High-Tech Companies and Telecommuting
Telecommuter = teleworker = someone who works from home on a computer and sends work to their office over
telephone lines by modem or fax
High-tech company = Technology company = High-technology businesses = High-tech firms
Telecommute = to work from home, communicating with your office, customers and others by phone, mail
To work together as a group = work as a team= teamwork
To swap its policy of encouraging telecommuting
To swap = to replace = to change = to exchange = to substitute = to trade
To ban employees from working at home
To ban = to prohibit = to forbid = to outlaw
Working from home = teleworking = telecommuting
A small fraction of their workforce
To slash their expenses by reducing the size of their office spaces and other facilities.
To slash = to cut sth down/back = to downsize = to scale sth back/down = to rationalize
No longer have to put up with long commutes on crowed trains and buses.
Happy to stay home and skip the company’s informal events.
Tremendous potential for solving problems
To solve = to clear sth up
Come together and think together
To increase the incidence of creative ideas
To come up with creative ideas
To be very important to develop and support an individual, a culture, and a society.
To commute to and from / (between) work. = to travel regularly by bus, train, car,.. between your place of work and
your home
A tremendous loss of potential productivity
To skip this daily commute and swap working at an office with working from home.
Great savings include environmental savings, economic production,
CO2 is of course emitted by cars and buses.
Massive and a huge amount of fossil fuel is consumed
Road traffic often slows to a crawl during rush hour
To slow to a crawl = to be at slow crawl = to be down to a crawl = a very slow speed
At slow speeds the engines of cars produce exhaust gases that harmful to people’s health.
Diesel fumes/petrol/exhaust fumes = exhaust gases
Public health-care systems
To pass on (=to accept) the taxpayer
To suffer injury and death
Traffic accidents on their way to and from work as well as stress
The majority of workers became telecommuters
To expand economic production
Women entered the workforce
Telecommuting offers a way for more people to join the workforce
Stay-at-home parents, caregivers, the disabled, and those living in rural or remote areas
The talent pool is expanded
A reduction in the incidence of infectious disease.
Absenteeism from work
To be not together physically at work and not socialize after work
A fraction of their staff as telecommuters
A direct reduction in costs
Real estate costs can be reduced considerably
To be together physically = to be physically present
Further flexibility
High job satisfaction >< low job satisfaction
Leisure time = free time = spare time
Change jobs = switch jobs = find another job
Highly productive
Training expense
A lower salary >< A good salary
To face a stressful commute to a noisy city each day
To stop the massively inefficient movement of people into our cites