New Telework Calculator Shows U.S. Could Save Billions

We’ve implemented a new Telework Savings Calculator here which shows that U.S. companies could add over $260 billion a year to their bottom line, and consumers could collectively save $228 billion—that’s between $2,500 to $11,000 a year each. Uncle Sam could save another $14 billion. How? By sending people home.

Using the recently-released U.S. Census American Community Survey figures, and data from over a dozen authoritative studies, the calculator quantifies what every city, county, region, Congressional District, and State in the nation could save through telecommuting / work-from-home initiatives. The calculator is now available free for public, corporate and government. A customize option allows you to model your own company or community.

Currently less than six million Americans consider home their regular workplace—more than half of them self-employed. Our research show that another 33 million people hold jobs that are telework-compatible and they’re eager to work from home. If they did so just half of the time (roughly the national average for those who already do), businesses could improve their bottom line by over $7,900 per new telecommuter per year—the result of lower real estate, electricity, absenteeism, and turnover costs together with increased employee productivity.

Thanks to telework:

• Sun Microsystems saves $70 million a year in real estate alone
• McKesson saves $2 million a year in real estate and other expenses
• Dow Chemical saved a third of its non-real estate costs through telework
• Best Buy, British Telecom, JD Edwards, and American Express show home-based
employees to be 20-40% more productive than their office counterparts