolis rank above average for providing tech support to remote workers and for providing internal networking systems for colleague collaboration, factors that contributed to the city’s No. 10 ranking. Video conferencing is not widely available to teleworkers, contributing to why workers reported an inability to speak face-to-face with remote colleagues.
New York Workers Feel Support, Need Help From Bosses
Eleventh-ranked New York ranks high for supporting remote workers, but bosses and peers don’t tend to support teleworkers. This may be because businesses here rank below the national average when it comes to offering a formal policy allowing telework.
Philadelphia Short on Remote Worker Support
Philadelphia businesses fall below the national average when it comes to offering a formal remote policy and offering tech support to remote workers, which both contributed to a No. 12 ranking. Additionally, respondents report that the city is below the national average when it comes to using secure, internal networks to collaborate with colleagues and customers.
Phoenix Workers Feel Loved by Peers and Managers
Workers in No. 3 Phoenix report above-average levels of support from peers and managers and above-average access to secure, internal networking with colleagues and customers. Respondents work an average of five days per month versus the national average of four. Beware, however, because they also report above-average instances of driving while conducting business.
San Francisco Provides Best Tech Support
No. 8 San Francisco ranks highest for providing tech support to remote workers, but is below average when it comes to using secure, internal networks to collaborate with vendors and customers. The tech-savvy city also ranks highest for using public social media to collaborate with colleagues. Respondents rated themselves lowest in productivity when working remotely.
Seattle Best at Providing Collaboration Tools
As Microsoft’s home base, Seattle ranks No. 4 in a survey of the most telework-friendly cities. Not surprisingly, businesses here rank first in providing secure, internal collaboration with colleagues and have the highest reported rates of formal remote work policies. Why telework? Seattle comes in right behind Atlanta and Washington for city with the worst traffic.
D.C. Teleworks to Avoid Traffic
Respondents from No. 7 Washington, D.C., reported that businesses here are above average when it comes to offering formal remote work policies. Respondents telework to avoid traffic (they tie with Atlanta for the worst commute) and to preserve work-life balance.
Sinclair said he’s thrilled to see his staff thriving outside the office, which is how he’s always preferred to work. “I’ve never wanted four walls to constrict my ability or my productivity,” he said. “So I’ve always used technology to let me work wherever I am, whether that’s at home, in the office, on an airplane, or in L.A. traffic.”
The employees of OnSite Consulting have a lot of company in the virtual office. According to a recent Microsoft survey of more than 4,500 U.S. information workers, more than half said their companies have a formal telework policy. (The survey also found that Sinclair isn’t alone in adopting a more casual dress code when telecommuting; a fifth of respondents in Atlanta, for example, said they’ve conducted a business call in their underwear.)
The ongoing rise of telework reflects the new realities of today’s mobile information age, said Ron Markezich, corporate vice president of Microsoft’s U.S. Enterprise and Partner Group. “Telework is no longer a company perk for employees but a business imperative,” he said. “Ten years ago, it was seen more as an employee benefit. Today, businesses around the world are seeing telework as a necessity.”
This type of remote working – dubbed “work without walls” – allows for greater productivity, customer satisfaction and employee satisfaction, Markezich said. Remote working technologies enable people to conduct business from anywhere in the world at any time, putting employees in front of their clients and customers, and accelerating the pace at which business results are achieved.
Markezich said a host of benefits are now widely acknowledged to be good reasons to adopt telework initiatives and supporting technologies. Employers can tap into a larger talent pool, improve productivity, increase employee diversity and lower overhead costs. On the employee front, it enables a more flexible work-life balance and reduces the stress of long commutes, for example. The survey echoed this, as it found the No. 1 reason to telework is to avoid transportation challenges, such as the escalating price of gas and long commutes. Striking a better balance between work and home priorities was No. 2, followed by the need to complete unfinished work.
Sinclair confirmed that telework has been a win-win for employees and his business. He said having his employees work on-site with client restaurants and hotels has empowered them to achieve much more than when they were in their cubicles. “I’ve got clerical staff earning twice as much as they did two years ago because I can offer on-the-job training,” he said. “I might not be able to let them take a month off for a Harvard executive education class, but I can offer hands-on that is twice as valuable as that. We’re geared solely toward results now, and as a company we’ve become so much better.”
Still, the survey found a disconnect between employers and employees in terms of just how often those four walls should come down. On average employees said nine days per month would be the right amount of time to telecommute; employers thought it would be about four. That’s a cultural legacy, Markezich said. “So much of business was built around the workplace,” he said. “But over the past few years technology has made it so people can be more productive spending part of their time working remotely.”
Microsoft products such as Lync, Office 365, SharePoint and Windows Phone have helped build a more productive remote work environment, he said. “Those business collaboration solutions make it easier for teams to work together, with significant cost savings on-premise and in the cloud, and with the best productivity experience across PC, phone and browser,” Markezich said.
Ten years ago, it was seen more as an employee benefit. Today, businesses around the world are seeing telework as a necessity.
- Ron Markezich, corporate vice president of Microsoft’s U.S. Enterprise and Partner Group,
Companies big and small will continue to take advantage of technology to transform the way they do business. In Paducah, Kentucky, Jared Morgan recently watched the Ohio River creep ever higher up the town’s floodwall. Morgan is an insurance agent and the unofficial CIO for Bradshaw & Weil, a small insurance agency that has been on Paducah’s Main Street for 167 years. Last week, Morgan and his colleagues pondered what to do if the river breached the floodwall and poured down Main Street.
“As an insurance agency, we had clients turning in flood claims left and right,” he said. “If we are out of commission for any time, we’re not fulfilling our basic promise to our clients. You can imagine our relief when we looked at the bare minimum we need to do our job.”
With Microsoft Office 365, the company’s critical data resides in the cloud. Fortunately the floodwall contained the river. But if it hadn’t, all the employees of Bradshaw & Weil would have needed to keep working were their computers and an Internet connection.
Morgan said remote working technologies such as cloud solutions have been a boon for a company well over a century old.
“We’re not Microsoft. We’re a small business in the heartland that’s about as old school as you can get in our industry,” he said. “But we’re implementing all these technologies that mean we don’t have to deal with the headaches of servers and hardware. We don’t have any desire to deal with that stuff ever again.”