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Mitel Survey Clears the Air on Telecommuting |
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Written by PRESS RELEASE
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Tuesday, 19 June 2007 |
OTTAWA, Ontario, Canada - June 5, 2007
- While the majority of Canadian and U.S. workers believe that
business and government policies to encourage people to work from home could
represent an effective way to reduce greenhouse gases (GHG) and address global
warming, corporations continue to distrust teleworking, according to research
conducted by Mitel.
Sixty-eight
percent of Canadian and 64 percent of U.S. service industry respondents to a
recent survey on the benefits of teleworking believe that measures aimed at
reducing GHG emissions, especially those related to transportation, would be
significant. However, while employees generally feel that teleworking saves
them time and that they use this time to work more productively, 42 percent of
Canadian and 54 percent of American employers are concerned about how they can
monitor employee productivity in the context of teleworking.
"Telework
has been implemented to some extent, however the link with efforts to address
global warming is not clear to everyone," said Bob Fortier, President of
the Canadian Telework Association. "If the link between teleworking and
its benefits, including the many environmental benefits, were publicized more,
it is likely that organizations would be encouraged to promote teleworking even
more."
Transportation is
the largest contributing end-use sector to total emissions. Since 1990, carbon
dioxide emissions related to the transportation sector have increased at an
average annual rate of 1.5 percent according to the U.S. Energy Information
Administration. The growth since 1990 has meant that transportation emissions
have increased by 391.8 million metric tons, representing 41 percent of the
growth in unadjusted energy-related carbon dioxide emissions from all
sectors.
Businesses
contribute to transportation emissions through employees travelling on
business, distribution and transportation of goods, employee commuting and
other fleet operations. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency figures indicate
that if just 10 percent of the nation's workforce were to telecommute just one
day a week, Americans would conserve more than 1.2 million gallons of fuel per
week.
"Nearly 40
percent of our North American employees telework, with each mile not traveled
between home and work saving on average 1.1 pounds of carbon dioxide from being
released into the atmosphere," said Don Smith, Mitel's CEO.
"By encouraging the use of our unified conferencing and collaboration
software we reduce not only our overall travel costs, but also 0.57 lbs of CO2
per mile, per employee from being emitted into the atmosphere every time these
tools are used instead of traveling to a meeting."
Between three out
of 10 organizations in Canada and four out of 10 in the U.S. report that they
encourage teleworking with 59 percent of Canadian and 65 percent of U.S.
teleworkers reporting they work from home at least once a week.
Organizations
expect teleworking to grow in the next five years. According to their
projections, the proportion of employees doing it could nearly double over the
next five years. This is consistent with the fact that most employees who do
not yet telework would be interested in trying it.
According to most
employees, teleworking is a time-saver that allows them to spend more time with
family, to do more work and even be more physically active. Consequently,
teleworking can eventually have many positive effects, not only on the economy,
but also on work / life balance and healthcare.
On behalf of
Mitel, SOM conducted two surveys from March 16 to April 11, 2007, in order to
measure how telework is perceived in Canada and the U.S. and to what extent it
is viewed as an efficient way to address global warming. One survey was among
information technology managers in small and medium size organizations in
Canada (n=100) and the U.S. (n=111) and the other survey was among the Canadian
(n=513) and U.S. (n=501) adult population.
About Mitel
Mitel, a leading
provider of unifying IP communications solutions and applications for business
customers, is headquartered in Ottawa, Canada, with offices, partners and
resellers worldwide. For more information, please visit www.mitel.com.
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