Behind the traffic pile-ups, cancelled flights and power outages caused by recent record storms in the Middle Atlantic States, there’s another sobering story – the enormous cumulative loss of business productivity caused by employees’ inability to work from home when commuting became impossible. A survey of 500 people in four states and the District of Columbia, commissioned by Citrix Online, found that 52% of respondents have lost six or more hours of work due to this winter’s severe storms; this represents a potential loss of nearly 50 million total man hours of productivity in these states. Half have been forced to cancel or delay a meeting in the last year due to inclement weather. Further, 47% stated they have no technology tools, flex time, telework provisions or alternate assignments to assist when commuting is a problem.

“Enabling your employees to work from anywhere is simple,” said Chuck Wilsker, President and CEO of the Telework Coalition and a member of Citrix Online’s Worldwide Workplace Council. “The keys are to plan ahead, determine the specific needs of your organization, identify best practices for managing your virtual workplace, and using technologies, which are both suited to productivity and can address your benchmarks for success. The first application I ever used that allowed me to work remotely was GoToMyPC and it’s still a wonderful solution. Citrix Online’s Worldwide Workplace Council has authored a paper outlining the five steps to a virtual workplace program.”

For example, Ira H. Siegal, CPA, of Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania, an affiliate of 123College.com, inc., turned to GoToMeeting when he saw that snow threatened to prevent attendees from coming to a seminar last week. He recalled, “As I watched the snow get deeper, some of the people who had registered to attend my seminar started to question whether it would occur. I polled them, and they said they would have trouble shoveling out their cars and navigating the roads to make it to my event. I realized I needed a back-up plan, and decided to conduct an online seminar instead. GoToMeeting saved the day for me, and allowed me to conduct business from the safety of my home.”

The Citrix Online survey, which covered New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Virginia/D.C., and Maryland, found that 38% of respondents were unable to commute to work at least once during the storms in December 2009 and January and February 2010. For many, this meant a lost day of productivity; results revealed 50% of those surveyed had no work situation away from their office.

For more information about Citrix Online, a division of Citrix Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: CTXS), or Work Shifting, visit www.citrixonline.com or www.workshifting.com.