We have white-collar labor - professionals, managers, lawyers, etc.  We have blue-collar workers - laborers, auto mechanics, construction workers, etc.  So, what are green-collar employees?  What is a green employer? Why do we care?  Ask Al Gore?

With the technology advances over the last years, I can't imagine why most office-type employers (lawyers, accountants, real estate agencies, etc.) don't send their employees home with a full computer setup, a webcam, high-speed internet service, VOIP, instant messaging, scanner and fax...  how "green-collar" can you get?

Maybe the not-so-tech-saavy management personnel just doesn't realize the "paperless office" is now a reality, that document encryption secures online transmissions, that webcams are inexpensive.  What are big overhead costs for a business - office space, energy, parking, premises insurance, utilities, phone systems, office gossip, pilfering ... there is a long list of overhead expenses that have skyrocketed and in the meantime technology has dropped in price and increased in reliability and productivity. 

So why don't these businesses send their employees home?  Maybe they just don't have a good technology consultant to guide them through the process and establish new work methods and procedures.  Maybe the boss  loves to see their hired help buzzing around the office competing for kudos and promotions.  In the age of "Al Gore" - I don't get it. 

With the planet in a crisis, if 25% of employers would send home 50% of their office staff to work, think of the gasoline saved, the electricity, the reduction of pollutants!  After all, those workers leave their homes every morning, they have to pay for that space anyway (their rent or mortgage), buy gas to drive 20 miles to park in a parking structure that requires lighting and maintenance.  Then, these workers pay for their home utilities to stay on for the 10 hours a day that nobody's home anyway... while they work in an office cubicle that requires lighting, heat, cooling, furniture, equipment.... INSANITY!

All these workers are clogging up the freeways (and their lungs) on their way home to turn on their home computers connected to the internet, equipped with printers and some office suite... and they pay for a telephone service they don't use the 10 hours a day they are either going to or from or at their office building. 

That skyscraper or 4-story office building costs a lot of planetary sorrow - taking up natural habitat space, or space to grow a cloned vegetable, produces tons of air pollution from energy production and consumption, not to mention the millions of dollars that could be put to better use by supporting families working at home.

Can you imagine - say you're a paralegal  (or bookkeeper) and you're "on your way to work" today.... you make your kids breakfast, get them off to school, put on something decent (at least from the waist up!), turn on your computer, webcam, log in to your company network, download the lastest audio file dictation from your boss... and you're now at work!  Your boss can see you, can talk to you via webcam and conferencing software, you exchange drafted pleadings and the boss faxes you edited documents.  You file the pdf'd pleadings with electronic signatures with the online court clerk's office and email pdf files and scanned exhibits to opposing counsel.  Get up, make some coffee in your own kitchen... take a break on your own couch or do some pushups or whatever (all the while being able to be "buzzed" by the boss, if needed, because your computer has an "attention bell" utility).    Lunch social? Invite a neighbor (who's that!??) over for home-made, healthy sandwiches and a salad!  Then, instead of communting home from the office, which takes an hour, check on the kids (who are no longer "latch-key" kids!) who have been doing their homework quietly while you finish your "day at the office".   

Just imagine! What a family-friendly, earth-friendly, energy-saving, efficient, happy GREEN paralegal!  Give him or her a big raise -perhaps equal to the costs-savings from not having to pay for office space, parking, lighting.... see list above!

Employer, do you need a technology consultant to help you figure this out?   Call an office technology expert consultant or call 505-715-4100 and RAMtech will help you find someone.  The time has come to SEND HOME THE EMPLOYEES FOR GOOD! (Well, maybe you'll want to have monthly dinner meetings - you'll be able to afford it now, after all.) 

Here is an interesting article I found about using technology for remote office work