John's announcment in the happy item of working at home one day a week 
reminded me of an item for this conference.

I know it would make a ton of sense for a lot of employees, as it 
would save a lot of $$ gas.

Does letting employees work at home or work 4x10's make sense for 
companies?

7 responses total.

Maybe it makes a lot of sense for companies. If you get your employees
to start working at home, that is just one step further to outsourcing
those jobs to somewhere else.

I think it depends on the individual employee. But in a general sense, I
think that allowing employees to work from home is probably a good idea
as long as it is optional. The reason is that it might be enough of a
benefit to them that the company can then get away with paying all of
their employees less. It also might increase productivity in that it
might decrease certain worker's stress levels by allowing them to have
more control over their work environment. (I spend a considerable amount
of time and energy dealing with annoying co-workers for instance.)

Alternative work schedules are something else. On the one hand allowing
workers the option of a 4x10 schedule would have some of the same
advantages as allowing them to telecommute one or more days a week. i.e.
give them more control, decrease stress, etc. But there is some evidence
that workers who work long shifts are much less productive than workers
that work shorter shifts. Kelloggs cereal had everyone on six hour
shifts for years and when they initially went from eight hours shifts to
six hour shifts, they found that worker's production stayed the same.
Workers produced the same amount of work in six hours that they had been
doing in eight. 

If I were in management of a business, I would strongly encourage
workers to work 30 hour weeks instead of 40 weeks and I would encourage
them to work five six hour days. 

Working at home can save you 10 hours a week of travelling.

So can living closer to where you work. 

re #0
I've found that most businesses try to avoid those arrangements when their
legal people tell them about the liabilities.  A few companies that come to
mind are HP and Symantec.  By organizations have home office employees but
in both situations they have strict requirements and they pay for the DSL and
phone usage.  The strict requirements are due to liability insurance and
productivity concerns.  
Working from home would be reasonable depending on your service being offered.
If you're a lumberjack or plumber, a home office might or might not make sense
depending on your tool requirements and travel.  
Also, when you need customers to come to your home, the IRS can have strict
requirements such as a seperate entry into your home and depreciation on your
home minus the business portion, etc.

I read something recently too that said that the majority of people who
*could* telecommute choose not to. 

I would like too 1 or 2 times a week.  I do like to be in the office, 
so I wouldn't want to be home all the time, but I would love to save 
on some gas.  

A 4x10 works for me too.  

My perfect sceneario (other than not working!) would be a 4x10 working 
1 day at home per week.

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