Top 10 Telecommuting Questions Answered

Intrigued by the idea of working at home in a job? Millions of people each year surf the Internet to find the perfect work-at-home job only to be overwhelmed by the number of scams and work-at-home schemes. One of the first steps to finding a legitimate work-at-home job is to understand what telecommuting is all about. Below are the answers to the top ten telecommuting questions.

1) What is telecommuting?

Telecommuting describes the situation in which a person works off-site for all or part of the workweek. In essence, he commutes via telephone or other telecommunication equipment such as a modem. He may telecommute from home, from a satellite location or mobile office. He doesn't do assembly work, email processing, envelope stuffing, or ad placing.

2) How many people telecommute?

The number of telecommuters is difficult to compute. The International Telework Association and Council reports the number of employees who telecommuted at least 1 day per month increased from 23.5 million to 24.1 million in 2004. That number is over 137 million worldwide (Gartner Group). Further, employers offering telecommuting increased 22% in 2004 according to Lori Rosen, CCH workplace analyst in HR Networking: Work-Life Benefits.

The difficulty in determining the number of telecommuters is partly due to the ambiguity in defining the status of some workers. For example, many people who work at home are "hired" by a company but are contract workers not employees. Are they counted as telecommuters? How about freelancers who are also "hired" or contracted by companies to perform specific tasks? Whether or not these groups of people are counted in the over all population of telecommuters can significantly affect the resulting number of telecommuters. However, experts agree that the numbers of people who are working at home for a company are increasing steadily each year as the concept of telecommuting grows in acceptance.

3) What companies allow telecommuting?

Telecommuting can be found in companies and organization (including government agencies) of all sizes. AT&T is a pioneer in the telecommuting phenomena. Other organizations include Aetna, Gale Research, Journal Graphics, the Federal Government, many state governments, and even small privately owned companies. In essence, its everywhere.

4) What jobs are best suited for telecommuting?

While telecommuting jobs have expanded to include a large spectrum of job types, the jobs best suited to telecommuting are those in the technical field especially in computer programming and writing. However, telecommuting jobs can also be found in research, customer service, accounting, journalism, transcription, marketing and PR, sales, law, social work, nursing, and many other areas.

4) Do telecommuter's get salaries and benefits?

Salaries and benefits are part of many telecommuting programs. They can be found mostly in situations in which an employee has made arrangements with his employer to work at home, and in highly skilled or professional jobs. Many of the telecommuting jobs found on the Internet are freelance or contract-based work in which the employee is paid on the amount of work completed. However, contract work doesn't necessarily mean sales nor does it mean inconsistent income. There are many contract jobs that are steady in terms of work and compensation.