Who Is Promoting Telecommuting?

A. Employers

Telecommuting is usually instigated by a company who sees the advantages it can provide them. Certainly this is brought to the attention of the company by employees who convince the company that they, the employee, and do the work at home rather than come into the office. At the present time, very few if any companies are going out and looking for telecommuters. Those telecommuters they do have, usually come from inside the companies.

A recent quote from the Internet Newsgroup, European Telework shows that major companies do not necessarily advertise there telecommuting efforts.

“I have been responsible for the implementation of telework in IBM France and I can tell you that we never felt useful to create a web (page) telling what we were doing and how. It has just become business as usual once the internal issues were solved. We did share with our customers who were interested. Keep in mind that unless it is your business, a company will not spend time and energy writing web pages on what they do internally.”

Nicole Turbé-Suetens
DISTANCE EXPERT
BP 10 60680 Grand-Fresnoy (France)
4/5/97, European Telework Mailing List, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

It is obvious from this posting that giant companies like IBM are quietly taking steps to implement telecommuting without broadcasting their efforts. If we want to know exactly who else is involved and to want extent, it will some very creative research. Information such as this, it seems, will not be publicized unless the companies decide it is in their interest.

B. Telecommunications Companies

Telephone companies overseas are promoting telecommuting since, for obvious reasons they have a stake in selling more phone service. Los Angeles has one of the largest telework programs in the United States sponsored by the local telephone companies.

C. Government

Anti pollution agencies are active in telecommuting promoting telework. The US Government has formally stated it embraces telework as a way to improve air quality. The San Diego Air Pollution Control District is just one of the many very active state agencies, in the US. US Government agencies concerned with child care for working mothers, employment discrimination, and life quality have either formally or informally endorsed telework.

D. Telecommuting Consultants

There are several telework consultants advertising on the Internet. They can be accessed with any search engine such as http://www.yahoo.com. These companies focus their efforts on helping companies establish telecommuting programs for their existing work. They do not seem to be geared to or interested in starting a program such as international telecommuting.

E. Employees

Employees are promoters when they ask their supervisors if they can do work at home. It the more economically developed countries the large majority of employees spend most of their time at work on the computer and also have computers at home and can access the office or the world by Internet with them.

There are people with computers and Internet Connections at home who stumble into employment. They start using the Internet for entertainment, cheap communications, out of curiosity or for other non employment reasons and discover work opportunities they find attractive.