With mobile applications making their way to the market on almost a daily basis, physical offices are seeing more and more employees no longer showing up to work every day and instead making the beneficial decision to work from home.

Recently, Mobile Work ExchangeSM, a public-private partnership formed to highlight the value telecommuting can bring to any business, held Telework Week 2013 which occurred from March 4-8. During this four day time span, an impressive 136,093 employees vowed to remove themselves from the daily commuting grind and instead work from home.

What were the results? They were pretty astounding. They included the following: cutting expenses related to traveling to and from the workplace by $12.3 million, preventing 7,892 tons of CO2 emissions from being released into the atmosphere, and gaining back 665,936 hours that once were spent sitting almost completely still in gridlock traffic. When looking at what these statistics would equate to in a 12-month period, company officials claim that nearly $614.2 million in expenses related to commuting can be saved and then reinvested in order to improve various segments of any organization.

 “As we move toward a more mobile workforce, it is imperative for public sector organizations to provide employees with highly secure access to information to better serve constituents,” said Patrick Finn, senior vice president of U.S. Public Sector at Cisco. “At Cisco, we are committed to providing mobile and collaboration solutions that create a more effective workforce, capable of tackling challenges regardless of device or location. Telework Week provides a valuable opportunity for organizations to assess these technologies and better adapt to the new demands of the mobile worker.”

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Additionally, telecommuting is looked upon as a way for a dedicated worker to better balance both their work and family life. Just because you’re home doesn’t mean you are sitting on the couch eating Bon Bons. Rather, studies have showed that employees are actually more productive when in their environment of choice. Doing more in a shorter period of time is a win-win scenario for both the employee and employer alike.

 Since working from home typically allows for tasks to be completed on a flexible schedule, designing a work day that meets an individual’s needs enables the masses to enjoy their job to a much higher degree.

Of course, what about the amount of stress that is almost completely eliminated by no longer being required to spend half your life moving slower than a turtle, inching along the highway? That is just another great advantage of telecommuting, as in most cases the workday becomes much more manageable and less frustrating overall.

Last year, a Reuters poll revealed that one in five workers around the globe in regions such as the Middle East, Latin America and Asia telecommute frequently, and 10 percent work from home each and every day. When 2013 comes to a close, you can bet this number will rise significantly and continue to increase in the long term.