Snowed in? Too bad. Log on.
With two projects due, the challenging wintry mix couldn't have come at a worse time for the Usman Group, a Web design firm in Lincolnshire.
And, of course, the customer is always right.
"They could care less if it's snowing," said owner Naveed Usman.
So, using video conference calls and other online tools, the entire staff of five hammered out the work Friday from their respective homes.
"We have to be physically there to see if (a project) looks bad or isn't working," Usman said. "It's a little more time consuming, but we're getting there."
Usman's team had the advantage of specialized tools. For many workers whose most challenging task Friday was clearing the driveway, a laptop and a cell phone were more than enough to stay in the loop.
"It was just easier to stay home than fight the salt trucks and the bad drivers. I didn't want to end up in a ditch," said Carol Levin, public relations director for the GLMV Chamber of Commerce based in Libertyville.
From her home in Lake Zurich, Levin was able to publish a newsletter, deal with e-mail and perform other tasks. She usually goes to the office but has the flexibility to bail when needed. She is like many others in the fields of accounting, customer service, technology and information and media services who did the same.
"I'm not just sitting around putting my feet up," joked Amy Weiss Thompson, of Weiss & Thompson, an accounting firm in Arlington Heights that closed Friday because of the weather.
With a laptop and cell phone, Thompson kept pace from her home in Northfield.
"There are distractions. The hard part is making a business call when the kids are fighting," she said.
There can be other issues. Do you drop a long-awaited call when the UPS person rings the doorbell? Can't the neighbor tone down that industrial-strength snowblower? And sometimes, you just have to get away.
Dana Howe, a senior loan officer with Bank of America in Hoffman Estates, was scraping ice from her car at home in Vernon Hills when a reporter called. With mortgage rates the lowest in decades, work has picked up considerably, and Howe said she was working from home until 3 a.m. the other day. Based on the weather forecast, she and four co-workers also decided not to travel to the office Friday.
"I have to go to Starbucks," she said.
"I've been on the computer all morning, especially with the (interest) rates the way they are," she added. "On days like this, as long as I have my cell phone and computer, there's no reason to go in."
Many workers have similar options. Hewitt Associates, a Lincolnshire-based human resources firm, found that 91 percent of 854 employers surveyed offered some type of alternative work arrangements. Options included working from home/telecommuting (43 percent); compressed work schedule (29 percent) and flex time (63 percent).
About 45 million Americans work from home, according to Telework Coalition Inc., a nonprofit advocacy group based in Washington D.C. That's up from about 41.5 million three years ago.
As far as creating new policies for this work force, every company is as different as the weather in the Midwest.
"There's not one silver bullet," said M. Bernadette Patton, president and CEO of the Human Resource Management Association of Chicago, which focuses on work force issues. "There's no across the board, 'Here's how you do it.'"