People who want to work at home often look into telecommute employment. Telecommuting is a setup between an individual and a company where an individual completes all their assignments at home. This saves the business money in facility costs, and the individual gets to work at home, coffee shops or the local park with their laptop and wireless Internet.
Management
In telecommuting work, the employee is still being managed by the company and must submit all work and hours of operation to their manager. A telecommuter will have a home-based job but a company based workload. This is different from freelancing, where the at-home individual gets to determine more freely his or her own hours of operation and workload. Both the company and the employee should be in understanding about their relationship and the terms of the situation.
Telecommuting Careers
There are more careers that allow telecommuting than ever before because of the simplicity of communication over the phone and through email. From writing or designing to over-the-phone customer service, telecommuters are being used more and more to save businesses money, and to allow more people to work.
Some companies require telecommuters to work in an actual office environment before allowing them to telecommute, but there are several who do not. Aspiring telecommuters should search online, and apply for the jobs that interest them. In some cases, they may need more certifications or training, though for a lot of jobs there is training available through the company.
Telecommuting Tools
Telecommutes use a lot of tools to assist them with their jobs. Besides having their own computer systems, they should have a business phone line to communicate with their managers or with customer, especially is someone else in the home may need to use the phone once in awhile. Depending on the job, it may also be necessary to own a fax machine, a copy machine, a printer or a scanner. Additionally, telecommuters are often expected to own or purchase the required software, though in some cases the employer provides it.
It is important for a telecommuter to know what is needed to perform the duties required by them before starting the job, as to avoid issues between them and the manager.
Communication
Each telecommuter uses a variety of tools to communicate with associates and clients. While most communication will be over the phone or through email, in the event a telecommuter will need to give an oral presentation, they might use a web-cam and video conferencing software, such as Skype. Signed documents could either be faxed, scanned and sent through email or sent via regular mail.
Benefits
As mentioned above, businesses benefit from telecommuting by not having to pay overhead facilities cost, whereas employees are allowed to work where they are most productive. A survey in 2008 showed that telecommuting is great for employee satisfaction, keeping them interested in their work and cutting down on turnover to save on rehiring and retraining new individuals.
The earth also benefits from electricity saved from not having huge "workhouses" and there is less polution emitted into the air since these remote workers do not have to commute.
