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Teleworking and Health - An Expert's Perspective

Employers with successful telework programs enjoy many benefits: improved employee morale, reduced absenteeism and turnover, and increased productivity. Telework also helps reduce emissions and improve air quality – which is why The Clean Air Campaign provides free assistance to help employers implement telework programs.

But did you know that teleworking also can help protect the health of employees inside the workplace? According to Stuart Brown, M.D., director of the Georgia Division of Public Health, the reduction in face-to-face interaction that results from teleworking also helps reduce the spread of germs – an important consideration as we enter flu season.

“Flu and other respiratory infections are spread when someone coughs or sneezes,” said Dr. Brown. “Someone coughing also deposits germs on workplace surfaces – conference tables, the copy machine and telephones. So anything you can do to limit that helps reduce the risk of infection spreading to other employees.”

Telework has long been touted by Brown and other public health authorities as a primary means of reducing employee illness and sustaining operations during a flu pandemic. But even during regular annual flu seasons – roughly October through April – employers with telework programs may see fewer employees becoming sick, and fewer days of work missed.

Brown says that the relatively close confines of most workplaces are ideal for spreading respiratory infections like flu – and that workers who are not in that environment have less risk of catching flu, or if they are sick themselves, less risk of infecting their coworkers.

“Social distancing, like telework, really helps in two ways,” he said. “First, someone who is in the workplace but sick can’t infect someone who is working at home. Second, someone who is becoming sick but working at home can’t infect everyone who is at the workplace.” Brown also emphasizes that getting a flu shot continues to be one of the best ways to avoid catching the flu in the first place.

As more and more area employers reap the benefits of telework and help improve the quality of the air we all breathe, the added benefit of improving the quality of the air your employees share is another reason to begin a telework program. By reducing smog in the summer months and reducing the risk of respiratory infections in the winter months, telework programs provide benefits throughout the year.