Telecommuters Find A Home At Smaller Companies

Turns out that there's a lot of telecommuting going on in smaller companies -- and those folks are getting supported with the latest mobility technology, networking equipment, and software.According to K.C. Jones at InformationWeek, a new study by the Computing Technology Industry Association (CompTIA) indicates that a whole bunch of employees and small and midsize companies are not in the office everyday.

Nearly three out of four companies with fewer than 500 employees have at least one telecommuter who works from home at least once a week, representing 7% of the workforce. Smaller companies report that at least one worker is away on business travel at least one day per week. On average, 10 percent of the SMB workforce is mobile.

To support all those folks, 44% of the 518 SMBs surveyed plan to buy smartphones, and 32% plan to invest in VPNs.

Why all the telecommuting in smaller companies? Well, maybe it's because one of the benefits of working for a smaller outfit is that they can have more flexibilty to meet the needs of individual employees. And as the technology becomes more mainstream, they can also afford to support that flexibility. Some 70% of survey respondents said it's strategically important to invest in technology to support communications.

Makes sense to me.