I’m working from home today. And I’m increasingly not alone. How many times a day do you hear people talking about the price of fuel? I’m just as sick of talking about fuel as I am of paying for it. Up to this point I have heard a lot of grumbling about gas prices but I personally have not met a large number of people who are changing how they live their lives as a result. But that is changing. As I write this regular unleaded is a little over $4/gallon and diesel (which both of my cars use) is about $4.75/gallon. My most fuel efficient car gets about 26 MPG in the city and when I do the math on my commute I am spending about $8/day getting to and from work (and yes, my wife and I ride together to the office). $40/week or $160/month is not a fun amount to pay but it’s not causing me to move yet either. But for some people, things are getting more and more difficult.

Now, I don’t have long-term solutions or political rhetoric to spew here. My spidey senses, however, tell me a change is arriving as I type. That change is the telecommuter. Having no idea what fuel prices will eventually rise to I forsee a time in the near future when an increasingly large number of employees work from home at least part of the week.

Let’s consider the average office worker, Tyler. Tyler makes about $35K and commutes about 40 miles round trip to work. His car, which he is upside down on and can’t trade in gets about 18 MPG in the city. Assuming gas is $5/gallon he is spending about $50/week on fuel just for his commute to the office. That’s $200/month, $2,400/year (not counting holidays, vacations, etc.). Back when fuel was $2.50/gallon (which I remember everybody said was insane) it was $1,200/year and back when prices were reasonable ($1.25/gallon) it was a mere $600 per year. In the past 3-4 years Tyler’s annual commute cost has increased 400% for a true dollar amount of $1,800. Tyler is going to react. One of his many reactions is going to be to go to his boss and say, “I want a raise.”

A raise of $1,800 is a little over 5% given Tyler’s current salary and most companies don’t give 5% raises. What’s more, if they did give a 5% raise it would only bring Tyler back to even. None of the other collateral increases Tyler is experiencing because of increased fuel costs are being addressed (groceries, etc.) And if we factor in the taxes involved on the additional $1,800 in salary it really won’t even cover his increased fuel cost. Tyler would need an 8% or 9% raise to accomplish that. Companies are not likely to be able to afford giving workers bumps in salary like that so I see a few choices:
1) Tell the employee that they will not get a raise and risk losing them (we’re assuming Tyler is an employee you want to retain)
2) Let Tyler work from how 2-3 days/week and provide him a laptop that has VPN connectivity to the office.

And here is where the IT shop comes into play. I believe that we will begin to see a lot more users given laptops and extended the opportunity to work from home. On paper it makes sense for the company. The choice between paying Tyler an additional $1,800/year or buying him a $900 laptop that he can use for multiple years isn’t a choice at all. As an extra bonus, Tyler is going to like his job even more because of the new flexibility in his work schedule. An arguably better bonus for the company is that if you buy the laptop you now have a depreciating asset on the books and that’s got some benefits come tax time.

The moral of the story is this: IT people, get to work on your VPN skills and make sure your remote management mojo is in high-gear. Our workforce is about to stop coming in to the office. And one thing is true about VPN technologies: When they work they tend to be great. When one little thing is wrong, they don’t work at all. Your ability to sit down at Tyler’s computer is about to get a lot harder …unless you drive out to his house, of course. Be sure to fuel up before you go.

The stage was set before the price of fuel went out of control: VPN’s, VoIP and really easy video conferencing. In hindsight these technologies were solutions waiting for really good problems. Well, now we have one…