Former IBM Canada CEO: “There’s No Reason Why Companies Can’t Implement the Telework Approach”

At a recent conference on the Internet and the environment, John Wetmore, former chief executive of IBM Canada discussed the company’s innovative approach to teleworking:

John Wetmore, former chief executive of IBM Canada, said his company’s mid-1990s push to find operational efficiencies led it to allow employees to work from home, a new concept in the early days of the Internet.

One third of the company’s 300,000 workers now telecommute, or work from a home office. Wetmore said the program has proven not only cost-effective for the company, it has also allowed IBM to offer prospective employees the perk of being able to work from home.

“Along the way, we realized how powerful this is in a skilled environment where you are looking for scarce skills,” he said yesterday.

Wetmore was one of a number of speakers at a one-day conference focusing on the Internet and the environment at the Centre for International Governance Innovation in Waterloo.

The event was billed as an Intelligent Community Conference, organized after Waterloo was named Intelligent Community of the Year by the Intelligent Community Forum, a New York-based think-tank.

Initially, IBM allowed only those employees who spent much of their time out of the office the option of working from home. Over time, as managers and employees became more comfortable with the concept, more employees opted out of the formal workplace.

The proliferation of high-speed, high-capacity Internet networks has given companies a number of options for how they want to operate their business and manage their buildings.

In IBM’s case, Wetmore said 54,000 American employees who work from home part of the time allow the company to reduce its carbon emissions by 68,000 tonnes per year. It also helps save more than 30 million litres of fuel.

“There’s no reason why companies can’t implement the telework approach,” he said.

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