Well folks, I have some really exciting news to announce. My Telecommuting Expert career is taking a big step forward. I am now a paid article writer for a telecommuting website!

Small Business Resources (SBR) is building a website full of useful information for telecommuters, which it offers for private label to its major clients (for example, telecommunications companies). They have asked yours truly to be their featured expert. I will provide articles and tips twice monthly for the site.

This will of course be great visibility for me and is a huge step forward in my journey of helping others succeed in their own telecommuting careers! And of course, it provides extra incentive for me to keep writing useful, info-packed articles on a regular basis, which benefits you, my loyal readers too as I will be posting those same articles to my blog. So keep an eye out here for more articles just like the great ones you’re used to reading.

Here’s some more info about SBR:

Small Business Resources (SBR)  is a boutique marketing company assisting Fortune companies and leading brands with customized programs for acquisition, retention and enhanced customer loyalty. Through its hands on approach, SBR has built a marquee roster of clients in the small business and consumer marketplace. SBR’s clients include major banking and telecommunications companies. SBR’s customized programs include Business Resource Centers, Moving Centers, Women in Business Resources, Retirement Centers and Home Office Resource Centers.

Technorati Tags: telecommute careers, telecommuting, remote work, telework, work from home, work at home, work from home mom

When you’re telecommuting, self-discipline is key. Think about it. You’re sitting down at your desk to start work on that important project that’s been hanging over you for a while. But first, you’re just going to check email to see if there’s anything urgent that you need to work on. Nothing urgent, but there is an email where it would be best to get a response out sooner than later, so you can get it off your plate and focus on getting started on your project. And while you’re working up a reply to that message, you get a phone call from one of your co-workers who needs to discuss an important aspect of the new code that’s going into the release cycle tomorrow. And after that you look at the time and realize you have a meeting in 20 minutes. No point starting on your project now – better to find some other small tasks to complete and you’ll get started after the meeting.

Does this sound familiar? We’re all capable of procrastinating, especially when we’ve got a big task looming over us. And all those examples I gave apply no matter where you’re working – even if you are in the office.

So what’s different for telecommuters? Well, when you’re in the office, there’s only so many emails, phone calls, and meetings you can hide behind. Eventually you realize you do really need to get to work. But at home there are even more distractions. Hmm – I need a break from my desk. I’m going to get up and throw in a load of laundry – it will be good for me to move around for 5 minutes. And now I notice it, the kitchen is a mess. Let me just wash a few dishes before I get back to work so the place won’t be so messy for dinner tonight. You know, now I’m in the kitchen, I’m feeling hungry. I’m going to pull out a snack – it’s still hours until dinnertime. And while I’m eating, I’m going to read just a couple pages in that great new book I’ve started.

Well if you’re really trying to avoid getting started on that new project, a few pages in that great book can turn into a few chapters! And even if you’re not avoiding your work, if the book is good enough, you may still get sucked in for much more time than you intended. At the corporate office, it’s much harder to sit and read a book for longer than the time it takes you to eat your lunch or your snack. You’re very conscious that people are walking by you – probably eyeballing you and questioning why you’re not working. Even if you have been putting in really long hours lately and deserve to take a nice long break, you’re not going to be so visible about it because you know others don’t know how long you’ve been working lately and you don’t want to be judged.

At home, you are really your own gatekeeper. You have to be self-disciplined and not let the household chores (or the household TV) call to you too loudly. That, of course, is not to say you can’t do anything around the house when you’re working at home. I’m a strong believer that just like in the corporate office when you take breaks to go to the gym, or chit-chat with your buddies, at home you’re allowed to take breaks and do household chores if that’s how you want to spend your time. But you do have to keep an eye on that time yourself. And for some people (myself included) I can be quite disciplined about most activities, but when I’ve got a really good book I do have trouble putting it down when I’m finished with my lunch and I struggle with the eternal “let me just read a couple more pages” battle!

So consider your own levels of self-discipline when you work from home. Use a timer when you take a break to do some chores around the house. And if you have a really good book, maybe you need to leave it safely closed away in the drawer of your nightstand and don’t take it out until the evening, after you work is over!

