Workers find convenience,
flexibility in telecommuting

By Sara Norgon
norgonst@uwec.edu

Amy VandenBury is the co-owner of Peninsula Stone Inc. and the mother of three young children.  She works entirely from her home, getting together with the other two co-owners about once every two months. She said that working from home has allowed her to continue working even with a newborn in the house.

“I was able to work and still take care of my baby,” VandenBury said.

Telecommuting, or working from somewhere other than an office, is a growing trend in the United States, with an estimated 45.1 million Americans doing some type of telework this past year.  Marcia Rhodes, manager of public relations at the human resources association WorldatWork, attributes the rise in the number of teleworkers to advances in technology, convenience and increased productivity for companies.

A research group for the International Association of Telework and Council, WorldatWork's telework advisory group, defined telecommuting as working from somewhere other than an office at least one day a month. According to this research, the number of full-time employees who are allowed to telecommute has increased by 30 percent to 9.9 million since 2004.

“We are definitely seeing telecommuting as a growing trend,” Rhodes said.

Jerry Ruff, editorial group manager for Red Brick Learning, a company that publishes educational materials for kindergarten through eighth grade, also chose to telecommute because of his children. The company is based out of Bloomington, Minn., but Ruff lives in La Crosse.  When he first got the job, Ruff said, he and his family moved to Mankato, Minn., but it wasn’t a good move.

“The timing wasn’t right with the kids,” Ruff said.

He told his boss that he was returning to La Crosse and that if there was any way he could continue to work for them, he would. He said his employers were reluctant at first but decided to let him telecommute and are now happy with the results.

“There are trade-offs on both ends, but overall it’s been successful,” he said.

Ruff also said that now that the kids are older, he would be open to the possibility of working from an office again.

“When the kids were young, it was a benefit to have one parent at home,” he said.

Read about telecommuting at the International Telework Association and Council Web site.