The idea of progress; Is telecommuting improving our lives ?

The Idea Of Progress

I'm going to talk about the notion "idea of progress" with the theme of telecommuting. I will answer the essential question :"Is telecommuting improving our lives ?". At first, I will speak about teleworking trends in the US, then I will talk about the economic impact of teleworking and finally advantages and drawbacks of telecommuting in terms of personal and social relationships.

To begin, I will speak about teleworking trends in US. We saw a picture called "Telecommuting" where we can see a man in casual clothes who look like to be in vacation. He is telecommuting thanks to his laptop, he has a flexible schedule and he can work anywhere and when he wants. It enables people to communicate with each other fast and effectively from a distance at a low cost. Telecommuting become very trend as we saw with Fuentek, a virtual company founded in 2001, where employees are required to telecommute. We read a text called "Telecommute Nation" where the author shows that there are more and more people who telecommute. Many predictions were made about the increase in telecommuting but some people are reluctant to do it. In 2008, third of companies allowed their employees to telecommuting.

Then I will talk about the economic impact of teleworking. We saw with Fuentek that it' cheaper for employers because they don't have to pay for a building. We read a text from internet from "the globe and mail" which explains that a business with 250 telecommuting employees would save about 3 millions dollar a year. We read another text from internet from "8 at home" which explains that if everyone who was able to telecommute did so just 1.6 days per week, the United States could save about 1.35 billion gallons of fuel. Sun Microsystems found that by eliminating commuting half a week, an employee saves 5.400 kilowatt hours, they also can save 1700 dollar a year in gasoline and wear and tear.

Finally advantages and drawbacks of telecommuting in terms of personal and social relationships. We saw with the text "Telecommute nation" that the advantages for employers are that employees are more productive and they don't have to pay for a building and the employees can find work-life balance. We read two texts called "the road warriors" and " "a long way from the rat race" which explain that employees have less travelling, fewer late hours and a long way from the rat race but they are out of sight out of mind, which is a psychological impact, they can miss career opportunities, contact with their ;fellow colleague and they are lack of creativity. We read a text from internet from "36 commuting solutions" which explains that employers are beneficial to recruitment and retention, reduced health-care costs. Employees have a flexible schedule and telecommuting improves employees morale. Telecommuting reduces peak-hour congestion. We hear an interview to the executive of Yahoo which explains that employees work in 5 to 7 hours in time a week and that it is saving money and for employees there is less stress. But we read a text called "telecommuting-does it suit everyone?" where someone explain that she regrets to telecommute because she has trouble focusing.

To conclude, telecommuting got many advantages and drawbacks but we can say that economically, the state could save lots of money and employees could work more and fastly at home but not for everyone. It depends on the person.

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