Telecommuting has many benefits for both employer and employee, and traffic on the first Friday of SXSW was pretty decent. This needs to be a serious option everywhere, not just in Austin. The people who make jokes about it are only holding us back, just like the people that fought Austin's growth for decades.
Seriously. It's the 21st century.
Unless you're running a storefront business, there's no need to be tied to an office...or to an office schedule. I work in an international business, but even in the US there's still 4 time zones. Why do we all have to be here at 8 (ish) and leave at 5? My firm tracks hours worked and we fill out a time sheet every week; as long as I put in the hours
and get my shit done (which takes more than standard hours usually), why do they care when or where I am working?
We have video conferencing on every computer. We make our calls over the interwebs. I can connect from anywhere with a wifi connection. Many of my clients are in different time zones. Many of my insurance carriers are on different continents. Our executives are always traveling and our salespeople are rarely in the office (nor should they be) yet we all have offices that lay empty much of the time. When we have meetings, half the people are dialing in from remote. We only really get together when we go and see a client - and that's always on their turf, never ours. So why do we need fancy conference rooms?
Take people out of the office
schedule, and rush hour will be much alleviated.
EOR.
