I have a voice

I work at a very progressive company. They totally support and promote employees working from home. This allows them to occupy two buildings instead of three or four. It saves on rent, it saves on resources. Their buildings are ‘green‘ and hold the LEED Silver Certification. It may not impress you, but impresses me.

Recently they have been polling employees for money-saving ideas as well as suggestions on how to leave a smaller carbon footprint. One suggestion that came up was to shut down one of the two buildings one day each week and require anyone who could work from home to do so (there are still many employees who feel the need to sit at a desk every day).  I don’t know the actual dollars involved here, but I’m sure they would be significant. It occurred to me that why not take this one step further. During the week of Thanksgiving when so many employees are already taking the week off, why not shut one building down for the entire week? Good idea don’t you think?

Now, ponder this: how much money would your company save, if it did the same thing and closed its doors for just one day each week and allow you to work from home, instead of letting people go? In fact, could your company do something similar by consolidating employees, offer shared or flex work spaces, and require you to work from home at least 2 days every week? I think it is certainly an alternative that more corporations should consider. In this day and time, it is so easy to monitor your employees even if they are not sitting right under your nose. It is simple… they either produce, or they don’t. It will show up if they are not doing their jobs. I am grateful that I can work from home and have this wonderful opportunity to lower my own carbon footprint; I hope that if I end up working somewhere else, they will be equally forward thinking and have a similar program.