Last summer, I wrote a two-part blog, “It’s Time to Embrace Teleworking” (Part 1 and Part 2). Out of New Lantern’s 54 blog postings over the last 14 months, we have not once returned to the same exact topic — until now thanks to recent events.

If your company to date has been cool to lukewarm on the topic of teleworking, you need only to look to the real-life response to the back-to-back snowstorms along much of the East Coast last week as your best proof point to take a new look. Thousands of companies from Virginia to Massachusetts were shut down after communities were hit by two to three feet of snow. Hundreds of thousands of employees were affected, who found themselves captive in their own homes for most of the week.

Yet, much of the work of many of these companies continued thanks to modern day connectivity, fast and inexpensive personal computers, broadband at home, smartphones, Blackberrys, and iPhones. The breadth and scale of this level of productivity from one’s home would not have been possible 10 years ago, or even 5 years ago.

Even the U.S. Government enjoyed the benefits of teleworking last week. For example, according to a spokesperson at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, “the trademark side of the agency reported production at 85 percent of normal levels on Monday and Tuesday, when the government was officially closed,” as reported in the Washington Post on February 11.

Admittedly, teleworking is not for every employee or every position, as I noted in my June 2009 blog post. But I would venture to say that almost every business can find a way to better utilize technologies so that at least some employees can work from home during part of the work week.

Employees are happier when they are not wasting one to two hours a day sitting in traffic during their commutes, or standing on a crowded subway or bus. Employees are happier when they are in comfortable and more inspiring surroundings. They are also happier when they are not chained to their desk five days a week because it makes the boss feel better. And happier employees are more innovative and productive. Period. Full stop.

Your company should take a fresh look at teleworking. Managers should embrace today’s technologies and push aside yesterday’s biases against working from home. If so, I predict brighter skies will soon be in your future.

You can trust me on this one, I wouldn’t snow you.