Telecommuting helps employees to continue working in the face of illness.

Sheryl Hefner, director of management operations, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, began telecommuting to help cope with an unexpected health crisis. She was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s disease, which required her to spend a month in the hospital followed by six months of chemotherapy. Her department sent a computer-support specialist to Hefner’s home to set up a computer, modem, and install an extra telephone line.

Hefner credits her ability to work from home with facilitating her recovery.

Sometimes with chemo, you can’t sleep. With this arrangement, I could go online and work at two or three o’clock in the morning. It beat walking the floor.

After she recovered, Hefner-who describes herself as a people person-returned to the office full time. But she is an avid advocate of telecommuting and helps other employees make the transition to telework.

When Cheryl Okcular was diagnosed with cancer, she worked in an office and thought she might have to go on short-term disability. But her boss at the time asked, “Can you work from home?”

Okcular had worked her way up the Kraft Food chain, going from a part-time clerical position more than 20 years ago to her current job as one of 16 “regional demand planners” in the country. She puts the title in simpler terms. She is a forecaster. She predicts trends in crackers and cookies.

I thank my boss every day.  That was the biggest blessing for me.

She doesn’t say this just because of the usual benefits of having a job, the income and health insurance. She talks about how it keeps her busy. She even takes her laptop with her when she gets chemo. Working, she says, helps pass the time.

I never stopped working. I think when you don’t feel good and don’t have anything to keep you busy, you sit down and start worrying. People become consumed by it. I see it all the time.

When Mickie Casebier’s husband was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s disease, she figured she would have to take a leave of absence from her job at Oregon’s State Accident Insurance Fund (SAIF).

I was saying, ‘I don’t know how long I’m going to be able to do this job. He’s going to be at a point where he can’t dial the phone. I have to be with him.’

Casebier, a legal assistant, worried that she might not be able to return to the same area she was in before. And she knew a leave of absence would be financially difficult for her family. SAIF made it possible for her to keep working. “They said, ‘Look, we’re going to put a computer and modem in your house. You’re a valued employee.’”

Casebier works part-time from her home, taking care of business and her husband. She interviews witnesses, organizes how they will testify at hearings, and requests investigations and surveillance. She goes to the Salem office most mornings to get documents and take care of photocopying, printing and mailing.

Working out of my home —I like it.  I feel like I can get a lot done.

Telecommuting allowed another SAIF employee, Customer Billing Representative Jerri Abney, to keep working after she fell and broke her heel.

It’s enabled me to avoid using up all my sick time and not get so far behind at work.  For someone working in an office like ours, who was off work because of an injury, I think it would be strategic for the insurer and the business.

Abney is a member of a team that sorts through the work that needs to be done and identifies what she can do at home.

I help keep them current, keep them moving. It’s helped all of us.

Abney figures she’s able to do 80 to 85 percent of the work she does at the office at her home in Oregon City. She calls customers to collect balances and payroll reports they owe and prepares transmittals, adjustment sheets and data entry forms. She communicates with the office by e-mail, and modems correspondence to a printer in the Salem office. A colleague does the mailing and follow-up.

I think productivity is higher at home because of not having interruptions. Work at home is possibly more error-free.

Tags: telecommuting, work at home