Telecommuting in the 21st Century: How to Implement or Improve Virtual Teams and Flexible Work in Your Organization (Part 2: What Jobs are right for Telework or Remote Work?)

August 10, 2009 by  

Welcome to Part 2 of our 13 part audio series on Flexible Work and Telecommuting –  Telecommuting in the 21st Century: How to Implement or Improve Virtual Teams and Flexible Work in Your Organization.

So if you are launching a telework program should everyone be able to work outside the office? Think about your job and office.  If you’re like many people your work increasingly deals more with information and ideas. Although you interact with others, much of the time it is over the phone or through memos and e-mails. You probably use a desktop computer for access to information, generating reports and documents, and communicating with others. As a general guideline, all jobs that do not involve physical production, expensive specialized equipment, or extensive face-to-face customer contact can be teleworking positions. Even if your job involves a considerable amount of face-to-face meetings, you can plan your office visits around those meetings and still enjoy the benefits of a more flexible work schedule. With proper planning you’ll find that almost every job can be made more “portable” so that much of it can be done from outside the office.

Obviously not every person or job is a good fit for telecommuting. Two main things need to be considered when finding appropriate teleworkers:

  1. How to select the right jobs: Are the tasks of the person’s job appropriate for telecommuting? How much of their job is, or can be, location independent.
  2. How to select the right people. This is true for both managers and teleworkers. Like almost everything there are certain types of people that tend to make better remote workers than others.

In part 2 of our podcast, our panel discusses how to identify the job types that are suiteable for telework or remote work byexamining a number of different factors.

So listen in to Part 2: What Jobs are right for Telework or Remote Work?

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OUR PANEL OF EXPERTS:

Jeff Zbar : Founder of ChiefHomeOfficer.com (and faciliator for our discussion on telecommuting).

Rachel Hastings: Vice President of WFC Resources Inc.

Phil Montero: CEO of Montero Consulting and Founder of YouCanWorkFromAnywhere.com and TheAnywhereOffice.com.

Want the whole story?
Listen to all 13 parts of Telecommuting in the 21st Century.

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