Special Issue: Telecommuting: Office Space Without Walls

Many employers allow their employees to work from home or a remote work site. While an estimated 12 million employees telework more than eight hours per week, that statistic fails to describe adequately the extent to which telecommuting has become a way of life. See Tahmincioglu, Eve: The Quiet Revolution: Telecommuting. msnbc.com, Aug. 19, 2007, available at http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/20281475/ (last visited June 10, 2008). The reality is that approximately 45 million employees perform some part of their job away from the office thanks in large part to advances in remote access technology. See Qualters, Sheri: Telecommuters Are Reaching Out to Sue Their Employers. The National Law Journal, Dec.15, 2006, available at http://www.law.com/jsp/LawArticlePC.jsp?id=900005552578. The ubiquitous hand-held devices allow employees to be 'on-call' to receive work-related communications 24 hours a day wherever they are. Many employers also have software that allows remote access by home computer to e-mails, databases, desktops, programs, and whatever else an employee typically needs to perform the job. Because teleworking can also be as simple as completing paperwork at home after hours or working from a satellite office, most employers have “telecommuters.'