By Allan Maurer

Randy Stuckless

RESEARCH TRIANGLE, NC & ATLANTA – More than half of information workers (62%) in 36 mid-sized and large cities in the U.S. say they could do their jobs remotely, according to a survey by Microsoft.

Raleigh, NC, which ranked number 2 in the survey of attitudes toward remote working and Atlanta followed closely at number 3.

In Raleigh the survey found that:

•    75 percent of people surveyed believe they could fill their job duties at a remote location.
•    Just under half (47 percent) of those surveyed say their company has a formal policy allowing employees to work remotely.
•    55 percent of people surveyed do not take advantage of a remote working policy.
•    95 percent of those surveyed say privacy will not be compromised when working from home.
•    9.7 days: The average number of days people work from home per month.

In Atlanta, the survey said:

•    69 percent of people surveyed believe they could fill their job duties at a remote location.
•    More than half (51 percent) of those surveyed say their company does not have a formal policy allowing employees to work remotely.
•    56 percent of people surveyed do not take advantage of a remote working policy.
•    91 percent of those surveyed say privacy will not be compromised when working from home.
•    8.7 days: The average number of days people work from home per month.

Even Microsoft resisted at first

Randy Stuckless, Microsoft technology partner advisor, who works remotely, says even MS itself had to overcome some corporate hurdles before remote working became more acceptable in the company.

When Microsoft’s Paul Allen developed cancer and wanted to work from home in the late 1980s, the company said, “No, everyone has to work from the office.” Now, however, about 10 percent of Microsoft’s employees work remotely, “a significant percentage,” says Stuckless.

Now the company sells products that aid working from home.

Stuckless tells us he spends most of his time going up and down the East Coast helping companies build practices with Microsofts’ Unified Communications. Unified Communications  integrates email, voice, instant messaging, conferencing and collaboration in ways that make it more effective to work remotely.

He says Windows 7 operating system features also help people work from home.

“You can make secure direct access connections to a corporate network that makes it as easy for you to access Corporate Web sites and so on as if you were in the office.”

Another feature of Windows 7, he points out, is bit locker, which lets users encrypt and protect computer disc drives, flash memory cards, and more.

Stuckless works from a base in New York with a boss in Raleigh.

He notes that Raleigh ranked near the top in all areas the company surveyed regarding attitudes in remote working.

“It has a highly educated workforce and three major research institutions close by, and the area’s technology sophistication helps people work from home,” he says.

Face to face possible

One problem of remote working that many face is that managers worry about how someone will pick up on the types of cues you might sitting in front of a person in a meeting. The MS Unified Communications voice and video connections can solve that problem “for the price of a $75 high definition camera,” he says.

Still, Stuckless suggests that remote workers “Do have to work overtime to make sure you are an active participant in meetings, be pro-active in reaching out and establishing relationships, and the social aspects.”

Stuckless says he thinks remote working will become much more common as the nature of work itself changes. “More people are working independently. Independent contracting is an expanding form of employment. My boss says he looks around his Raleigh neighborhod and nearly everyone on his block works from home, centered in Raleigh but employed elsewhere.”

We’ve been working remotely for nearly a decade with a brief spell in the offices of North Carolina Magazine (the now defunct NC Chamber business magazine). We found that having an office more advanced than that offered by the company, an increase in production, and the Web’s constant contact options made it work even for that conservative organization.

The advantages are not only to the remote worker, however. Remote working saves energy and wear and tear on roads, decreases traffic congestion, increases productivity, and boosts worker satisfaction.