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Telecommuters feel lucky

BY CARRIE MASON-DRAFFEN, RICHARD J. DALTON JR. and PATRICIA KITCHEN | STAFF WRITERS

December 21, 2005

Gotta get to work in a transit strike? No problem if you're a telecommuter. Just fire up the laptop in the virtual office and work away.

While some workers fought their way through traffic and travel restrictions in New York City Tuesday, Huntington resident Mera Goodman, a 25-year-old management consultant was ensconced in the local Starbucks quietly tapping away on her Dell Inspiron laptop with a wireless Internet connection. She used a cell phone to speak with clients and colleagues throughout the metro area between finishing off cups of tea and coffee.

"It was such a mess," she said of the transit problems. "I'm so glad to not to have to deal with it."

With this strike being "the latest in a long series of business interruptions," telecommuting isn't such a "big leap" as it once was for employers, said Gil Gordon, a telecommuting consultant in Monmouth Junction, N.J. "You could argue that to some extent the strike has less effect today than it would have had 10 years ago."

In fact, for some employers the notion of working remotely is business as usual.

"It's second nature," said Steve Silverstein, northeast regional operations director for Deloitte Services LP. Of that firm's 5,000 employees in Manhattan, he said, about 75 percent worked remotely Tuesday, either from home, client sites or other Deloitte offices.

After Sept. 11, when 3,500 staff members were displaced from their lower Manhattan office, many employees adopted the nomadic work style, Silverstein said. All professionals who didn't have laptops were issued ones. And bosses were trained in how to manage remotely.

Americans spend an average of 46 hours each year stuck in traffic, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. And gridlock results in more than $63 billion in congestion costs per year.

"With traffic congestion worsening, commuting can sometimes feel like a second job, especially in areas around New York City," said Margo Oge, director of the Office of Transportation and Air Quality at the EPA.

To encourage telecommuting in this area, the EPA in 2004 lauched a regional version of its Best Workplaces for Commuters program, which rates companies on a number of alternative travel programs for employees, including telecommuting. The program went from 63 companies in the first year to 86 this year.

But for some employers, telecommuting can still be a tough sell. "I think managers are a little uncomfortable not being able to see their employees," said John Galgano, the president of CommuterLink, a Kew Gardens, nonprofit focusing on alternative transportation methods.

The group plans to start a telecommuting education program aimed at mid-level managers.

But sometimes the boss is the biggest beneficiary of telecommuting.

In between running errands Tuesday, Huntington resident Joe D'Alessandro, who is the president of Creative Services in Manhattan, booked facilities to edit a commercial for Colgate and handled calls from employees and clients.

"As long as I have my cell phone with me, I'm OK," he said.