Welcome to elreno.org
Bring These Important Tips to the Table in a Telecommuting Argument
Are you tired of the sound of the alarm clock every morning? Are you equally tired of trying to figure out what to wear every day (ladies) and fighting the rush hour traffic to get to the office in time? How about spending almost your entire paycheck on gas to put in your car to get you to work? There is a way around all of this of course – telecommuting. When you telecommute to work, you can catch a little bit of extra shut eye and head to work in your pajamas, without even getting in the shower. But aside from the convenience factor, there can be a lot of other good reasons why telecommuting makes sense. If you can put together a convincing enough argument for your employer, you may find yourself going to work in your bedroom slippers before you know it.
The first thing you have to keep in mind about your telecommuting argument is that you have to make sure you have plenty of evidence that telecommuting will be beneficial to your employer, not just you. Sure, you would love to be able to see the kids off to school in the morning and take your coffee break in front of your favorite soap operas, but your boss doesn’t care about all of that. Though you don’t have to hide the fact that telecommuting will obviously have its privileges for you from your boss, remember to include plenty of ammunition for benefits to the company as well.
What can you bring to the table in terms of telecommuting advantages for your boss? Point your boss to a growing amount of research on the internet that shows that big companies have seen big increases in productivity when they started letting people telecommute and work from the comfort of their homes. Everyone knows that a rested and stress free employee is a productive one, and offices can be filled with more distractions than your home (gossiping employees, phones always ringing). Some companies have seen increases in productivity of over 50%, something that is sure to get your boss’s attention.
You can also point out to your boss that absenteeism takes a nosedive when people telecommute. No need to take a fake sick day to get out of going to office when you work from home, and even when people are under the weather, when the office is in the next room, they still tend to get a few things done on a day that would have been a total write off otherwise.
Another selling point for your boss may be that everyone else is already doing it. More than half of the companies in the US have employees that telecommute, with great results. Your boss won’t want to let the company fall behind – and your boss will know that offering what other companies have is important for employee retention. Make sure your boss knows that what you are asking for is not out of the ordinary in any way.
Beyond the selling points for your boss, you can be specific about a few benefits to you. Bosses know that gas is major issue for employees – telecommuting is a way they can let you cut back on that big expense, without feeling under pressure to respond with wage hikes. If you have customers that live near your house, let your boss know it will be easier to meet them face-to-face if you work from home.
Last but not least, let your boss know that you believe you can deliver more to the company from the comfort of your home - more work for the same pay is always music to an employer’s ears.
Check Download.com for the Best Free Security Software Around With viruses, spyware, adware and hackers threatening on every corner of the internet, it is essential that especially internet users protect their PCs as best as they can to not loose their files or even their whole PC. Buying security software at a local computer store can be very expensive, but protecting the PC does not necessarily have to cost private persons anything at all. Just by checking what for example download.com has available, computer users might be able to save as much as 50-100 Dollars and still be able to protect their PCs adequately. One part of the web page called antivirus, firewall and spyware offers different links to downloads from companies that help protect PCs from any harm. Most of the programs offered on the web page are free for download. Some of the programs are antivirus software, which generally will scan the PC according to your settings for example once a day. When the software finds a virus in any of the files on the PC it will put out a virus alarm in form of a message box. The PC users then have to decide in which way the PC should be cleaned. Some antivirus software will offer to delete the file, others save it in what is called a virus vault, where the virus cannot attack other files on the PC, while others clean the file if it is cleanable. Other programs offered on the page are firewalls. Firewalls protect the Pc from any attacks form the internet, such as hackers hacking into your PC, Trojan horses, viruses and more entering the PC is not possible, when a firewall is used and set to the proper security setting. Using a firewall is a good idea for any PC, but it is important to know that the way the firewall works it might also cause a few problems with software on the Pc that enters the Internet. Therefore firewalls need to be configured right to have a smooth running and protected PC. Many of the firewalls offered on this page are free for download, but generally most PCs have a built in firewall in their operating system that just needs to be activated or configured. The third major kind of protection software one can download form this website is spy or ad-aware detection. Spy and ad-aware are programs that are malicious for the PC user. These kind of malicious little programs are installed without the users proper knowledge and intercept or partially take control of the interactions of the PC with the internet without the users consent. Spywares do not just monitor the internet interactions, as the name suggests, it also collects personal information, can install additional software that will take over the control of the browser activity, accessing websites that will allow for example viruses to enter the PC. Spyware is also often called privacy-invasive software and something a PC as well as a user needs to be protected from. The download page does not only offer many of these programs for free, it will also offer patches and update files for these programs. Even though many of the companies offer the continuous automatic update to protect a PC from new viruses and other malware, some PC users prefer not to have an automatic update and download their own updates whenever they deem necessary. Whichever way one likes to update the PC, it is most important of all to know that PCs need to be protected and users do not need to spend tons of money in order to do so. Free programs available for download on download.com will give a PC similar protection and keep files and identity safe. Preparing Questions to Ask in your Upcoming Job Interview When you get ready for a job interview, chances are you have spent a lot of time trying to guess the questions you will be asked and prepare your answers to them. How will you explain that gap in your work history? What will you say when they ask you why you left your last job? In the rush to make sure that you have all of your answers perfectly prepared and ready, don’t forget to prepare a few questions of your own to ask the person who is interviewing you. Asking questions is an important part of your interview. When you get asked the old “do you have any questions for us” one, it pays to actually be able to come back with a few questions instead of a, “no, I don’t think so.” Asking questions will show that you are engaged in the interview and have done some thinking about the position, plus, the questions you ask will help you elicit valuable information you need when you have to decide whether or not to actually take the job, should it be offered to you. The first thing you should want to find out is why the job is open in the first place. Is the job you are applying for a new position? That means you can expect to have a lot of transitional bumps along the way as you are integrated into the company. If the job is not new, and the person before you was fired, then you can expect things to be in a state of disarray when you take over and that you will have to spend a lot of time up front cleaning up spilled milk. If the job is open because the person who had it before you moved up in the company, then you will know that this is a job with a lot of future potential. Next, find out a little bit about the person who will actually be your boss if you get the job. Sometimes, this person will be involved in the interview, but often they will not. Finding out how high up in the company chain you will be reporting will help you gauge how important the position for which you are applying is to the company. Also, it helps to know a little bit about the personality type of the boss to be. If you like to keep your head down and do your work, and your potential new boss is one of those “wacky” types, then you may want to look elsewhere. From there, ask about the kinds of responsibilities you will need to take on board right out of the gate. When companies are hiring for a new position, they usually have a few ideas about what that person will need to start working on right away. Getting a clue about your first project will help you decide if this job is right for you. This is also a good time to ask the interviewer about their job and why they like working the company. You may find out that this really could be your dream job, or you may end up sensing from your interviewer that you should run away, fast. Last but not least, ask your interview when you should follow-up on your interview. Don’t open the door for a “don’t call us, we’ll call you” kind of interview closing. Let the interviewer know to their face that will be making the effort to contact them again. You may get the vibe from your interviewer that the job probably will be going to someone else, so you can move on quickly, or you may end up being offered the job on the spot. Either way, you will have opened the lines of communication to take the next step. |