If you work from home you already know the benefits: a short commute (from your bed to your desk), relaxing working conditions, and interesting coworkers. But the money you save, or could save, by working from home might be the biggest benefit.
A new tool developed by Govloop and HP puts a specific monetary value on how much telecommuting saves. The site is intended for government employees looking to work a few days from home, but it can be used by anyone to see how much they save, or will save, by making the switch. The Telework Calculator assumes you drive and asks how many miles you drive to and from work, how long it takes you on average, your car type, and how many days you want to telecommute.
Let’s say you live in the city and it takes you 40 minutes to drive 10 miles (roundtrip) to work, on average. You drive a small car and just for fun let’s say you want to work at home everyday. According to the calculator, you would save an impressive $6,210.02 each year. Now, a substantial amount of that savings comes from the 174 hours of productivity saved each year (valued at $5,936.67). But you also would save an estimated $273.35 on your car and reduce your greenhouse gas emissions by 1,387 pounds per year.
The savings can benefit an employer as well. Christina Morrison, public sector marketing manager for HP, told NextGov that the cost to an employeer for a teleworker should be no more than $200 per month compared with $1,000 per month for an employee to work in an office space.
“By 2013, hopefully we’re going to see a change in more federal employees being able to telework because the infrastructure has been rolled out and put into place,” Morrison told NextGov. “If people start changing the telework conversation away from simply working from home to focusing on the business benefits, we’ll start to see more executives on the IT side and the management side opening up their minds a little more to this change.”
Try the calculator for yourself.
Photo: Flickr/Chiot’s Run
