Many telecommuters like to come into the office occasionally to get a little bit of ‘face-time’ with their peers. But if you go into the office only to find your peers are all working from home that day, it can be a frustrating experience.

Companies that make it possible for many of their employees to telecommute are providing a great benefit to those employees, and also achieving the huge gains that I have written about in previous articles. However, when you find yourself in a team where more of your co-workers are working at home than at the office, it can be hard to find opportunities to get the face-time you’re looking for.

In a very diverse team where there are people working from home, or scattered geographically in different parts of the country or world, there will always be a few people who, for whatever reason, prefer to work in the office than at home. However, when these people come in day after day and find themselves sitting in a sea of empty cubicles, even these die-hard office workers will eventually throw their hands up and join the ranks of the telecommuter.

However, these are the people you count on seeing on the few days you are organized enough to get showered and dressed first thing in the morning (as opposed to at 3pm), fight the commute, and get yourself into the office for some face-time. Eventually you find that even the few people left have stopped coming in and now you’re the one sitting in that sea of empty cubicles.

This can be very frustrating as there truly is benefit to getting occasional direct contact with your team members. It helps strengthen relationships, provides opportunities to discuss work-related topics in a more spur-of-the-moment style, and provides you some social interaction to break up the days of sitting alone in your home office. Don’t get me wrong, there are ways to overcome all these issues – but if you have the opportunity to meet with your team in person now and then, it’s one valuable tool.

A simple way to solve this situation is just a little coordination. Raise the topic in your team meeting if your boss approves. Or just send out an email to your coworkers. Work with your team to pick one or two days per week that people will focus on coming into the office. That doesn’t mean everyone has to come in on the agreed-upon day(s). But rather, if you’re going to try to come in, that these days will be the ones you’ll aim for.

Another option if you only have a few local people on your team is to just coordinate on a weekly basis with them. For instance, each Friday you could exchange email with those folks and ask how their schedule is looking and which days the following week they think they’ll be coming in.

While telecommuting can be a huge boon, a cost and time saver, and a way to balance your personal and work demands, a little face-time can go a long way. So when you do plan to go into the office, make sure there are people there to make your trip worthwhile!

Technorati Tags: telecommuting advice, telecommute, remote work, virtual presence, telework, work from home, work at home

The ever-increasing wonders of technology allow us to do some amazing stuff today that no-one would have guessed 10, or even 5, years ago. Technology now helps us in ways that allow us to blur the lines even more between our personal and professional lives. While some people cringe at the idea that work intrudes even further into our personal lives, the same technology also allows for some movement in the opposite direction too – in small ways that can improve our lives significantly!

Yesterday I had to take my minivan in for a minor service. My husband and I both worked from home that day. We scheduled the service for around lunch time.

When it was time to go we both packed up our laptops, hopped in our cars, and met at the service station. We left the minivan, got in our other car, and drove to the nearby downtown area. My husband then pulled out his iPhone and did a search on locations nearby that had free wireless access. After a few moments of tapping on his handheld screen, he found a café/deli and off we went.

We found it quite easily. It was a nice little restaurant, offering sandwiches, salads, coffees, etc. And, of course, the ever-important free wireless access. Since the weather was pleasant we ordered lunch and then grabbed a table outside. Out came our laptops, we got our wireless access working without any effort and then both of us accessed our VPNs to get onto the internal networks of our respective companies. I had all the same access as if I were at home or, for that matter, in the office. We were well into our work when our sandwiches arrived.

We were able to work while we ate, occasionally stopping to exchange a friendly comment with each other (or rather, commiserate over some frustrating corporate politics we were facing). The hour and a half passed by in a productive, yet very pleasant manner.

Before we knew it my husband’s phone was ringing – the minivan was ready. I was almost disappointed to leave the sunny, outdoor seating we had. We packed up, picked up the minivan, and headed home.

Although we’d been gone from the house for over 2 hours, we’d managed to get quite a bit of work done during that time. We’d been online to respond to coworkers’ emails and IMs. We’d completed an important errand so that the following weekend could be spent in quality time with our kids instead of having to schlep them to the service station. Oh, and don’t forget the ever-important fact that we’d both done far less driving that day than if we’d gone into the office – saving gas and helping the environment.

Wow – that’s a win-win-win-win-…uh…-win (did I get the number right?) situation! Now I bet you can’t do THAT without leaving the office!

Think about what kinds of things you could get done while still working productively, if you had more flexibility over where you work. Telecommuting even once or twice per week can make a huge difference in today’s hectic lifestyles.

Technorati Tags: telecommuting advice, telecommute, remote worker, work from home, work at home moms

There are right ways and wrong ways to run a meeting that has virtual participants and yesterday I had the privilege of seeing it done right!

Yesterday I went to an all-day face-to-face meeting with a team in my organization. There were about 15 people attending in person and 3 attending by phone. Usually when I attend these kinds of meetings, the people on the phone are on their own. Sure, there’s a polycom speaker and the presenter is sharing his/her screen so the virtual attendees can see the slides. But that’s it. No attention is paid to whether the attendees can here the whole conversation - especially when people in the back of the room, furthest from the mic, are speaking. There is no concern over whether the virtual attendees can hear, can keep up, or can even tell who is speaking.

