Major telework stories we’ll be watching in 2005
This month, Japan will launch a small telework pilot it hopes will lead to 20% of the nation’s workforce telecommuting by 2010. The country’s Ministry of Internal Affairs will begin with a six-person pilot it plans to expand to 20% of its 2,500 workers by next year.
Japan currently has 4 million workers – 6% of its 63.2 million person workforce – using technology outside the office. The goal is to expand telework to 10% of the total workforce in 2005 and 20% by 2010. Teleworkers will work “from home, universities and libraries,” according to a story appearing on the Philippine site INQ7.net (see editorial link below).
IDC recently examined the effects of outsourcing home-based call center agents. In its report, An Alternative to Offshore Outsourcing: The Emergence of the Home-Base Agent,” the research firm estimates about 100,000 of the estimated 4 million call center employees do some work from home. The report finds that home-based agents, both in-house employees and outsourced workers, suffer less turnover and can save up to 30% on overhead costs.
Potential downsides include lack of job focus, lower service levels for residential broadband, and lack of on-site support and spare parts for broken computers and headsets, the report says. Details first appeared in an article on DestinationCRM (see editorial link below).
Last, this week the New York Court of Appeals will hear the case of Thomas Huckaby, a telecommuter and Tennessee resident who works for a New York employer. Huckaby spends 75% of his time working in Tennessee, but his entire income is taxed by New York State – even though he lives 900 miles away. The state’s “convenience rule,” as it has come to be known, requires non-resident teleworkers who work for New York State employers to pay income tax on their full year’s salary to New York State, even if they spend only one day a year working in the New York office. The ruling is expected shortly, according to this recent New York Law Journal article (see editorial link below).
Meanwhile, Sen. Chris Dodd and Rep. Chris Shays, both of Connecticut, introduced versions of the Telecommuter Tax Fairness Act in Congress last fall, which requires workers to pay income tax only to the states in which they actually work. The bill is expected to be reintroduced in Congress this month.
