For employees working at home, let it snow [The Record, Hackensack, N.J.]

Feb. 11--Thousands of people all over North Jersey worked from home Wednesday, trading a treacherous commute in the snow for a laptop on the dining room table.

"We have the vast majority of our employees working from home," said Bob DeFillippo, a spokesman for Prudential Financial Inc. in Newark.

Companies that closed their North Jersey offices included Sharp Electronics Corp. in Mahwah; Konica Minolta Business Solutions USA in Ramsey; medical technology business Becton, Dickinson and Co. in Franklin Lakes; Toys "R" Us Inc. in Wayne; Vitamin Shoppe Inc. in North Bergen; and Samsung Electronics America in Ridgefield Park. Others, including pharmacy services provider Medco Health Solutions Inc. in Franklin Lakes, didn't officially close, but encouraged employees to work at home if possible.

Workers and employers say technology makes it possible to be just as productive at home as in a cubicle.

"Everybody seems to have a BlackBerry or a cellphone, and a laptop or a home computer," said Sharp spokesman Chris Loncto, who worked at his Glen Rock home Wednesday. "Business can be done from home."

Ken Masson of Montclair, a financial writer who worked at home instead of commuting to New York, said, "Having the ability to get a lot done from home is a life-change."

Masson remembers working at companies where everyone was expected to brave the weather to come into the office.

At Prudential, "people have remote access to internal e-mail and, in a lot of cases, to their desktops," DeFillippo said.

Dawne Livingstone of Pequannock, a payroll manager at Samsung Electronics, said her company advised workers Tuesday to take home whatever they needed to work from home Wednesday. As a result, she was able to accomplish a lot during the storm.

"It's definitely not a snow day, like for the kids," she said. "It's a workday."

But to get her work done "without yelling," Livingstone had to take her two young children to her mother's house nearby. Masson also had to juggle his work with the needs of three children, including a 9-month-old baby. His workday included talking on the phone with colleagues in Los Angeles while "trying to keep the uproar down" at home.

Several companies that were open Wednesday morning closed early to let workers try to beat the heaviest part of the storm.

The Falstrom Co., a Passaic metal products maker, closed at noon. About half of the company's workers came to work that morning, said president Cliff Lindholm.

"All of this is an inconvenience, but not major," Lindholm said.

Ronald Hermance, chief executive officer of Hudson City Bancorp Inc., said more than 90 percent of the 230 employees at the main office in Paramus showed up for work Wednesday. The company provided them with a free box lunch before sending them home at noon. Many took their work with them, Hermance said.

"Thank God for e-mail, right?" Hermance said.

Not everyone could work from home. Some Prudential staffers had to be in the Newark office to prepare for the release of the company's fourth-quarter earnings report after the stock market closed Wednesday. Those staffers stayed in nearby hotels Tuesday night to make sure they could get to the company's Broad Street high-rise on Wednesday.

Public Service Enterprise Group Inc. of Newark, the parent company of New Jersey's largest utility, let non-essential employees work from home or, if that wasn't possible, to have the day off, spokesman Paul Rosengren said from his home in Glen Rock.

But crews had to report to work to restore power to customers whose service was interrupted by the winter storm. In Newark, the company activated its emergency response center, an underground office at its headquarters where workers monitor outages and coordinate responses.

Those working at the response center Wednesday were preparing to stay overnight if they couldn't get home through the storm. Tom Coates, manager of delivery operations support, said staffers gathered a few days' worth of food.

"We went out shopping for basic staples," he said -- milk, cereal, coffee, TV dinners and frozen pizzas.

Staff Writers Joan Verdon, Andrew Tangel, Richard Newman, Allison Pries and Hugh Morley contributed to this report.

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