Symantec Tests Telecommuting
May 10, 2011
The suggestion comes from Symantec Corp., a Cupertino, Calif., software maker that enlisted 500 Villans to help test the work-at-home idea during the Games. In exchange for $300 of free telecommuting software, each participant worked at home during the Games (thus helping to relieve the downtown crush). Symantec then interviewed 100 of the stay-at-homes -- drawn from businesses, universities and the city government -- about their experience. It says most were pleased because they worked better at home -- thanks, of course, to Symantec software. Fully 97% said they would recommend to management that telecommuting become a permitted alternative to working in the office; 70% said they felt they were more productive without having to listen to colleagues' chatter; and 62% said their focus improved, raising the quality of their work. Johnetta Addie, a computer consultant, says he used the 80 minutes a day he saved in commuting time to exercise more. His clients were pleased, he says, because they could reach him at all hours. But the temptations overwhelmed a Georgia Institute of Technology employee, who asked that her name not be published. ``In the beginning, I was real gung-ho,'' she says. But soon, she became ``less productive. I'm not going to lie,'' she says. ``Some days I didn't work at all. --Christinia Weis