But this was quite different. Tony, the person leading the meeting and doing most of the presentation, really cared about the folks on the phone. He constantly asked them if they could hear. When someone who wasn’t near the mic was talking he’d either hand them the polycom or, if they were too far, he’d quickly summarize what they said when they finished – speaking quietly into the phone. He also took copious notes on his computer, while sharing his screen – summarizing what each person said.

But it wasn’t all just what Tony did. Apparently the whole team had a culture of taking care of their virtual team members. Someone had brought a small webcam and either she or someone near her always made sure the web cam was pointing at the current speaker, turning the webcam, balancing it on a Kleenex box or water bottle to get it up high enough if need be. They made sure if someone got up and wrote on the whiteboard, that the webcam took that in too.

The whole effort of the team was quite amazing. This is a team I haven’t interacted with very much before, so I don’t know if this was just a fluke – perhaps driven by Tony who seemed to make the most effort. Or perhaps this is how the team always behaves. But regardless, I was very impressed.

So if you’re a telecommuter or remote worker who can’t make it into the office for face-to-face meetings because you live too far away, consider yourself very lucky if you work in a team like this one. If your team is not quite so conscientious, perhaps you can recruit a few friends to take this approach for you and see if they can spread the attitude to the rest of the team.

Most importantly, when you are attending a meeting in person and there are other virtual attendees, make it your business (as much as you can) to be the Tony in the room and take care of those virtual attendees!

Technorati Tags: telecommuting advice, telecommute, remote work, virtual presence, telework, virtual teams, remote teams

I’m going on vacation tomorrow - and I won’t be bringing my laptop!

That’s such a freeing thing to say. The problem with all this great technology that allows us to work from home so easily is that it allows us to work from home so easily. We duck into the office to check work emails right before we go to bed, or here and there on the weekend. And we see something important so we just “spend 5 minutes” taking care of it. Which becomes 10 minutes, etc.

If you’re really unlucky, your coworker in another part of the world will see your IM go active when you check your email and start to chat with you when you really want to go to bed. I got caught once by a local coworker who was on pager duty and there was a problem with my service. Of course, as soon as he saw me, he pounced on me and then I was on the phone for the next 1/2 hour.

Anyway, enough complaining. I sometimes fail to follow my own advice from my book (shameless plug here - sign up on the right side of this page to get on my mailing list and get access to my book) about shutting down my laptop when I’m done with my workday.

But the nice thing about going on vacation - an actual trip - is that I’m not going to schlep my laptop with me so I *won’t* be able to check email whether I want to or not.

Uh-oh. My teammate just signed me up to get a PDA for work that will allow me to check email, etc - as I have to test some compatibility for my own services on the PDA. Thank goodness it won’t arrive until after I leave for my trip!!!

Technorati Tags: telecommuting advice, telecommute, work at home, work from home moms, vacations

Halloween is a perfect example of when the ability to telecommute helps a parent maintain work/life balance.

I have 2 small children in daycare. Telecommuting today allowed me to stop working at 10:30, be at the daycare for the halloween costume parade at 10:45, and be back home again by about 11:15. Not much time away from work, but being there was important for my kids and I have some photos that I’ll cherish forever.

If I’d had to drive back and forth to work today, I’d have either had to miss a *lot* more work, or miss the parade itself.

I was talking to another dad at the parade who told me he was “working from home” today. He did the air-quotes with his fingers, implying he wasn’t really working at all. I don’t understand this. Why do people think that the occasional telecommuting is an excuse to not work? It gives telecommuting a bad name and makes people think in general that if you’re telecommuting you’re not getting work done.

I think this is, in part, a corporate culture thing. For instance, I have a number of co-workers at my company who worked from home today with the full intention of ducking out to be involved in their kids’ school activities… and to leave work a bit early to get started on trick-or-treating before dark. But these people did work the majority of the day. I’ve been on phone meetings with them, so I know. Perhaps it just depends which company you work for and what your peers do?

So don’t be a sheep! If you tell your boss you’re “working from home” today, please do get your work done. Otherwise if you ever want to start telecommuting more frequently you may be surprised when your boss says no!

Technorati Tags: telecommuting advice, work from home moms, telecommute, telecommuter

When gas prices went sky-high, a lot of people started telecommuting to save money. But now gas prices have started to drop, will more people start driving to work again? And what will that do to the environment?

Come on, you must have noticed. When prices went up there was just less traffic on the road… less crowding on the freeways. Even during rush hour the drive home (on the days you drove in) just wasn’t so bad. The hit to people’s wallet was enough to make people change their behaviors.

This was great for the environment. We all know that exchanging your old-fashioned light-bulbs with electric light-bulbs, or even driving a Prius, just reduces the energy you consume. But telecommuting, and other methods to actually avoid driving your car, are by far the absolute biggest ways for an individual to really help the environment.

