SYRACUSE -- Imagine having a job and never having to actually go to work. It may sound too good to be true, but it's becoming a reality for many working Americans. A growing number of companies are moving towards a virtual workplace.
It's been a dream come true for Renee Simo. She is the Director of Sales at Webucator, a training company that provides software training and business leadership.
The company had office space in Jamesville until 2008 when the company's CEO decided to pack everyone up and send them home. Now, all 26 employees work from home. "I've been thrilled...I absolutely love it," Simo told CNYCentral from her workplace at home. As the mother of a 5-year-old, Simo struggled with finding a balance between working and being a mom. Simo says the flexibility gave her the drive to keep working. "I used to be so upset when I had to go to work...it's so nice to go give (my daughter) a kiss and then go back to work...It's a perfect balance and I wouldn't want to work anywhere else," she said.
Webucator now has employees in Syracuse, Florida, New Jersey, Alabama and Texas. They communicate via Gmail, Yammer and WebEx for video conferencing.
From Syracuse out west to California, virtual workplaces are popping up across the country.
As the President of Niner Bikes, Chris Sugai doesn't care when his employees get their work done. In fact, he doesn't care if they come into the office at all. "I really believe you hire people, you trust them, and you just say look, this is the amount of work you have to get done...get it done," Sugai said.
In 2004, Sugai started Niner Bikes, a high-end mountain bike company in California. The business is run through a virtual office system with 24 employees working out of six different locations. With California's cost of living so high, Sugai found the Golden State isn't always so alluring. "Hiring the right people means that if the best person for the job is in South Carolina, then, hey, you know what, you figure out how to make that person in South Carolina work for your company without them moving."
The staff of Niner Bikes keeps in touch primarily via Skype, lots of Skype. "We had a joke last week 'cause I actually sit 10 or 11 feet away from Brett and I actually called him on Skype with another person in another office," said Mike Gann, Chief Operating Officer.
All jokes aside, if their locations were ever compromised, not to worry. "We purchased a cloud computing software that basically runs our entire operation," Sugai said. "We could run to the nearest supply store, pick up 5 laptops, go to a hotel lobby and we could be up and running within half an hour without any loss of data or information."
As proof that the virtual office works, Nine Bikes is growing fast at about 100 percent a year. So what are the downsides? "Trying to keep, um, that threat of commonality through the entire staff is difficult," Sugai said.
Yet there is one employee who just can't seem to get the hang of telecommuting. "My own personality type makes it difficult for me to work from home for some reason. I get easily distracted," Sugai admits.
Last year, Nine Bikes raked in more than $10 million and even landed on Forbes list of America's Most Promising Companies. Not bad for a small business spread out across the country.
Have you ever worked from home? Do you find it distracting? Do you think it's a good solution for both companies and employees? Why? Leave your thoughts below.
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Information from NBC News used in this report.
