It is known that eye contact plays a large role in conversational turn-taking, perceived attention and intent, and other aspects of group communication. While traditional telephone conversations give no eye contact cues, videoconferencing systems are arguably worse in that they provide an incorrect impression that the remote interlocutor is avoiding eye contact. Telepresence systems have cameras located in the screens that reduce the amount of parallax observed by the users. This issue is also being addressed through research that generates a synthetic image with eye contact using stereo reconstruction.

The important thing to remember:  Always be aware of your lines of sight, as they appear to the audience.  You can do this prior to your meeting, when running a simple software and hardware and process check.  You can also do this throughout the meeting, when you observe and critique your own video output, as others would see it.  Remember, others attending the meeting are watching you more than you are.  They are wondering if you are multi-tasking, or if you are telling the truth, etc…

One trick, especially when answering questions, is to make a concious effort to focus your gaze on the web camera as if you were focusing on the person you are answering.

Article from http://www.powerhomebiz.com/News/052009/virtual-store.htm 

May 20, 2009 ( PowerHomeBiz ) - San Jose, CA  - Usually, if a company shuts its doors forever it’s a bad thing. When ShapiraMedia CEO Isaac Shapira closed his trendy headquarters (complete with all the “dot-com trimmings”), it was actually a sign of prosperity and productivity to come. Isaac is joining thousands of other small businesses in making the transformational leap from traditional “brick and mortar” office and retail space - a move that is paying off huge. He is able to do that by using a business collaboration and communication suite that empowers him to present, meet, and collaborate with customers, partners, and co-workers anywhere in the world. His office is now at home, and anywhere else he roams to with his laptop.

Isaac evaluated a number of solutions that were tested by the Web Conferencing Council (www.webconferencingcouncil.com), and ended up selecting the same product that won the council’s best of class award (VIA3 from www.viack.com) – mostly due to the affordability and richness of features.  Brainstorming sessions, sales calls, PowerPoint webinars, file sharing, Audio and Video meetings, and instant communications are all at his fingertips now, making his small company act and look like a much larger entity.  The best part is the cost savings; instead of paying $3,750.00 a month for office space, furniture rentals, food and supplies, etc… he now pays around $200 a month.  For this 200$, Isaac has enough product licenses to give 10 employees full functionality of the web conferencing suite. His up front cost was zero, because his employees were already using laptops with built-in web cameras and microphones.

And here’s more good news; his customers love it. 

First, they love the convenience of meeting and collaborating online.  ”We used to make sure that all customer experiences with ShapiraMedia were off the charts productive, creative, and enjoyable for customers,” said Isaac. ”They were drinking espressos, seated in colorful beanbags, with hip music like ‘Kings of Leon’ resonating in the background.  The one downside to the meetings, however, was the need for travel back and forth to facilitate in-person face-to-face interaction.  That meant an unproductive element to their day, which we can now avoid by conducting these meetings online.”  

Secondly, because of the tremendous savings Isaac incurred in his overhead, he is now able to pass those savings along to the customers.  This results in ultra-competitive bids that are winning them a steady stream of new business.  Neil Woodruff, Viack CEO, said this is a common story with VIA3 users.  “The quick productivity and cost saving infusion that happened at ShapiraMedia is something our user base enjoys consistently, and immediately.  Because of VIA3’s ease of use, affordability, and near-zero investment costs, businesses are able to turn on a dime from brick and mortar to online powerhouses”. 

There are a number of other collaboration features above and beyond straight meetings that help ShapiraMedia.  Creative projects are stored, shared, and collaborated on through the included Workspaces.  All employees are a click away from each other using Instant Messaging with presence awareness.  They brainstorm over images in the included Whiteboard feature.  They utilize the included voting and polling feature during company meetings.  They are also able to share desktop control with each other for an even higher level of collaboration.

The only thing missing? 

“VIA3 doesn’t handle espressos”, laughs Isaac.  “As for the colorful beanbags - those are still being used.  You can see them in the background during online meetings with ShapiraMedia.  Some things will never change.”

Telemedicine can be implemented within stroke-care systems to help fill the gaps in coverage, according to two articles published online on May 7 in Stroke. A third article published in the same online edition revisits the definition and evaluation of transient ischemic attack.

J. Donald Easton, M.D., chair of the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association Stroke Council, and colleagues write that the definitions of transient ischemic attack, early stroke, and other vascular outcomes risks, as well as how to evaluate transient ischemic stroke have all undergone revision in the light of recent scientific research. Among their recommendations are for patients to undergo a brain scan within 24 hours of symptom onset, as well as routine noninvasive imaging of the cervicocephalic vessels.