But then the gas prices started to drop. Now, I’m hoping some people were so thrilled by the joys of telecommuting that they kept it up regardless. But I know that some people saw the costs go down and hopped right back on the freeway again. And I think this is a real shame. Although we all intellectually understand the dangers of global warming (I hope), and have the best of intentions to do our bit for the environment, the reality is, it can be hard to do the right thing.

But money is a much bigger motivator. When it hits our personal budget, we’ll do much more, go much further, make much greater sacrifices to save a few dollars. When these changes we make benefit the environment, all the better.

So now I’m going to say something that may shock or bother many of you.

I actually hope gas prices go up again. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t like the high prices any more than the next guy. I have 2 small children along with the pre-requisite mini-van and I’ll tell you that filling that beast up at the pumps can cost me an arm and a leg when prices are high. But I know when prices are up, more people are taking actions that are good for the environment.

So if you were telecommuting when prices were up, don’t stop when they go down. If you found some inconveniences to telecommuting or some aspects of your work or interactions with your boss and co-workers were a bit more challenging, there’s many ways to overcome these. Take a few minutes to do a little research – you’ll find plenty of tips and tools out there to help you. Make the effort and keep telecommuting. It’s good for your wallet, and it’s good for the environment!

Trying to convince your company to  let you telecommute, but having a hard time because you work for a small company that hasn’t figured out the technical details yet?

Small businesses don’t have the army of IT folks to figure out how to create a VPN (Virtual Private Network) and support a remote access software solution. These details can be complicated and need to be done right - to protect the company from potential security threats. So it may be easier for your company to just say ‘no’ than to do the extra work. It’s not that they don’t want to support your work/life balance, or the environment, or save their own money by having you work from home. It’s just that it’s too complicated.

But if you read my last blog post, I found an article that describes some alternatives to make the external access a bit easier. So try taking this article to your head of IT and see if he can use the information to come up with a solution. Once you get past that hurdle, perhaps your boss will be more open to the telecommuting conversation.

Technorati Tags: telecommuting advice, telecommute, work from home, work at home moms

Apparently there are many people who want to telecommute but are afraid of losing the opportunity for promotions if they do. But if you know the right methods and techniques to maintain your visibility, you can benefit from all the advantages of telecommuting without worry about any downsides.

An interesting article in US News and World Report comments on a survey by Steelcase that although half of office workers are able to telecommute, less than a third do for fear that their manager wants them in the office and they need to be there to be noticed.

There are many techniques that will help keep you in your boss’s virtual line of sight. Schedule more frequent 1-on-1 meetings with him, by phone. Send him a weekly status update by email. Do the same with your key co-workers too. Simple actions like this can combat the out-of-sight-out-of-mind phenomenon. If you’re really concerned, try telecommuting just 1 day/week first, then increase it as you feel more confident.

Read my other blog posts for many more helpful suggestions!

Technorati Tags: telecommuting advice, telecommute, work from home, work at home moms

As if there aren’t enough challenges to a successful telecommuting experience, here’s another one to worry about!

I just read an article in the New York Times today about how Time Warner Cable is experimenting in some towns with limits on their internet service.

I’d heard buzz about this before but this is the first time I’ve come across it in practice. The idea is that most people only use a limited amount of bandwidth on their internet but there’s a few users who are network hogs and use huge amount of bandwidth for downloading videos, movies, etc. Rather than making everyone pay the same, the idea is if you want to go over the limit your ISP (Internet Service Provider) sets, you pay extra.

In principle, I understand the approach of paying more if you use more. However this may be yet another roadblock for telecommuters. As telecommuters, we are likely to be heavy internet users because we’re very actively working all day, transferring large files, etc. So now we may have increased internet access rates to look forward to in the future.

But hang in there. It’s not over until the fat lady sings. ISPs are just starting to play with this model, so it will probably be some time until they go mainstream with it. And even then, this may hit your employer’s pocket and not yours if you’re lucky enough to work for a company that pays for, or reimburses you for, your ISP charges.

Technorati Tags: telecommuting, telecommute, work from home, work at home moms

When you telecommute, you are very reliant on your technology. Your laptop and phone are your lifeline to getting your job done. So what happens when the lights - and the rest of your power - go out?

When you’re in the office, chances are they have backup generators. But I, for one, don’t have one of these lying around in my house. If I lose power, I can work on my laptop until the battery gives up. But that’s it.

And what about phone meetings? If all you have are electric phones - cordless phones - you’re in trouble. Thanks to an article in Information Week, where the author suggests keeping an old-fashioned corded phone around the house for just such an emergency. Wow - sometimes old-fashioned low-tech beats high-tech!

A few more suggestions are:

• Keep your laptop plugged in when you work at home - so your battery is always fully charged.
• Keep a spare laptop battery that you can swap out if needed - and keep that plugged in and fully charged.
• Keep a written/printed list of your co-workers’ phone #s - so you can reach them by phone even if your laptop battery is dead.

Any other ideas? Please post a comment and add them for other readers!

Technorati Tags: telecommute, telecommuting, work from home, work at home moms