Telecommuting allows working mom to stay home

Joey Williams, an account executive, copywriter and broadcast producer for Schilling/Sellmeyer & Associates Inc., never thought she'd want to be a stay-at-home mom. But several months after the birth of her son, Josiah, who will be a year old Sept. 15, Williams said she wanted to spend more time with him.

"I don't believe it takes a village to raise a kid. It takes a family," she said.

This past May, just before celebrating her fifth anniversary with the company, Williams got her wish. She began telecommuting. She still works for Schilling/Sellmeyer & Associates but from an office at home.

Williams said she first discussed telecommuting with her husband, Mike Williams, a freelance photographer the two share the home office and when he agreed that it would be a good idea, she went to her boss, Don Schilling.

Schilling and Matt Sellmeyer, co-owners of the company, agreed to the switch more easily than Williams expected.

"I work for good guys. I work for a great company, they really are, and especially for two guys who don't have kids. ... I kept going, They're not going to understand, they're not going to understand, they don't have kids,' and I sold them short," she said.

Still, she said, even though Schilling agreed to the switch, having her work from home isn't the ideal situation for him.

"I know it's not. I mean, I'm not silly enough to think that this is the ideal situation for a business owner," she said. "It was, I think, difficult for him that I wasn't going to be there all the time, because I did a lot of stuff and Don and I work well together."

Schilling, president and chief executive officer of Schilling/Sellmeyer, agreed that it isn't an ideal situation. But he said the company which has two other telecommuting employees tries to work around the situations its employees face.

"We don't have a lot of turnover at our company, and we feel like we've got a lot invested in our employees, and our employees have a lot invested in us, and we don't let go of those relationships very easily," he said. "Joey's was a personal situation. She had a child, and we support her in the fact that she wants to raise her child in that way."

Williams said most of the work she does is delivered to the company via e-mail, and the equipment necessary to work from home wasn't hard to put into place.

She already had a Macintosh computer at home, which was compatible with those used at the office. She had a cellular phone through the company, and she took home an old fax machine from the office.

She said her duties these days are a mixture of working with the same clients she took care of before she began telecommuting and working on new jobs as they are called in to the company. But, she said, now that she's working from home, she doesn't handle as many of the new jobs as she used to.

"In the advertising world, you jump in and do what has to happen, and basically I'm not that person anymore who jumps in when something gets called in. I have, pretty much, my set clients," she said.

Williams' salary did change, though, when she began working from home.

"Obviously, I'm not doing all of the things that I was before, so I did not expect to have the same kind of salary," she said.

Schilling said having employees working from home does put pressure on those who are working at the office.

"Sometimes I have to defend my decision to do this because other people have to pick up the slack," he said.

Williams said she and Schilling talked with clients about her switch to telecommuting before she began working from home, and all of them have been understanding.

In fact, she said, when they call her home to discuss their accounts, it's rare for them not to ask first about Josiah, then to discuss business.

"It's not the fake, How are you today?' that you ask somebody. They really want to know," she said.

As far as her workdays go, Williams said, she gets up at 5 a.m. every day, exercises, has quiet time and usually finishes all the copy writing she has for the day by the time Josiah wakes up, around 8 a.m. She said she also works while Josiah naps and sometimes in the evenings, and she also visits the office several times a week, usually taking Josiah along.

Williams said the three main reasons telecommuting is working out for her are prayer, her boss and great clients. But she said the fact that she's a Type-A personality very organized and very focused also helps her balance work and home responsibilities.

She said time management is also very important, so she wouldn't recommend telecommuting to procrastinators.

"It's working for me. It's not for everybody, and maybe it's not even for every company. I just work for an exceptional company, and I don't think Matt and Don will ever have any idea how grateful I am that they made this happen for me and Josiah, and Mike, as well," she said.

Schilling said telecommuting is not something he'd try with some employees, but with the right employees under the right circumstances, it can work out. Still, he said, there are some issues with telecommuting, and he's still figuring out how it can best work for Schilling/Sellmeyer. He said he's now in the process of re-evaluating what kind of duties Williams is able to take care of while working from home.

Williams said she plans to continue telecommuting until Josiah is old enough to start school.

"I just really felt like God gave me a skill that I can do from home, and if I didn't utilize that, I was going to wake up, and (Josiah) was going to be 15 years old, and it was going to be, Wow, why didn't I try that?'" she said.

Schilling said telecommuting isn't something he could see the company doing for an extended period of time, and the fact that Williams and the others eventually plan to return to work in the office was a big factor in allowing them to work from home.

"If there was no chance that any of them were going to come back, we wouldn't do it," he said.

Schilling said it's also very important for telecommuters to remember that they're still an important part of the company, and to take the initiative to maintain contact with both the company and its clients. But he said doing that doesn't completely take the place of actually working in the office.

"I think there's an advantage to coming to the workplace, getting in that mode, doing your job. I still believe very much in that," he said.