Telecommuting has already been defined as being the best solution to the current energy crisis and hopefully the numerous posts on this topic on Bloggy Biz have shown you exactly why this is so. However, there are many people that are not particularly interested in telecommuting at the current moment in time and unfortunately a large number of those people are people that others call their boss. You need to convince your boss that telecommuting is worthwhile.
The only way to do this is to find out exactly why your boss has qualms with telecommuting and then set out to find solutions to those problems that are acceptable to your boss. If your boss is worried about not being able to come out and tell you something to your face, then mention online teleconferencing technology
and also mention that you will get a dedicated phone line for use with the business. If they are worried about productivity, then explain and even show them where you will work at home to prove that productivity will not be a problem.
The wholesale switch to a telecommuting based economy is not going to be an easy one, but convincing the boss should be easy enough if you are serious about getting things done.
There are many ideas that people have for telecommuting, but here is a very simple system that can be used immediately for people that work in customer service, technical support, order taking or a similar type of job where the majority of work is done on the phone and at a computer terminal.
The first part of the system involves all of the representatives logging into an online database system when their shift starts. It is worthwhile to note that most of the businesses that hire these types of workers already have such a system currently where the workers can request time off, book additional work and do other housekeeping tasks. It would be a simple matter to expand this system to include everything else.
Once everyone has logged in, they can then sync up their dedicated work phone line with the database and this in turn will put them into a queue of available agents for the calls that then come in. Each call that comes in is then delegated to the next available agent in a way similar to how in-office systems already work. The technology already exists to bring those systems online and if this was done for every office that has these types of workers, that amount of fuel consumption within the country would drop by a very dramatic amount.
Well, it appears as if the oil energy crisis is not going to go down in history without a fight from some people in order to change things. Rather than changing towards renewable energy sources or at the very least away from diminishing resources to ones that are still available in plenty (i.e. uranium and nuclear power), it appears as if the governments of the developed world (and in particular the government of the United States), is going to hitch the near future to the goal of bringing oil prices down.
According to many analysts of the oil futures market, there is a huge amount of speculation in oil prices that is accounting for more than half of the current price of oil. Specifically, the number I hear thrown around a lot is 60%.
Well, for the sake of argument let’s assume that the price of oil is $140 a barrel (at the time of writing the NYMEX future was $135.77). Taking away 60% of that price would leave oil at $56 a barrel, a price that is still extremely expensive when compared with prices in the early part of this decade that were below $40 a barrel. While $56 is still extremely good compared to the prices of today, it is important to realize that the price of oil is still rising even according to the most optimistic forecasts and that doing things like telecommuting is still going to be necessary in the future.
For people that are interested in telecommuting as a way of solving their gas price problems, there is one thing that is going to be required of you immediately. That thing is the installation of a dedicated phone line. While the internet has created many methods of communication far superior in nature to the conventional landline, it is also important to realize that the business world does not move quickly and for that reason conventional phone conversations are still the way most things are done in industry.
Therefore, the dedicated phone line is something that you need to have installed right away, sometimes even at the expense of the company. This phone line is one that you will only use for work purposes and because of that it will be one that is always free when you are not using it for some part of your work. Most bosses are reluctant to allow telecommuting because they feel it will detract from the actual work being done and a dedicated landline will go a long way towards convincing them otherwise.
Installation of a dedicated landline is just one of many telecommuting trips that can serve to make your at home work experience just as authentic and productive as the one you had when you commuted to work in the conventional manner.
As with most of the other large changes that people end up making in their life, getting used to telecommuting can be something that is extremely difficult to do. Telecommuting is a completely different way of doing things and for that reason many people have a mental block when it comes to getting it done. For that reason, here are some ways that you can ease your slide into telecommuting and therefore make the whole transition easier.
One easy way to slide into telecommuting is to make the transition over the period of one year. In other words, if you start by telecommuting to work one day a week and then driving there during the other four, you can add an extra day of telecommuting to your schedule every three months. At the end of the year, you will be telecommuting all five days of the week and the changes that you have made will be a number of minor ones over a long period of time.
Another way that you can slide into telecommuting is by alternating weeks. Say you telecommute one week and drive to work the next. This will allow you to slowly get used to a work week of telecommuting and for that reason some people find it easier to accomplish than the previous option.
