This great white paper discusses the environmental and economic benefits of web commuting, and how technology is an essential component of allowing people to work from outside the home office:  Flexible Work: Rhetoric and Reality

The paper , prepared by the Work Design Collaborative, summarizes the results of a survey “designed to enhance our understanding of how people are actually working today – how much time they spend in various kinds of workspaces, who they interact with (both face-to-face and remotely), and in particular what collaborative technologies they rely on, how effective those technologies are in supporting their work, and what challenges they face when they are working remotely.”

We cite this research when our clients ask us about the benefits of implementing electronic solutions to help them solve their paper problems. Frequently, we find that they haven’t fully considered the expanded flexibility they will be able to offer their employees, and what kind of impact it will have on their bottom line.

Recently, our office received a presentation by the Washtenaw County Red Cross as part of their Pledge Red Workplace Giving Program.  We offer our employees the option of having donations to the Red Cross deducted from their paychecks, and in return the Red Cross helped us assess our Safety Quotient™.

Here’s what we discoverd: It was horrible.  We scored a 4 out of 20 points!!

We realized that we were completely unprepared for any kind of an emergency. We didn’t know how many exits the building had, where the fire extinguisher was, where the closest AED device was located, or what to do during a tornado.

After our eye-opening meeting, we got together with our office-mates at Inner Circle Media and talked about the best way to tackle our issues.  Using the checklist provided by the Red Cross, we made plans to solve all of our deficiencies and set a target date of April 30 for getting everything completed.  We’ve made lots of progress, and almost have everything checked off now!

Everyone in our office agrees that we have much better peace of mind as a result of these efforts, and the exercise was completely worth it.

Please consider getting your employees involved in improving your own workplace safety & preparedness.  You won’t regret it!