For seven years, full-time Bell Canada employee and single mom Susan Garms has enjoyed leisurely breakfasts with her son at a kitchen table laden with hot foods like eggs, bacon, toast and fruit.
After breakfast, Garms walks her 13-year-old son to school, works for a few hours and, at lunchtime, hits the gym.
It's quite likely that by this point, I've already lost a few readers, balking at the concept of a "full-time employee," "single mom" and "hot breakfast."
But that's what teleworking has done for Garms, a senior consultant for telework solutions at Bell Canada.
Instead of making the two-hour return commute from her north Toronto home to the city centre, Garms has been able to work remotely from a home office -- sometimes in her PJs.
SAVINGS
She's one of the 20,000 Bell employees equipped to work at least once a week from home. By Bell's estimates, that saves about 29 million km a year of commuter travel and about 11,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions annually.
"The biggest stress was getting home," Garms said. "Back then, my son was in caregiving and caregivers close the doors at 6 p.m. It was craziness trying to get back."
For 10 years, Bob Fortier, president of Canadian Telework Association has been advocating the financial, administrative and environmental benefits of telecommuting, but he said his petitions have been met with polite acknowledgement letters from governments.
About 1.5 million Canadians telework an average of two days a week.
Those who work in large metropolitan cities like Toronto, Montreal and Calgary easily face two-hour commutes, Fortier said.
A bit of number crunching later and it turns out urban commuters save 12 full work weeks a year by working at home. One million telecommuters also saves 250 million kg of CO2 emissions, 100 million litres of fuel and 800 million fewer kilometres travelled, Fortier said.
UNDERRATED
But politicians still tout "riding a bike as more important," he said.
"Telework is underrated and not on the federal radar at all," Fortier said.
According to the latest StatsCan study in 2006, Canadians spend more time travelling to and from work -- up from 54 minutes in 1992 to 63 minutes in 2005.
Telecommuting is a matter of national policy in countries like Japan and the U.S.
Early this year, Japan announced plans to double the number of telecommuters from 6.74 million in 2005 -- about 10% of their working population -- to 13 million by 2010.
In the U.S., government agencies face a $5-million penalty if they don't fulfil teleworking quotas.
Contrary to popular belief, working from home has also been shown to increase productivity by as much as 20%, Fortier said, because teleworkers are free from office distractions.
But not everyone makes a good teleworking candidate.
In order to ensure the employee won't be easily distracted by the TV and family obligations, it's important they be a solid self-starter, with a supportive boss and the right tools at home, he said.
