Re: [kictanet] Telecommuting Kenya Conference

Hi All,

We are in the process of organising a conference and exhibition to show case and discuss the readiness of Kenya to take advantage of telecommuting as a way to ease the traffic congestion issues while taking advantage of the technology.

In addition we can reduce staff relocation costs (financial & emotional) as an organisation can get the best staff without having them relocate. There is no reason why your tax accountant cannot work from his farm in Timau or his beach plot on Rusinga.

There is no reason why we should not be 1st african country to distribute its parliamentary sessions.

We believe that the implementation of distributed workforces will actually result in an increase in savings and indirect wage increases.

It was an interesting realisation that my domestic help who earns 3,500/- can save more than my secretary who has a net take home of 15,000/-.

			Secretary		Domestic Tech.
Net take home			15000		3500

Expenses
	Rent	5000		0
	Transport	2200		0
	Lunch	1100
	Dinner/Breakfast	1500		0
	Clothing	1000		500
	Utilities	1000		0
	Makeup/hair	1000		500
			12800		1000

	Balance		2200		2500

What I realise is that 80% of what my secretary does does not actually require a face to face such as making phone calls, replying to e-mails & editing reports. If she did not need to come to the office and carried out this activities from her house she would principally have a reduction in expenses of between 3,000/- - 5,000/-.

Back to our function, to get telecommuting going we need to see where we are and where we are going thus the objective of the conference.

So with reference to this we are inviting papers on the follwing issues;

1. Infrastructure readiness (what is available)
2. Legal interpretation (e.g. who is a permanent employee)
3. Managing telecommuters
4. Human Resource issues
5. Tax and accounting (Is rent contribution to telecommuters home allowable for tax as an expense?)
6. Data security and integrity
7. Any other relevant issues

Send a short brief on your paper to "telecommuting.Conference@tradezone.co.ke"

To make the conference practical we propose to run it from 3 locations simultaneously as a way to test the available infrastructure.

Regards

Robert Yawe
Phoenix House, 6th Floor
P O Box 55806 Nairobi, 00200
Kenya

Tel: +254722511225, +254202010696