The TCO Of A Mobile Workforce

by Jon Bane / Dec 5

Assuming your IT services are currently sufficient to support a mobile workforce, enabling a mobile workforce is not a question of calculating your return on investment as the majority of a company’s investment will be in the form of defining policies and procedures for this new class of worker.  It is more of a measure of the Total Cost of Ownership or in this case, the Total Cost of Employment.  This would be the fully burdened cost of an employee including facilities and equipment.
By creating a mobile workforce, your primary reductions will come in the form of overhead.  You will be able to reduce the cost of facilities due to few employee’s requiring office space, multiple phone lines, electricity, water, etc. and through the reduction of administrative and governmental overhead such as Insurance, taxes, physical security, facilities management, etc.  With a well aligned IT strategy, you could further reduce equipment costs by increasing hardware lifecycle at the same time increasing your data and network security posture.
Beyond the financial TCO aspects, you also have the human element; the intangible benefits of providing a more flexible work environment.  With rising gas prices, inflation, cost of living, and the blurring line between work and personal lives, allowing an employee to work from home has enormous qualitative benefits.  The employee reduces their gas, maintenance, and vehicle insurance costs.  They are able to reclaim 30 minutes to 2 hours plus of their life a day by not having to commute and a reduced stress level for not having to deal with rush hour traffic.  All of these things contribute to higher employee satisfaction which in turn creates higher retention.  From a hiring perspective, working from home can be viewed as a benefit as many employers do not offer such programs.
With all choices, there are negative aspects as well.  Management will require new skill sets to understand how to effectively manage a remote team.  Explicit efforts have to be made to build community and team work.  Being away from the office can mean some IT related issues are not able to be resolved as quickly or easily which results in extended downtime.  Depending on policies, some employees may feel some jealousy regarding those employees who do not have to come into the office.  The most common concern is if the employee is not able to be seen, they have more opportunity to ‘goof’ off.  On this specific point I disagree.  I have had several traditional employees who spent as much time and energy figuring out how to get out of work as it would have taken to just do the work.
The bottom line is just that, look at the bottom line.  Try to devise ways that you can reduce costs by allowing your employees to work from home instead of trying to quantify why you should allow them to work from home.

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