Lee H. Schwamm, M.D., and Heinrich J. Audebert, M.D., co-chairs of the American Heart Association, and colleagues reviewed the existing evidence on the use of telemedicine by stroke-care systems in order to establish consensus recommendations on the use of telemedicine in primary prevention of stroke and general neurological assessment; emergency medical services notification and response; acute and subacute treatment of stroke; and secondary prevention and rehabilitation.

“Whenever local or on-site acute stroke expertise or resources are insufficient to provide around-the-clock coverage for a health care facility, telestroke systems should be deployed to supplement resources at participating sites,” Schwamm and Audebert write. “This should be done within the context of stroke systems of care model framework wherever possible.”

Thanks to the low- and no-cost offerings, companies have invested serious money in Web conferencing solutions, to the tune of $935 million in 2006, according to Gartner. Alongside other collaborative features such as calendaring, email, instant messaging, and presence, this capability will be available to 75 percent of corporate users by 2010.

The days when your entire team had to physically gather in one room, at a costly offsite center, or around a single desk to shuffle papers and sift through pie charts are largely over. Thanks to geographically dispersed organizations and the increased cost of business travel, Web conferencing solutions are gaining popularity for meetings, training, and presentations. “People are definitely more interested [in Web conferencing],” explains Jeffrey Mann, research vice president and agenda manager for collaboration at industry-analysis firm Gartner. Mann explains there are three main reasons why companies consider Web conferencing: money, environmental impact, and travel hassle.

Sanjeev Aggarwal, vice president for small-to-midsize business infrastructure solutions at analyst firm AMI-Partners, cites many of the same reasons for Web conferencing’s impact. “Driven by the global economic crisis, high travel costs, increases in gas prices, and natural disasters, the relevance of conferencing solutions increases enormously,” he said in a statement. “[They] help reduce costs, provide clearly identifiable [return on investment], and drive business growth.”

Hyoun Park, research editor of the technology markets group at Aberdeen Group, says companies can quantify the potential savings simply by looking at the amount of travel that would otherwise be required to bring together dispersed employees.

According to Gartner’s Mann, companies wishing to connect two or three people in a limited manner have some free options for Web conferencing. That said, he explains that if you’re looking at a standard application on a per-moderator or per-organizer model, companies can expect to lay out anywhere between $20 and $40 per month. A really big meeting of perhaps 10,000, Mann says, can “get up into a couple of thousand dollars.”

Thanks to the low- and no-cost offerings, companies have invested serious money in Web conferencing solutions, to the tune of $935 million in 2006, according to Gartner. Alongside other collaborative features such as calendaring, email, instant messaging, and presence, this capability will be available to 75 percent of corporate users by 2010, thanks to what Gartner predicts will be a 19.5 percent compound annual growth rate (CAGR). SMBs will also be spending more on Web conferencing $693 million in 2012, according to AMI, a CAGR of 10.2 percent.

To view the highest ranked vendors, view the Top 10 Vendor List for 2009 HERE.

In an era when the world’s economy is in freefall and companies are struggling for ways to save money, eliminating unnecessary business travel is a very attractive proposition. Indeed, being able to frequently yet instantly share files, discuss and collaborate with customers, colleagues and business suppliers/partners online in real-time without leaving one’s desk has become commonplace. It can be done with any of the “hit parade” of conferencing and collaboration services and products now on the market. Customizable meeting environments now allow for everything from a spontaneous meeting between two people working on a document, to large-scale training and scheduled events with hundreds or even thousands of participants, supported by a mélange of live and recorded video, chat, slide and application sharing, VoIP or PSTN audio, and interactive audience feedback tools.

One of the most famous and accessible of these is Microsoft (News - Alert)’s Office Live Meeting, the hosted version of which allows is a web conferencing service operated by Microsoft that enables organizers to schedule meetings using Outlook (even when offline), send separate meeting invitations to presenters and attendees, and automatically include audio conference information in every meeting invitation.

