Working From Home Cuts Costs, Helps Planet

The study also found that technological support of such a program would cost $16 million over those three years, including the costs of buying laptop computers, but proponents insist that the general savings outweigh any technological costs.

"In the past, you would have had to have your IT department set up a server, train people to use these tools and then pay them, says Bernardo de Albergaria, general manager of global marketing and e-commerce at Citrix Online, the company's Web division. "But setting up someone to work with a remote location isn't as hard as it used to be. You can have a Web conferencing solution for as low as $39 a month."

But many employees end up eating basic technology costs and responsibilities themselves, in exchange for the benefit of working from home. "We consider their Internet connection and utilities to be the equivalent of their car -- it's how they get to work," says Jim Ball, co-founder of Alpine Access, a Denver-based outsourcer of call center services. All of its call center operators work from home. "If the agent's PC doesn't work, that's the same as having a flat tire," he says.

-- Reported by Carmen Nobel in Boston.

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