And because it's the employee's out-of-pocket expense, many will cheap out on such niceties as a decent chair or a real desk. This can help ensure a healthy crop of RSI complaints, among other benefits.

If you're really good, you'll also keep the help desk in the dark about your plans, to make sure it isn't in a position to support large numbers of out-of-office employees.

If you're even better, you'll choose a VPN technology that relies on static IP addresses or is otherwise fragile, to make sure employees can't connect to the corporate network reliably. This shouldn't be difficult, because just about all of the you have to choose from are ... well, let's just say they're far from what they should be.

6. Pilot telecommuting with marginal employees first

Telecommuting is a risk. You don't want to expose your best employees during the proof of concept, so best to try it with the ones who slack off even when they're in their cubicles.