Live Meeting is based on free, downloadable client PC software that works in conjunction with a central server at Microsoft. There’s also a Java-based console version that runs in a Mac and Solaris environment. Of course, in addition to the hosted model for Microsoft Office Live Meeting 2007, there’s also a CPE (Customer Premise Equipment) solution, namely the Office Communications Server 2007 (OCS 2007) enterprise conferencing server product. Fortunately, the Live Meeting Web Access (MWA) provides a nearly identical user experience to that of the Windows-based Live Meeting client. (Live Meeting Web Access is the Java applet that will run on non-Windows operating systems such as Linux, Macs, etc.)

Using both the web and Live Meeting, you’re able to control PSTN lines (muting all parties except your own, eject parties, etc.). User accounts are grouped together in Conference Centers (a unique URL) which starts with: www.livemeeting.com/cc/. . . Users pay nothing to join a Live Meeting session. Charging for Live Meeting is done on an account basis. The last time Yours Truly checked, “Professional Users” can schedule up to 1,250 participant connections per meeting and can store unlimited shared meeting recordings for 360 days. For five users, it’s $15.42 per user per month with no one-time fees. On the other hand, “Standard Users” are able to schedule and manage meetings with up to 15 participant connections per meeting. For five users it’s $4.58 per user per month with no one-time fees. Although Microsoft directly hosts Microsoft Office Live Meeting 2007, hosting partners also offer Microsoft Office Live Meeting 2007 as a fee-based service. Whether attendees use the Live Meeting service or OCS 2007 to operate their web conference, they use the same software client.

You can schedule a meeting online or you can call a Live Meeting Sales Specialist for more information at 866-463-3866.

More at http://www.tmcnet.com/voip/0409/conferencing-and-collaboration-strategies.htm

Also found at this great blog:  http://webinarnews.blogspot.com/

By: Richard “Zippy” Grigonis.  The man, the myth, the legend. 

Telecommuting, e-commuting, e-work, telework, working at home, or working from home (WFH) is a work structure in which employees enjoy flexibility in working locale and hours. In other words, the daily commute to a normal place of work is replaced by telecommunication. Many work from home, while others, occasionally also referred to as nomad workers or web commuters use mobile telecommunications technology to work from coffee shops or any number of other remote, disparate locations.

Telework is a broader term, referring to substituting telecommunications for any form of work-related travel, thereby eliminating the distance restrictions of telecommuting. All telecommuters are teleworkers but not all teleworkers are telecommuters. A frequently repeated motto is that “work is something you do, not something you travel to”. A successful telecommuting program requires a management style which is based on results and not on close scrutiny of individual employees. This is referred to as management by objectives as opposed to management by observation.

Long distance telework is facilitated by such tools as virtual private networks, conference calling, videoconferencing, and Voice over IP (VOIP). It can be efficient and useful for companies as it allows staff and workers to communicate over a large distance, saving huge amounts of travel time and cost. As broadband Internet connections become more commonplace, more and more workers have enough bandwidth at home to use these tools to link their home office to their corporate intranet and internal phone networks.

The roots of telecommuting lay in early 1970s technology, linking satellite offices to downtown mainframes by dumb terminals using telephone lines as a network bridge. The massive ongoing decrease in cost and increase in performance and usability of personal computers forged the way to decentralize even further, moving the office to the home. By the early 1980s, these branch offices and home workers were able to connect to the company networks and computers using personal computers and terminal emulation.

The adoption of local area networks promoted sharing of resources, and client server computing allowed for even greater decentralization. Now, telecommuters can carry laptop PCs around which they can use both at the office and at home (and almost anywhere else). The rise of cloud computing technology and Wi-Fi availability has enabled access to remote servers via a combination of portable hardware and software.

Telecommuters are linked to their home office by using groupware, virtual private networks, and similar technologies to collaborate and interact with team members. As the price of VPN-capable routers, high-speed Internet connections to the home, and VOIP technology has plummeted in recent years, the cost to connect a telecommuter to their employer’s intranet and telecommunications system has become negligible when compared with the operating costs of conventional offices as well.

Telecommuting options increase the employability of proximal or circumstantially marginalized groups, such as mothers and fathers with small children, the disabled and people living in remote areas. It can also reduce an individual’s carbon footprint, through minimizing daily commuting. The set up also offers possibilities for increased service and international reach, since telecommuters in different time zones can ensure that a company is virtually open for business around the clock. Telework has also enabled offshore outsourcing. Telecommuting provides employee flexibility, eases the working parent’s burden, increases employee productivity, and reduces absenteeism. Virtual offices allow employers to keep valuable employees, allow employers to hire employees otherwise not available, and have facilitated productive re-engineering of order-management and customer service processes.

