ITs Green!

It seems like no matter where you go, everyone is trying to be "green" whether it be your hippie coworker who yells at you to put your old printed papers in the recycle bin or your mother reminding you to turn off the lights when you leave the room. According to some experts, especially in America, we are using too much of the earth's precious resources for our own greed.

The workplace has also been greatly affected by this ever-increasing green movement. From the outside, it seems as though technology and being green has nothing to do with each other. When I picture being green, I see using glass plates instead of paper ones. Believe it or not, IT has plenty to do with companies being green. In this "how-to" article by Mike Hollier (http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Green-IT/How-to-Green-Your-Workplace-by-Promoting-Remote-Working-Practices/1/ ), he discusses that steps to take if you were to decide about whether or not to turn your workplace into a remote one. It does depend on the resources you have and which employees are capable of doing it. You definitely need employees who are disciplined about working from home and locations other than a stuffy cubical. If an employee can't do his/her work without constant reminders from a supervisor, they probably should not be chosen to work remotely. Off-site technologies also have costs and those need to be taken in consideration.

So why is a remote workplace green? First of all, the amount of gas employees use will be cut down dramatically, especially for those with a long commute. A 2005 study by Telework Exchange shows that employees use 583.3 million gallons of fuel each week traveling to and from work! That number could be reduced by 233 million gallons if those same workers were to only commute 2 days a week.Those same employees will now gain valuable work time with the ability to roll out of bed and straight onto their work laptop rather than spending hours in traffic. Productivity has been shown to increase anywhere from 3% to 25% with employee satisfaction also rising. The office itself would save money and decrease its use of energy with less people in the building all day long. On the downside, the organization must be capable of handling the IT infrastructure required to support telecommuting. The initial investment price may be really high but I believe that in the end, a company will cut its costs and be less harsh on the environment. Just think of the amount of carbon dioxide that would NOT be in the air if less cars were traveling the highways each morning and night.