Going to work - at home: Workers see benefits of telecommuting in rural areas

Each morning, Tracy Freeman wakes up and gets mentally prepared for the day ahead.

Breakfast, coffee and then it’s right to the office, just upstairs. It’s a large room, with the walls cleared of distractions and located away from the familiarity of the rest of her house.

“I get up and go to work every morning,” she said. “It sets a routine and a structure, and it takes discipline.”

Freeman, a Flathead High School graduate and Montana State University alumnus, has brought her job back home with her. As program technology director for Pearson Assessments, based in Iowa City, Iowa, Freeman communicates virtually with customers and project managers about issues in the technology that delivers standardized tests created by Pearson.

Freeman said collaborating with a team to develop technology is like piecing together a jigsaw puzzle.

“What I’ve always really liked is figuring out technology to service customer issues, then work with really good technology people to find a solution,” she said.

When Freeman first returned to Kalispell, her husband had just retired from his career with the Iowa City Police Department. Earlier in their lives both attended Montana State University, and then moved to the Midwest after graduation. Although Freeman graduated with a degree in engineering, she soon went back to school at University of Iowa, where she found that computer science better fit her natural skill set.

“The single biggest advantage is being able to have a really good, challenging professional career and being able to do it in the location that you want,” she said.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau’s annual American Community Survey, telecommuting rose 79 percent between 2005 and 2012. About 2.6 percent of the U.S. work force, roughly just over 3 million employees, are telecommuters.

Freeman is one of a growing number of telecommuters in the Flathead Valley.

NXGEN Payment Services, a credit card payment processing company headquartered in Whitefish, offers telecommuting to its employees. That company thrives on telecommuting as a global conveyance method.

NXGEN President Giuseppe Caltabian said although he enjoys the face-to-face connection in an office setting, telecommuting is common sense in today’s world of available technology. From the Whitefish headquarters, he’s able to bring management from across the globe into one room and one conversation.

“There are two things that make you change the traditional set-up of a company,” he said. “One, you cannot be everywhere you need to be at the same time. And second, is when you work by objectives and results instead of processes and procedures.”

Caltabian gives his employees in the Flathead Valley the option of working at home, although they are always invited to work in the office. As a family-oriented company, telecommuting provides parents the opportunity to care for their newborn baby. Instead of losing employees because he’s not willing to accommodate that need, he believes they will produce as much, if not more, because it might be difficult finding another company that would accommodate them.

“I look at results,” Caltabian said. “Would you rather have someone chained to their desk eight hours a day or someone you don’t see around, who produces?”

In company meetings, Caltabian seamlessly communicates with offices in the United States, Canada, Mexico and the United Kingdom.

“I love Whitefish, but my job is everywhere but Whitefish,” Caltabian said.

Some business leaders in Montana are promoting telecommuting as a means to bring college graduates back into the local economy.

Greg Gianforte, the founder of RightNow Technologies (which sold to Oracle, another Bozeman technology company, in 2011), now campaigns around the state with his Better Montana Jobs initiative, with a focus on telecommuting. He encourages people to broach the idea of telecommuting to their current employers, and look for such opportunities.

“Telecommuting isn’t just for techies,” Gianforte said. “You can telecommute really any professional desk job.”

Gianforte said Montana rural telephone cooperatives have been effective in making high-speed bandwidth available. Telecommuting is ideal for Montana, he said, because of the quality of life, the low number of high-wage jobs and housing prices below the national average. He pointed out that Flexjobs.com displays 3,000 jobs that can be done from home.

“At this point, geography is no longer a constraint,” Gianforte said. “The smartest people will move to the most beautiful places.”

Gianforte’s push to boost telecommuting in Montana could become a campaign platform if he decides to run for governor on the Republican ticket next year. Earlier this summer, he indicated to the media that running for governor is a possibility, but he currently doesn’t have it at the forefront of his priorities.

Despite all the desired effects of telecommuting, there are some drawbacks. Employee accountability is one of those issues. In 2013, Yahoo Chief Executive Officer Marissa Mayer changed that company’s policy, requiring all employees to report to an office every work day in an effort to improve accountability.

Caltabian believes the biggest disadvantage is losing some of the flow of informal collaboration found in the office environment.

“That particular vibe you get,” Caltabian said. “The conversations of, ‘Where are we going, why are we doing this?’ There’s an informal bumping around and sharing ideas over coffee.”

Even while Gianforte was telecommuting with RightNow, he sometimes missed the drive home from the office and would occasionally stroll around his neighborhood after getting up from his desk, a small commute of sorts for his brain.

Freeman believes that telecommunication opportunities are set for growth, and the Flathead Valley may be a future incubator in the job market.

“There are a lot of young professional people living here, and it’s a great place to live. [Telecommuting] has been a great opportunity for me. I would have had to retire early, or continue living in Iowa,” she said with a laugh.

Reporter Seaborn Larson may be reached at 758-4441 or by email at slarson@dailyinterlake.com.