Who's Footing The Bill? (the financial side of telework)

While you might think this issue is not pertinent to your firm - think again. If you're not offering telework now, you probably will be sometime soon - especially if your business is located in the United States, Canada or Europe. According to Tim Kane, President of the International Telework Association and Council (ITAC) and President and founder of the Kinetic Workplace, Inc., telework will be standard workplace practice in the United States by the year 2005. At present, nearly 20 million US workers, 1.5 million Canadians and 10 million employees of European firms telecommute at least part of their workweek. Even countries as remote as Bulgaria, Latvia, Luxembourg and Moldova offer their own telework associations to study, promote and help implement this innovative work option. One question that arises often when firms begin to offer telework is "Who foots the bill - who buys the computer, the desk, and the fax; who picks up the tab for the second phone line, the Internet connection, etc.?" The answer? Well...maybe the employer, maybe the employee, maybe a little of each. Not a very clear response as yet, partly because so many telework options seem to grow informally at the request of the employees themselves. Needing to follow a trailing spouse, or tired of making the lengthy, costly commute each day, or even temporarily disabled, employees become teleworkers, introducing the option to their firm, unplanned, for the first time. Hazardous situations such as earthquake or blizzard, and the United States' September 11th tragedy have also made temporary teleworkers of thousands, and the purchasing decisions just happen. When employees want to telework, the worker often approaches the employer with the offer of at-home hardware already in place, taking much of the purchase decision out of the hands of the manager and the firm. In response to disaster, the employer, the one with the 'deeper pocket', seems to foot the bill in most cases. Let's hear what one expert has to say. Again we turn to Tim Kane, President of ITAC. His recommendation? Well for his own Kinetic Workplace employees, all of who work at home, he provides laptops, and it is his recommendation that employers do so. He emphasizes the security aspect: "We highly encourage our client firms to have their employees laptop-enabled as opposed to a PC, so they don't have the issue of personal 'stuff' on the hard drive. If they must have a PC we recommend the employer pay for it. If the employee is terminated they have the right to recoup their business info instead of worrying about the company information remaining on the employee's home equipment.

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