Telecommuters need not necessarily work from the home. A more recent extension of telecommuting is distributed work. Distributed work entails the conduct of organizational tasks in places that extend beyond the confines of traditional offices. It can refer to organizational arrangements that permit or require workers to perform work more effectively at any appropriate location, such as their homes and customers’ sites - through the application of information and communication technology. An example is financial planners who meet clients during lunchtime with access to various financial planning tools and offerings on their mobile computers, or publishing executives who recommend and place orders for the latest book offerings to libraries and university professors, among others.

These work arrangements are likely to become more popular with current trends towards greater customization of services and virtual organizing. Distributed work offers great potential for firms to reduce costs, enhance competitive advantage and agility, access a greater variety of scarce talents, and improve employee flexibility, effectiveness and productivity. It has gained in popularity in the West, particularly in Europe. While increasing in importance, distributed work has not yet gained widespread acceptance in Asia.

Virtual offices are attractive to management because they reduce overheads, reduce office space needs, increase productivity, and reduce staff turnover. However, managers (whose roles are varied and not well defined) in telecommuting roles typically receive fewer promotions due to the lack of direct contact they need. From that aspect, telecommuting seems to work best for professionals such as engineers.

DRAWBACKS:

Telecommuting has come to be viewed by some as more a “complement rather than a substitute for work in the workplace”. Thus, some workers may find their work load increased to the point where they are under more stress than before. Distractions at home can have a similar effect, especially among workers who leave the office to be better able to care for small children and the infirm.

Fellow employees in the employer’s office sometimes resent home telecommuters.

A telecommuter may lack the sense of loyalty to the company that he or she would have if working at an office.

Employees who work by telecommuting can lose space in their homes, possibly even suffering the cost of converting a room into an office.

Telecommuters need to be more adept at using their equipment as they have less access to a dedicated employee at the company whose job is to maintain that equipment.

Even when a company successfully implements telecommuting practices, increasing productivity and decreasing stress, they face an increased risk of confidential data loss and risks to data integrity resulting from the increased geographical diversity of their network and the loss of direct corporate control over the telecommuter’s physical work environment.

Initially, managers may view the teleworker as experiencing a drop in productivity during the first few months. This drop occurs as “the employee, his peers, and the manager adjust to the new work regimen”. The drop could also be accountable to inadequate office setup. Managers need to be patient and let the teleworker adapt. It can be claimed that as much as “70 minutes of each day in a regular office are wasted by interruptions, yakking around the photocopier, and other distractions”. Eventually, productivity of the teleworker will climb.

Management needs to recognize the communication barriers that telecommuters experience. The feeling of alienation can be very difficult for the teleworker. The job should be clearly defined as well as its objectives. Performance measures should be thorough and apparent.

Managers need to be aware that although overhead decreases, the cost of technology becomes greater. Information Technology (IT) managers experience greater demands because of user requirements for remote access through laptops, personal digital assistants, and home computers. Use of non-standard software can create problems. Setting up security and virtual private networks increase the demands for IT.

Telecommuters can experience a loss of social community with coworkers and must be able to overcome feelings of isolation. Although this can be done by finding a social life away from the company work environment, it precludes the ability to develop close connections with those that share the common experience of the company, job, departments, and functions they may perform.

Traditional line managers are accustomed to managing by observation and not necessarily by results. This causes a serious obstacle in organizations attempting to adopt telecommuting. Liability and workers’ compensation can become serious issues as well. Companies considering telecommuting should be sure to check on local legal issues, union issues, and zoning laws. Telecommuting should incorporate training and development that includes evaluation, simulation programs, team meetings, written materials, and forums. Information sharing should be considered synchronous in a virtual office and building processes to handle conflicts should be developed. Operational and administrative support should be redesigned to support the virtual office environment. Facilities need to be coordinated properly in order to support the virtual office and technical support should be coordinated properly. The conclusion for managers working within telecommuting organizations is that new approaches to “evaluating, educating, organizing, and informing workers” should be adopted.

Out of sight, out of mind… Teleworking can negatively affect a person’s career. A recent survey of 1,300 executives from 71 countries indicated that respondents believe that people who telework were less likely to get promoted. Companies rarely promote people into leadership roles who haven’t been consistently seen and measured.

For information on what services to choose for Telecommuting, you can start by viewing the Top 10 Vendor list for 2009.

