Telecommuting Center - What an awesome concept

Would you like to hunt? Fish? Telecommute? I just think these
telecommuting centers are an awesome idea. How many people are
sick of living in the big cities and would rather live out in
the country and still get paid the big bucks for doing their
jobs and going to work with a smile on their faces each and
every day. To not have to live with the daily stresses of
commuting. What a pleasure it would be to work for a company
who offered that kind of lifestyle. Can you say "best of both
worlds"? I can. I live it every day, but in the comfort of
my own home.

I guess it's time for a case study maybe. Where would I start?
The community in which I live needs more employment opportunities.
Hmmm... who would I pitch this to? That is the million dollar
question. Maybe the county commissioners. Uh oh, the wheels are
turning. :-)

This article inspired me to dream big for McKean County:

A new name: Teleworking

A law firm, corrections department and manufacturing company are among 13 Atlanta employers to take part in a unique telework initiative that offered free consulting services and even reimbursed employers for certain funds spent getting their telework programs off the ground.

This is wonderful. I'm so glad to see more and more of this happening. Way to go Hotlanta!! I can't stress how wonderful this is for America's workers. Thank you Bill Gates!!

Among the program findings:

Teleworking improves morale . Almost 90% of teleworkers reported improved morale because of teleworking, and 80% of managers agreed that staff morale was up as a result of teleworking. More than 65% of teleworkers said they're less likely to look for another job as long as they can telework, and more than 45% of managers said that teleworking gives the employer a competitive edge.
Productivity doesn't suffer. More than 80% of workers reported no problems completing their work while teleworking, and 74% reported an increase in their productivity. On the managers' side, 85% reported that productivity increased (by an average of about 20%) or stayed the same. In addition, 91% of managers said that work quality was not hurt by teleworking, and 52% of managers said supervising teleworkers took no more time than supervising non-teleworkers.
Technology is key . Participating companies invested or improved their computer technology, remote access and telephone systems. Companies with good remote access options found it easy to telecommute more often, according to Clean Air Campaign.
Execution matters . Among the lessons participating companies learned is that telework training for employees and managers makes a difference, as does selecting the right employees for teleworking and having solid management approval. Formalizing existing programs lets organizations increase participation, the group says.
Perhaps the most telling finding is that all 13 participants plan to continue and expand their telework programs. Each manager, on average, plans to allow four more employees to telework. At current levels, these teleworkers will reduce more than 10 million vehicle miles from metropolitan Atlanta roads each year, Clean Air Campaign estimates.

Read the article:

Telecommuting - It's a win win for the Employer

Statistics show that telecommuting is on the rise. Read a few comments
from others who already have the luxury of telecommuting and what their
companies have to say about their employees. It certainly makes for a
much happier working environment not to mention, happier employees who
are willing to dedicate their employment to just one company.

Read the article:

Virtual Assistant is Becoming a Popular Home Business Opportunity

With gas prices rising, many displaced from their jobs, and more and more businesses downsizing, comes the need for finding an alternative way to make a good income. Now more than ever, families are seeing the need for two incomes. One Industry that is increasing in popularly today, being rated one of the top 5 home-based businesses for 2005 by Entrepreneur Magazine last year, is virtual assisting. Becoming a VA allows you to work from anywhere in the world and requires little in the way of start-up costs or fees. The main requirement is the ability to type well and a good understanding of the Internet.

By definition, a Virtual Assistant or VA, is a highly skilled professional who provides administrative support and other specialized services to businesses, entrepreneurs, authors, online businesses, executives, sales professionals and others who have more work to do than time to do it. Many VA's also provide web design and maintenance, publicity and marketing, desktop publishing, word processing, and business start-up consultations. The services are endless depending upon the VA’s knowledge, skills and creativity.

Virtual assistants are instrumental in helping businesses with their marketing, capability to run their offices getting more work accomplished, and also they have a solid understanding of the latest tools to make a business succeed. One example is blogging. We all know that it is essential for a business to have a blog today to succeed, yet many businesses don’t have the time to create and maintain a blog. A good virtual assistant will handle that for you and more.