Technorati Tags: telecommute careers, telecommuting, remote work, telework, work from home, work at home, work from home mom

For those of you who like numbers, I came across an interesting statistical analysis of telecommuting trends in the IT Support space. The article is courtesy of HDI, an IT service and support membership association.

The focus of the article is on call support analysts. According to a survey of their members, 34% of IT support centers have analysts who telecommute at least once/week and 17%  of IT support centers have analysts who telecommute full-time.

This is encouraging news for those folks who may be looking for jobs where they can telecommute. Customer support centers (be it for IT or other areas) definitely seem to be leading the way for non-local work locations. While I often see these jobs (especially in IT) farmed out to low-cost off-shore locations such as parts of Asia, it’s nice to see that a “local” can still get a job in this space and work from home.

In fact, I have read about some companies that have tried to move their support centers to other countries but found that due to the cultural and language differences, their customers had increased satisfaction dealing with people from their own countries. Thus we may be seeing a trend of the jobs coming back to their companies’ home countries and when you’ve already got all the technology for remote work, it’s a no-brainer to allow telecommuting.

The article is a quick read and goes on to provide some other stats about office attitudes toward telecommuting in this space, what services companies are paying for when their telecommuters work at home, etc. Worth a look if you’re interested in the IT Support world.

Technorati Tags: telecommute, remote work, telework, work from home, work at home, work from home mom

We all know that telecommuters get less “face time” with their co-workers, but some get none at all. If you’re a full-time telecommuter, perhaps living too far away to commute by car, you may only see your co-workers when you get on a plane and fly out for an on-site meeting. Or if you’re in a company where there are offices in different parts of the country (or even different countries altogether), regardless of how often you come in, you may have close co-workers who you’ve never seen at all.

Sure, you can build a relationship through phone calls and emails. I’ve had plenty of close working relationships with people I had never met in person. Heck, I even had a boss once who I didn’t meet face-to-face for nearly two years! Email is an effective medium for getting basic work done and during phone calls you can normally even fit in opportunities to get to know each other a little. You can find out if your coworker is married, has kids, learn what his or her hobbies are, etc. And this kind of personal knowledge can help you bond in areas of common interest, and can enhance your working relationship. As we get to know each other personally, we have more trust in each other, are more willing to go above and beyond to help the other person out, learn where we can rely on each other, etc.

So I’ve found that I can get to know people quite well and have a great relationship with them, without having any idea of what they look like. But then one day I’ll stumble across a co-worker’s picture on LinkedIn or they’ll send out a picture from a team off-site meeting that they were in, and I’ll do a double-take. “Wow, Bob, that’s not how I pictured you!” To which the response is invariably “Oh? How did you picture me?”

My answer is that I didn’t even realize I was doing it, but somehow I had formed some kind of mental image to fill the gap. For some reason it seems that human nature drives us to try to visually picture this person with whom we’ve suffered through stressful or difficult work experiences, commiserated on disappointments, and shared our successes. I don’t even realize I’m doing it at the time, but somehow I put a vague, imaginary face to the voice. My guess is it’s a confused amalgamation of all the people I’ve known in my life with the same name, voice, and/or personality as my faceless co-worker.

Afterwards, it somehow feels more “right” when I call up Bob for my weekly phone meeting with him, to have a voice to put with the name. I feel almost closer to Bob, and our working relationship becomes that much stronger.

So lately when I work with someone for a while but never have a chance to meet them live, I’ve started looking for opportunities to send them a picture of myself. In fact, I send them the address to my family website which is full of pictures of my kids too (any chance to brag about my children is, of course, taken). I figure if one picture is good, many is better! And they typically reciprocate with at least a picture or two.

Give it a try. You can even try looking for opportunities to send a picture to the folks you find challenging to work with. Perhaps getting them to see you as a real human being with a real face will make them realize that you have your own set of challenges in your job and are just trying to do the best job you can under difficult circumstances like they are. Hey, if a little humanity and familiarity helps make your job easier, why not?!

Technorati Tags: telecommute, remote work, telework, work from home, work at home, work from home mom