1. How is telecommuting different from other forms of modified work schedules? How is It similar? On any given day, many business offices are vacant because employees are either at off-site meetings, travelling, on vacation, out sick. or attending training sessions.

Many companies now recognize that there are advantages for both employees and for the company if they allow employees to work from home and telecommute.

About 1.5 million Canadians work at home at least one or two days a week. and some work from home almost all the time. Consider three fairly typical stories.

Edward Moffat works for Sun Microsystems of Canada. He signed up for the company's "open work"

program, which allowed him to work largely from home

(or anywhere for that matter). He wasn't in the office much anyway because he travelled a lot. Now he works out of his Brampton, Ontario, home 9 days out of 10. He doesn't have to pay $300 per month in highway tolls, his gas costs and car maintenance costs have gone way down, and he spends less on lunch. He thinks all those things combined save him about $50 per day. He also gets to see his wife and children more frequently.

The company estimates that telecommuting saved it

$71 million in real estate costs alone (because fewer employee offices are needed), and the turnover rate is half what It Is for non-telecommuters.