More people get the job done from home

By Tina A. Brown

For the AJC

When it’s time to go to work, Pamela Fann, a national account coordinator for the Coca-Cola Co., doesn’t need to worry about monitoring morning traffic and weather reports from home to her corporate offices in downtown Atlanta or Dunwoody.

Fann’s job as a 24-hour call-center coordinator begins once she powers up her home-office computer or picks up the telephone to respond to the company’s clients requiring service.

“The job itself is stressful,” said Fann. “If you take the stress of the drive away, you can get a lot done.”

Fann is among an estimated 300,000 metro Atlanta tele-commuters who skip their road trips to the office at least twice a week.

Apart from Coca Cola, there are hundreds of other companies providing diverse workplace opportunities for workers with and without the state’s tax credit.

Bank of America, for example, has created satellite offices in airports and coffee shops.

Shaw Industries, a floor manufacturing company in Dalton, has allowed more than 100 office workers to work from home.

The state offers up to $20,000 in tax credits to employers who participate in its Telework tax-credit program.

Additionally, participating employers are eligible for $1,200 for each new so-called teleworker on its payroll. The state has allocated $2.5 million for the program, which expires in 2011. The deadline to apply is Oct. 30.

Metro Atlanta is a prime location to expand telecommuting opportunities, said Kevin Green, executive director of the Clean Air Campaign, a nonprofit hired by the state Department of Transportation to promote the program and to train the business community. “It is second most wired (technological) region in the country,” he said, “and it has one of the most painful commutes’’ — an average of 72 minutes each way.

The state’s program, and telecommuting in general, “yields immediate results,” when a company is trying to save money on office space, Green said.

Telecommuting is also used as a recruiting tool for potential employees who live in heavily populated areas and is key for employers during storms and natural disasters, he said.

In the Atlanta area, an estimated 12,380 so-called teleworkers were trained by the Clean Air Campaign during the past two years. During that period, 216 companies statewide received tax credits using the state’s Telework program, said a spokeswoman for the state Department of Revenue’s taxpayers’ services division.

Whether the state program will be offered in 2012 is “questionable because of strains on the state’s budget,” Green said.

Though some of the region’s largest employers including Bank of America and Georgia Power have not signed up for the state program, they are helping to reduce commuter traffic by providing work-at-home options and satellite work stations in metro Atlanta.

Georgia Power started letting some of its employees work from home during the 1996 Summer Olympics. Now about 650 workers of its 5,500-member work force in metro Atlanta work part-time at home, said Jane Franklin, the spokeswoman.

The majority of Georgia Power’s work force, mostly baby boomers, enjoy going into the office, she said. It’s the only way they know.

“The older managers still have that mentality that they have to go into the office,” Franklin said. She expects that the way the company’s work force visualizes the workplace may change once the boomers retire and younger workers take their places.

More than 700 Bank of America employees participate in that company’s “My Work” program in metro Atlanta. Recognizing the stress of the commute in metro Atlanta, employees are allowed to exchange their traditional office or cubical space for satellite locations in banks, home offices, airports and coffee shops, said Tony Vazquez, an executive of Bank of America’s “My Work” program, estimates workers participating in the program, which is not associated with the state’s Telework program, save about 120 miles per week.

“Some people like the opportunity to work without distractions,” said Paul Richard, vice president of human resources at Shaw Industries Group Inc. in Dalton. He said the manufacturing company implemented the state’s Telework program in 2007.

So far, 170 of its 25,000 workers are participating, and the company wants to expand its telecommuting work force.

The opportunity is offered mostly to office workers because many of the manufacturing jobs at the company require workers to be inside the factory.

“A typical worker wanted to spend that hour with family rather than on the road commuting to work” Richard said. “It’s a win for us. Our managers tell us their employees are self-motivated. They see improvements in their productivity” for workers participating in the program.

The change has also helped the company save money because it “kept us from building a larger footprint,” or office building.

Escalating gasoline prices were the catalyst for the Women’s Bureau of the U.S. Department of Labor to offer telecommuting options to its employees. Half of its 200-member work force in metro Atlanta signed up. The agency saved money on real estate and utility costs, said Paulette Norvel Lewis, a regional administrator.

The agency surveyed employees about the impact of the change and found positive results in morale, loyalty and retention, she said.

Telecommuting isn’t for everybody.

“We had teammates say they missed that face-to-face contact in the office,” said Richard, of Shaw Industries. “They missed that hustle and flow and some of them had questions about the separation of work and home life.”

Richard said Shaw Industries tried to pick people for the program and offered advance training so its people would know what to expect. “There’s always going to be barriers when you start something new. It didn’t work for everyone and it won’t work for this company in every location.”

Richard said, for example, that some managers are not comfortable managing employees from a distance. “There are always going to be skeptics. We had individuals go home to work and ask to come back because they didn’t like it.”

But there’s no denying telecommuting is catching on. 
“Employers can’t compete if they don’t offer flexible workplace policies,” Norvel Lewis said.

On a rare occasion last week, Fann was in her vehicle headed downtown. Once or twice a month, Fann said she attends office meetings and special events at headquarters.

Working at home “is more of a privilege,” she said. “I absolutely love it.”