If you read the Third Wave by Alvin Toffler it predicted in the 1980’s that we would all have computers in our homes and people would be working from home with full connectivity to their offices. When I first read it I could not imagine the painful process of using a modem to do business all day. Yet now we have internet companies investing in fiber optic home connectivity.
So why do so many IT shops and Billing Departments still need to have their employees within arms reach? They work in cubes, tethered to a PC and come out of the confines of the fabric barriers only to retrieve a print job or heat up a snack. Communication with the person in the next cube is made primarily via e-mail. Firewalls, VPN’s, and network security technology now exists to make remote connectivity a very basic process. Yet, we still have a very small percentage of employees taking advantage of existing tele-commuting technology.
Tele-commuting incentives exists with higher energy costs, longer commutes and the cost of fuel. So the question is; why are we not embracing the same technology that we are providing to our customers? Why is this very simple environmental conservation idea not fully embraced?