Just a short few years ago, people having conversations and meetings while they are in different locations means having the conversation ONLY over the phone.  Today, people can communicate, even conduct live meetings and presentations even if they are on the other side of the world.  All you need to get started is a computer, internet access and a downloaded web-based application to communicate effectively over the internet.  This technology is called web conferencing.

So, what exactly is web conferencing?

With web conferencing, participants can share audio, video, content or combination of these in real time.  This enables people to attend meetings or presentations when they can’t attend them physically.  Attendees or participants of web conferencing can have a downloaded application on their computer or they can just access a website or URL to join the group having the meeting or presentation.

Web conferencing enables us to share presentations, documents, videos and multimedia applications.  Is also enables us to save money on the costs associated with high bandwidth.  You can meet whenever from wherever, as long as you have a personal computer/ laptop and internet access.

Since web conferencing allows users to have business meetings, trainings and conduct presentations and demonstration, it is a requirement that attendees have high-speed internet connection in all user and web sites.  Presiding over a session can be passed among the users or the attendees, so that another user can act as the presenter or demonstrator.

Some web conferencing systems or providers include several features in their systems like texting, VoIP (voice over internet protocol) and full- motion video.  Audio streaming was also added as an additional feature since web conferencing started in the early 1990s.  With audio streaming, attendees can listen to the audio as they view the presentations.

Messaging or sending messages also became more efficient. The leaders can entertain live questions or conduct answer sessions.  Attendees can send private messages to the leader, who can answer trough private messages or may publish the message so the entire team or attendees can view the message.

There are attendance rosters which allow the leader and the attendees to view who is currently involved in the conference.  There is also a tool for recording.  Recording allows for the synching voice and visuals into a permanent record which can be shared with others on a later date.

Whiteboard also allows the leader or the attendees to highlight items in the presentation or can be used to make notes.  There are also tools for polls and surveys, allowing the leader to ask questions with multiple choices addressed to the attendees.

Screen sharing is also another feature of web conferencing.   With screen sharing or desktop sharing participants can view the screen or whatever is on the screen of the leader.  Some screen sharing applications also allow remote desktop control which means participants can take control or manipulate the leader’s desktop or screen. This feature is seldom used.

Of course, there are web conferencing vendors or providers that provide these services of different basis.  Some web conferencing providers charge a nominal monthly fee while others may charge for every time the software was used.

Readying up your computer or your personal stuff to be used with web conferencing is really not that complicated.  New computers normally would have installed software in them that is necessary for web conferencing, if none, the installation process is relatively easy to accomplish.

Web conferencing provides a great way and venue for short and straightforward business related exchanges like meetings, demonstrations, orientation or even product roll-outs.  Web conferencing made it possible for us to have non- physical communication for business meetings and affairs.  Technology certainly makes life easier.

So, who are the vendors for web conferencing?

There are literally dozens and dozens of vendors to choose from.  You have to find the vendor that matches your price, features, and company needs.   To view the Top Ten Vendor List for 2009, we have the whitepaper posted HERE, or click-able on the link in the left-hand navigation of this page.

Make sure moderators are early

This is half an etiquette suggestion and half practical: webinar moderators should make sure they arrive a few minutes early. It’s polite to greet participants as they arrive and be ready to start the meeting as soon as possible, but it also gives you one last chance to make sure the webinar is set up correctly. While we’re at it, it also makes sense to ask first-time participants to arrive early.

Create a schedule - and stick to it

Whether your webinar participants are customers, partners, employees, or some other mix of people, you should make every effort to respect their time. As the moderator, it’s your job to help steer the discussion back on topic if necessary.

Don’t just recycle classroom materials

While webinar technology is great in many ways, you shouldn’t expect to cover the same amount of material in a one-hour webinar as you would in a one-hour classroom session. Plan to include slightly less content than you would in person, especially if you’re new to online conferencing.

Take a look at yourself

Many webinar providers include options to archive your presentation. If you’re just getting started, try watching your own event afterwards. You’ll get a sense of what the audience experiences, which can be much different than the experience you thought you were providing. It will also help you determine what you should improve on for future webinars.

Know what you need to know

In addition to being the subject matter expert, you can expect to get at least a question or two about setting up the webinar. If the participants are required to install software plug-ins, make sure you can point them to the download location; if there are particular browser requirements, make sure you know what they are. Beyond that, though .

Know what you don’t need to know

Your webinar provider will give you a technical support number. Have it ready - not filed away - in case you encounter any significant issues. Your focus should be on running your presentation - not on solving technical problems.