"What started out in the 80’s as home-based word processors has grown into what we are seeing today," says Diana Ennen, President of Virtual Word Publishing. "Plus more and more clients are realizing the need to outsource their work and let a professional virtual assistant do it, so they can focus on that they do best, running their business.”

Ennen, along with co-author Kelly Poelker have written, "Virtual Assistant ~ the Series, Become a Highly Successful, Sought After VA It has the endorsement of work-at-home experts Priscilla Huff and the Mompreneurs® as well as a number of others and has helped thousands over the years start their own thriving business. Virtual Assistant The Series is also the primary textbook for the Red Deer College-Canada VA Certification Program in Canada, Owens College, and several other large colleges, and is required reading for students of "Virtual Assistance U" -- an online training center for virtual professionals.

source:

High gas prices fuel options for getting to work

Telecommuting is the best thing which ever happened to me. I will
continue to work for my same company as long as we're in business.
Being a single mother, it allows me to be around my son more and
still do well on my job. I do put more hours in, than my co-workers,
because they are needing to go home and spend time with their families
while, the rush hour and babysitting necessities are simply not of a
concern.

Happy work force: Some employers help with transit costs; others allow
telecommuting for some jobs. At one company, Draper, 50 of the
company's 600 employees telecommute, taking calls from home as
customer service agents. Most of the telecommuters are mothers
and enjoy being home with their kids in addition to saving money
at the pump.

"We find that the people who telecommute usually stay
with the organization longer, have a lot more satisfaction and they
get to work in their pajamas - that's always a bonus," says Seth
Picket, who works in human resources at 1-800 CONTACTS.

Alexis Evers manages the company's telecommuters from her home.
Before she started telecommuting, she spent $40 on gas every week.
She estimates that not driving to work has cut her gas costs by
two-thirds. "I find that I'm able to get more done just because
I don't have all of the other distractions" that were in the
office, Evers says.

Employers who allow employees to work from home can expect
productivity gains of 10 to 20 percent, says Pat Katepoo, founder
of Hawaii-based WorkSolutions.com, which helps people negotiate
flexible work arrangements.

"Now that gas is going up so dramatically, I'm seeing a spike in
[interest in] telecommuting," Katepoo says. People are wondering,
"Why am I driving to a desk to do the same things I can do at a
desk in the next room?"

Read the full article:

Good reference for working from home

The value of this site speaks for itself.

Wanted to share my find.

Future computers being modified

to accomodate future telecommuters from more corporations.

I think this is an awesome idea and will allow more corporations to let their employees work from home. This is such a productive and good idea they're coming up with. Hewlitt Packard and Dell are in the process of designing a new computer which will accomodate corporations and restrict the amount of information on these personal PC's.

Computer makers like Hewlett-Packard and Dell said Thursday they’re paying close attention to their easy-to-tote laptop lines after a study forecast the number employees around the world who telecommute will increase nearly 36 percent by 2008 compared with last year.

The number of employees globally who telework at least one day a week is expected to rise 35.5 percent to 41.39 million, compared to 30.54 million in 2004, the Gartner study said. That would represent a 322 percent jump from the 9.8 million employees who telecommuted in 1998.

You should check out the article here

Benefits of allowing my employee telecommute?

Telecommuting has been a win-win for both my company and most
importantly myself and my son. I find that I put in longer
hours than when I worked in the standard office and believe
me when I say, I am at my desk for the designated hours and
take my lunch when I'm supposed to. You discipline yourself
to stay with the rules of the office, because you need that
paycheck. You can't afford NOT to do it right.

1-800-flowers

For Barbara, another day at the "office" means a few hours in an upstairs bedroom at home. She's an employee of 1-800-Flowers, but never leaves home. She does it all online.

"It's perfect," she says. "You can stand here and iron as calls come in. You just turn around and get right back to the computer." And Barbara says her start-up costs were minimal. "You need the computer set-up and you either need two phone lines or one phone line and DSL."

The rest is whatever she makes it. "I play with scrapbook stuff and you name it. You can sit here and work on laundry--and get paid for it," she says laughing.

