The Benefits of Starting a Telework Program

Welcome to issue #3. In last month's issue, we mentioned how having employees telecommute can help your business go green. We’re back to show how this practice can also improve your recruitment and optimize your workforce…

Broaden Your Hiring Reach

Contrary to the popular adage, it’s not hard to find good help these days – you just have to know where to look. With the rapid growth of online job search services like Monster.com and CareerBuilder.com, employers are getting less and less response from running ads in the local Classifieds. Getting the most out of these online services, however, means not limiting yourself to regional candidates.

 

To show just how big of a difference this can make, we put it to the test. We listed two identical job descriptions for a technical position through Monster.com. We made one position available nationally as a telecommuting job and the other available only to our region as an office job.

 

After two weeks, the disparity in quantity and qualifications of applicants was astounding:

• 209 teleworker applicants vs. 13 regional applicants
• Over 50% of the teleworker applicants had a minimum of an Associate’s Degree in a related field, compared to less than 10% of regional applicants.

A strong telework program gives you the freedom to seek out the best candidate for the job on a national level.

1. Retain Experienced, Trained Employees

   There are few things in the business world that make an employer cringe as much as high turnover. Constantly training new employees cuts profits and creates an inefficient workforce. With online job market visibility, now more than ever employers need a way to keep highly trained employees satisfied.

    

   According to a comprehensive study* done at Pennsylvania State University, telecommuting makes for happier employees. The study evaluates 46 smaller studies that cover a total of nearly 13,000 sampled employees. The study found several employee benefits that attribute to this increased job satisfaction:

   • Less stress from busy commutes
   • Comfort of working at home
   • Freedom to schedule work and family time
   • Increased trust shown by employers

   Due to these benefits, a telework program is a powerful tool to keep your experienced, hard-working employees motivated and loyal while cutting down on the cost of regularly training new hires..

   *Read the full study here (PDF)
2. Manage Productivity

   In the past, hiring teleworkers was viewed as a gamble. Connecting remote employees with the rest of the office was difficult, if not impossible, and lack of proper management tools meant productivity was left to a matter of trust. Today, however, advancements in communication technology are providing employers better tools to connect their employees and keep them on task. As a result, telework programs are sprouting up all over the nation in businesses of all sizes and industries.

    

   FreedomVOICE is leading the way in this new technology with our FreedomIQ VoIP Hosted PBX. With FreedomIQ, you can plug phones into an Ethernet connection and allow workers all over the country to take calls seamlessly. Your staff might include a handful of workers in your central office, one worker in a home office, and two in a satellite office in another state – but your existing and potential customers won’t be able to tell the difference

    

   All of the VoIP phones provided with the service require employees to “Login” in order for employers to track each employee’s activity. This allows you to answer several questions, like:

   • Are my employees missing calls?
   • Are my employees taking long breaks?
   • Are my employees following up on sales leads?
   • Am I under- or over-staffed?

   FreedomIQ even allows you to listen in on any live call on the system. Monitoring calls can make sure your teleworkers are staying on task and can also help you train new employees. To get more information on how FreedomIQ can help your business start a telework program, give us a call at (800) 477-1477 ext. 1.

All the best,

Eric Thomas

Founder & CEO

FreedomVOICE Systems