Arrive early. Web conference presenters should log in about 30-45 minutes before the start of online conferencing and make sure everything works properly (interface properly installed, sound is in place, etc.) to avoid hassles at the last minute.

Explore features. Most moderators only use a fraction of the online conferencing options available to them. To get the most out of the rich functionality that an online conferencing solution provides, you may want to use your dry runs and free demo periods to explore the different applications you can use to create a better experience for you and your audience.

Speed up. If some attendees are using slower connections such as dial-up to participate in a web conference that includes video, suggest that they disable video capabilities to save bandwidth.

Using visual aids. With presentations, use detailed charts and graphs and keep text to a minimum. Remember slides should be a visual aid and you should be able to walk attendees through the presentation so there’s no need to give them a lot to read on screen.

Partner up. You can share the responsibilities of running the online conferencing with one or more co-workers. For example, while you talk through the meeting and conduct group edits with your attendees, one of your co-workers takes questions and runs the live chat.

This is a recording. The FCC requires you to notify all participants before the start of online conferencing that you plan to record the session. This is done either through an audio prompt that the attendee hears over the phone when they enter the conference, or an automated text message in the chat function.

Every company understands that work-life balance is a great motivating factor for ensuring employee loyalty and retention. Initiatives like flexible timing, creative leave options and teleworking are emerging as VERY popular trends. In the past teleworking was regarded as a perk but today many organisations consider it as a necessity. It is a preferred option for both employers and employees. Teleworking can be described as the practice of establishing, developing and maintaining successful off-site business practices through telecommunication. Current workplace trends are promoting more flexibility for employees and tailoring jobs to fit individual needs. The image of the traditional workplace where employees walk-in into a work area is being replaced with associates working wherever they can be most efficient and productive, whether at home or anywhere outside office. The availability of affordable technology has also been a major contributors to ‘any time, any place’ telecommuting trend.

Telecommuting is a work option that has steadily gained in popularity and commands a strong position as a viable alternative in the IT business world. Telecommuting is intended to provide a better quality of life for associates and promote enhance job performance.

The availability of more affordable technology has enabled companies to adopt telecommuting as an alternative work arrangement. A tight job market, fierce competition for talent and a record high turnover among the IT workforce are several reasons why many organisations see teleworking as a benefit to entice new recruits. Another factor fuelling the teleworking trend is the high price of commercial real estate. Instead of leasing new office space or expanding existing office buildings, it is considerably less expensive to provide associates with notebooks and phone lines to work from the convenience of their own homes. Ranajoy Punja, vice-president, marketing, Cisco Systems India, says, “Increasingly, there is a lot of pressure on IT organisations to improve productivity and the need to quickly react to market requirements.

Teleworking is not entirely replacing the office environment, instead it is increasing in certain key IT segments such as call centres, customer support and telemarketing, where the workforce for whatever reasons cannot work in office full-time.

For employees teleworking has its obvious advantages leading to increased productivity, more autonomy, greater lifestyle flexibility, reduced stress, work satisfaction, motivation and no wastage of time commuting to the workplace. Teleworking also provides easier work conditions for workers with disabilities. On the other hand, employers can benefit from teleworking as it allows a reduction in  overhead costs, increases labour productivity, which means higher profits and provides additional recruitment and retention options due to a larger, talented labour pool. Telecommuting also reduces business disruptions due to emergencies such as floods, power outages, strikes and illnesses.

There are several problems associated with teleworking, namely time management and team coordination with co-workers and managers. Isolation is another drawback as teleworkers at home may miss the camaraderie and support of co-workers. Without formal structure that the workplace provides, it may be difficult for telecommuters to work efficiently. Teleworking can also lead to burnout or overwork as telecommuting gives 24- hour access to work and workaholics may work in excess. This mode of work is vulnerable to household distractions and hence there can be blurred boundaries between work and family, which might interfere with a teleworker’s productivity. In certain cases teleworkers may worry that their reduced visibility will limit their potential for advancement due to isolation, the potential for longer work hours and diminished access to resources in the workplace.

On the other hand, one biggest obstacle for employers is the issue of control. Because monitoring performance is more difficult for those working at home, managers often do not recognise the contributions made by teleworkers by way of good performance reviews and promotions.

Teleworkers are often not provided clear performance goals by their managers, who sometimes mistake useful work with physical presence.

Successful teleworking comprises four main elements — the right work, the right associate, the right supervisor and the right top management support.