This sounds interesting. Source:

I want to run my own FM radio station

where I live. There are NO hip hop radio stations around here at all. I wonder what it would take to start one.

Helping hurricane survivors get new jobs.

Katrina victims being offered the opportunity to telecommute. This employment firm is also offering free job advertising, searching for victims who might be in need of work as a way to help out. I think this is a fabulous idea.

Read the article here:

Southern Maryland Telecommuting Centers

I simply can not express how wonderful this is that more and more of these telecommuting centers are cropping up all over the place. It just makes for such a peaceful work environment, to not be harried by the stress of setting in traffic. Thank goodness for the internet.

Be sure to check out the Southern Maryland Telecommuting Center and what it has to offer for your employees. Trust me, they will be much more productive and happier.

Read about the center here:

Some Americans trading in cities for towns

By MICHAEL J. MARTINEZ
AP BUSINESS WRITER

NEW YORK -- Living in Queens and riding a crammed subway into Manhattan each day for work, Luis Rivera and Beth Gissinger-Rivera personified New Yorkers' resigned acceptance to the hassles and travails of life in one of the world's biggest cities.

But the more Rivera, 34 and a native New Yorker, visited his then-fiancee's family in small-town Massachusetts, the more he started questioning why he was putting up with the expense, the crowds and the overall irritation of daily life in the Big Apple.

"I gotta tell you, I just fell in love with how easy everything is out here," Rivera said, speaking from the outdoor deck of his home in Fairhaven, Mass. "Growing up, I thought New York was how the rest of the world lived. But everything just seemed to be so much easier out here."


Read the rest of the article here:

Labor Day and stay at home working Mom's

For stay-at-home moms, it is recognition that the job they do is valued -- and valuable. An analysis conducted by www.salary.com estimated that the average stay-at-home mom would earn $131,471 annually, including overtime, if she were compensated for her time and work. The calculation assumed a 100-hour workweek, which is six 15-hour days and one 10-hour day. Sounds about right, if you are at home with the little ones!

Women choose to stay at home with their children for a variety of reasons, many of which are far more rewarding than a paycheck (no matter how big). It's not being owed anything; rather, it's recognizing hard work that's done from the heart (and just as valuable as work that contributes to the economy!).

For the complete story:

I want to telecommute.

Is it common for companies to allow their workers to work from home?

A study shows 24% of all regional workers telecommute.

Read the article:

High Gas Prices Prompting You To Telecommute?

Are high gas prices prompting you to "telecommute" from home? Are you able to connect to your job from your home computer and work at your house or apartment rather than driving into your office? I have been doing this for years and even though I might set here in my jammies, I work longer hours than I did when I worked in the office setting.

Working Solutions

This company was introduced on a Dr. Phil show and I'm curious to know how they are doing today. I had tried to apply with them, to supplement my income, but unfortunately, where I live, I currently do not have access to broadband. Someday, I will have this be an opportunity for myself.

See their corporate website:

New MLM (multi-level marketing) - Beware

Is this like Amway? I'm always looking for ways to make money from
home and after doing some investigation on it, I found out that it
was another MLM. UGH!!

This is how they attract you:

1. www.nomomleftbehind.com - On the surface, this appears as though
they are a support group for people burned by MLM.

After digging deeper because I had more questions.....

I went to THEIR submission page and when I submitted
my note, a THANK YOU came up to join another MLM and notified me I'd
be getting a mail or call in the next 24 hrs! WHOA jack!! So I
wrote the owners to ask them what this was about. They wrote me
back and said they "fixed the submission page" - HOWEVER, this site
is the FRONT to the real "company" which is a new
MLM set up by these people who lost their MLM status w/Melaleuca (sp?)
all of a sudden.

So, they've set up this new site: www.SmartMomsTeam.com (which is
the invitation to the MLM.)

I wrote back and said thanks but no thanks.

SO, BEWARE if they email you praising our site and you go to the
no mom left behind site. They have some GREAT information on there,
but I see it as a front to just another MLM. boo hiss!!