Working from Home to Meet the Triple Bottom Line

With fuel prices on the rise and budgets on the decline, keeping focus on environmental stewardship may slip down your company's priority list. But it doesn't have to. Sustainable businesses work for more than just the company finances. When enacting your business plan, consider the triple bottom line: profits, people, and the planet. [Coined by John Elkington in 1994.]

A good example of the triple bottom line in action is working from home.

People:

When you are working at home, everyone can have a dedicated corner office with a window. Not only is this good for your morale, but it also allows you to experience more natural daylight and fresh air. Employees who can alternate working at home and going into the office can become more productive by scheduling "heads down" tasks like reading reports or analyzing data for home days and scheduling brainstorming sessions and team meetings on office days. Escaping the standard cubicle jungle empowers employees to take ownership of their responsibilities. It also gives them the flexibility to be available at different times of the days, a great benefit when your business works with clients and partners in different time zones. Remote workers can spice up their work at home days by spending a few hours in a neighborhood coffee shop interacting with other virtual professionals in a third space. Additionally employees can add an hour or more of family time to their day by staying out of rush hour traffic and working from home. When a commute is less frequent, it's possible to give up one of the family cars and put the car payment money into a vacation fund or an early retirement savings plan.

Planet:

Individuals who work from home allow the company to reduce the natural resources consumed and decrease pollutants and emissions created from transportation. An employee working at home is also more likely to use their own ceramic mugs for the morning coffee than an office Styrofoam cup. Besides saving gas, people use fewer individually packaged or disposable materials like carry-out boxes and bottled soda from a vending machine by eating at home instead of the office lunchroom. A surprising side effect of employees being flexible enough to work at home or in the office is lower office supply consumption. Rather than using the traditional pen, paper, and file cabinet, many employees are digitizing their work and using an electronic file system or a web-based shared team space for housing information.

Profits:Empowered employees with more ownership and higher morale are more likely to stay with the company. Retaining your valuable employees with flexibility perks saves the company money in recruiting and retraining new resources. When employees don't have a permanent cubicle in the office, the workplace can be designed with a more open floor plan which can be adapted to the needs of the company versus the standard rigid office layout. It also allows the employer to rent or own less space, spend less money on facility management, and save on energy and water usage. Just reducing the amount of office trash picked up can save the company a few hundred dollars a month. The company

With fuel prices on the rise and budgets on the decline, keeping focus on environmental stewardship may slip down your company's priority list. But it doesn't have to. Sustainable businesses work for more than just the company finances. When enacting your business plan, consider the triple bottom line: profits, people, and the planet. [Coined by John Elkington in 1994.]

A good example of the triple bottom line in action is working from home.

People:

When you are working at home, everyone can have a dedicated corner office with a window. Not only is this good for your morale, but it also allows you to experience more natural daylight and fresh air. Employees who can alternate working at home and going into the office can become more productive by scheduling "heads down" tasks like reading reports or analyzing data for home days and scheduling brainstorming sessions and team meetings on office days. Escaping the standard cubicle jungle empowers employees to take ownership of their responsibilities. It also gives them the flexibility to be available at different times of the days, a great benefit when your business works with clients and partners in different time zones. Remote workers can spice up their work at home days by spending a few hours in a neighborhood coffee shop interacting with other virtual professionals in a third space. Additionally employees can add an hour or more of family time to their day by staying out of rush hour traffic and working from home. When a commute is less frequent, it's possible to give up one of the family cars and put the car payment money into a vacation fund or an early retirement savings plan.

Planet:

Individuals who work from home allow the company to reduce the natural resources consumed and decrease pollutants and emissions created from transportation. An employee working at home is also more likely to use their own ceramic mugs for the morning coffee than an office Styrofoam cup. Besides saving gas, people use fewer individually packaged or disposable materials like carry-out boxes and bottled soda from a vending machine by eating at home instead of the office lunchroom. A surprising side effect of employees being flexible enough to work at home or in the office is lower office supply consumption. Rather than using the traditional pen, paper, and file cabinet, many employees are digitizing their work and using an electronic file system or a web-based shared team space for housing information.

Profits:

Empowered employees with more ownership and higher morale are more likely to stay with the company. Retaining your valuable employees with flexibility perks saves the company money in recruiting and retraining new resources. When employees don't have a permanent cubicle in the office, the workplace can be designed with a more open floor plan which can be adapted to the needs of the company versus the standard rigid office layout. It also allows the employer to rent or own less space, spend less money on facility management, and save on energy and water usage. Just reducing the amount of office trash picked up can save the company a few hundred dollars a month. The company may even be able to have a smaller parking lot per the building codes with less permanent employees inhabiting the space. When employees are trained to use electronic communication tools, they are able to work in more locations, and at a moment's notice. Use this idea in your disaster recovery plan or staff augment programs. Consider investing in a virtual assistant or remote contract resource during your busy periods to ramp up quickly and increase the job security of your base workforce.

Save money, treat your employees well, and reduce your environmental footprint by instituting a work from home program. The triple bottom line is a powerful method to establish a successful and sustainable business.