Using Telecommuting and Teleworkers

Make your virtual office as productive and profitable as a traditional office
By Linda Formichelli, Freelance Writer You're ready to expand your small business or home business — but not ready to have an employee by your side eight hours per day. Or maybe an employee has a long commute and wants to work from home. Thanks to high-speed Internet and a variety of tools, your virtual office can be just as efficient as a traditional one. Using telecommuters helps you:

1. Find the best employees; after all, you're no longer constrained to your local area.
2. Improve your employees' work-life balance and help them save time and gas money.
3. Reduce absenteeism.
4. Save money on office space and utilities

Find teleworkers

If you don't already have employees looking to work from home, surf the Web to find people in your industry who want to telecommute.
Try:  Job sites for professionals looking for freelance gigs, such as Guru.com and Elance, are a great place to start; often these people will consider part- or full-time teleworking. Also, try industry-specific job sites, such as Tech-Engine.com for IT job seekers and Mediabistro.com for media professionals like PR people and copywriters. Search for other job sites by industry at onrec.com.

Set them up

You may find that your teleworkers are more efficient if you set them up with office furniture, computers, high-speed Internet and other office essentials.
Try:  To keep costs down, search Craigslist for used office furniture. Overstock.com is a deep discount site that offers electronics, furniture and more, and you can buy refurbished computers at RefurbDepot.com. LowerMyBills.com will help you find the cheapest Internet service for your teleworkers. Finally, you could always join Freecycle, a site for people looking to give away — and get — free goodies like furniture.

Encourage collaboration between far-flung workers

While email and instant messaging make it possible for virtual workers to cooperate on projects, they don't go far enough. Holding consistent conference calls and sharing schedules online will bring you closer together.
Try:  Conference calls are available through Free Conference, Free Audio Conferencing, and Powwownow. WiredRed Software, GoToMeeting and MegaMeeting.com all offer both video- and Web conferencing. The most widely used calendar software, for sharing schedules, is Microsoft Outlook's calendar feature. If you and your workers aren't Outlook users, try Web-based HtmlCal or check out a Java-based calendar server from Sun (the latter is geared for companies with 15 or more employees).

Create an Intranet

An Intranet is a private network for your organization. It can include email links for employees, discussion forums and other solutions (like a shared calendar, above) to help your teleworkers communicate and collaborate with one another.
Try:  Companies like WorkZone and HyperOffice offer intranet solutions, or you can create your own; see PCQuest for simple how-to instructions. Bring remote workers together for projects through collaboration software like Basecamp and WebOffice.

Tune in from anywhere

If you and your employees can work from different locations, you need to be able to access all your data no matter where you're located.
Try:  Access Remote PC, LogMeIn and GoToMyPC are just a few of the vendors that allow you to access your information from any computer in the world.

Play by the rules

There's a fine line between having an employee (in which case you pay taxes) and having an independent contractor (in which case you don't). Make sure you know how your teleworkers qualify.
Try:  Visit the IRS site for details on the differences between employees and independent contractors.

• Telecommuting works best for people who work well without a boss looking over their shoulders. Make sure anyone you hire as a teleworker has proven to be self-motivated.
• Security of your business data can be a concern when employees work from computers at home. Have everyone use firewalls, virus protection and other security measures.
• Have your telecommuters come into the office occasionally; face time with other employees helps your teleworkers feel less isolated and more "in the loop."