Why telecommuters go back to the office

January 22, 2009 at 11:20 am · Filed under Web Commuting

Josh Lubin’s article on CNN entitled “Working from home: Not for every ‘Mr. Mom’” immediately caught my eye. In it he gave a detailed account of how he tried to telework after the birth of his daughter, in order to spend more time with her and live the “Mr. Mom” lifestyle. This reflects one of the biggest reasons people choose to telecommute: more time for the family. As good as his intentions are, however, they weren’t enough to make things work.

At first it seemed like a good plan, as his job in a news firm allowed him to work from home, and his responsibilities could be dealt with via email and phone conferences. Initially, things went well. His productivity increased while avoiding the grind of early morning preparations and traffic jams. Then, the baby cried, and kept crying – louder – no matter what he did, right in the middle of a conference call. I could only imagine how nerve-wracking that was for him.

Situations like these underscore the importance of domestic arrangements for telecommuters, and why some decide to go back to the office. In the traditional setup, there’s a clear line between work and personal life, which is convenient for some people. One could argue that he could have gotten used to the arrangement, or even hire a part-time nanny while he worked to ease the transition, but for him I suppose he needed to go back to the office life while he sorted things out.

Another common reason why people would rather go back to the cubicle is the familiar phrase “out of sight, out of mind”. I’ve encountered this line of thought a lot over time, and there’s no denying there’s some truth to it. The best way to keep this kind of fear away, I think, is for companies themselves to institute concrete and non-discriminating performance evaluation procedures. After all, it shouldn’t matter if the employee is beside you or miles from you, as long as he gets the job done and does it well.

Other people cite loneliness and the need for interaction as a reason for preferring to work at the office. If you live on your own in an apartment outside your hometown, you may fall in this category. Still, for some, it’s the craving for a structured environment and even a preference for supervision, because telecommuting from home is taxing in terms of self-discipline. I’ve actually talked to a few people who would rather have a boss watching over them to motivate them to do their jobs well.

It could also be a matter of infrastructure needs not being addressed well enough in order to work efficiently at home. Not all companies support their teleworkers with sponsored broadband Internet connections and office equipment. There may be issues concerning ISP bandwidth and the security of corporate files. This points to the ideal that teleworking should be a joint decision between the individual employee and the company itself, with both parties actively sharing responsibility for ensuring the quality of work, as well as sharing the benefits of such – greater flexibility for the employee and significant cost savings for the employer, among many others.

Coworking, Coffee Shops and Entrepreneurs

December 30, 2008 at 2:31 am · Filed under Collaboration, Communities, Web Commuting

There’s a strong connection between entrepreneurs and coffee shops. Entrepreneurs — tired of working in isolation — so frequently head to the local coffee shop that it’s become a cliche.

In a coffee shop with other entrepreneurs amid the hustle and bustle of activity, at least they feel connected to the rest of society.  For some, it energizes them to have human interaction around them.

Drea at BusinessPundit.com suggests that coworking spaces may displace coffee shops as the workplace of choice for entrepreneurs who are tired of working at home alone, but equally tired of the limitations of the local coffee shop. In Coworking vs. the Coffee Shop: Who Wins? she writes:

Coworking, on the other hand, allows you a range of cafe-like benefits, without the cafe:

-You pay a flat membership fee instead of a daily fee.
-Everyone has a laptop!
-You get the chance to collaborate with your peers.
-The seats are probably more comfortable.
-Cell phone use is more acceptable–it is a workspace.
-The hip factor may not be a factor, although I am not sure about this point.

I think co-working can be a helpful arrangement for some people who work best in an environment with the stimulation of other people around. On the other hand, it might quickly become a negative experience — and distracting.

Here, for instance, is an image of a coworking space from CoworkUtah.

CoworkUtah features a particularly social flavor of coworking — they call it a “social media community workspace.”

To many people this would be an inviting scene.  It’s a warm, relaxed, welcoming work arrangement with other humans around. It feels like you could occasionally bounce a question off of someone, or kick around that new idea you have.

But here are the downsides — people who:

• talk loudly on their cell phones right next to you, while you are trying to concentrate
• want to endlessly chit chat with the neighbors around them
• hog up the best chairs and table space, every single day

You catch my drift — there are a dozen ways others can annoy you in a communal shared space.  To some degree it depends on how the coworking space is set up and how closely together you are all crammed in.

I can see how coworking might be energizing and attractive to some, especially extroverted types who crave social interaction and feed on the energy of other people around them. Probably a good target market for coworking spaces are entrepreneurs who would otherwise go to a coffee shop, but are looking for an experience superior to the coffee shop experience.

For those like me who cherish quiet concentration, an absence of distractions, and complete control over our physical setting, it is probably not our cup of tea.  But, then, I never much liked working in coffee shops, either.

For more about coworking, including resources, read my earlier piece:  Coworking Spaces: Cheap and Sociable.

A Webinar on IT’s Role in Supporting Mobile Work

November 11, 2008 at 6:39 pm · Filed under Collaboration, Distributed Work, Reviews, Technology Management, Web Commuting, Webinar

Charlie Grantham and I completed presenting a webinar on “The Future of Work:  IT’s Role in Enabling Mobile Work” just a few hours ago.
The webinar was sponsored by Citrix Online, and included our reporting out the results of an extensive survey we recently completed of IT professionals and their views about the challenges and opportunities surrounding mobile work. The survey was also sponsored by Citrix.

Among the topics we covered:

• Why mobile work is real – and here to stay

• What challenges the mobile workforce creates for IT

• Why remote access is just as important as having a laptop and a cell phone

The session is now available for viewing online whenever you wish. Just click here and you should have your Windows Media Player or other media player open right up and start playing.

The whole session takes about 50 minutes; we’re on for about 30 minutes, followed by an online demo of Citrix Online’s GotoMyPC software that does just that – it lets you access a remote PC from anywhere and work on it just as if you were sitting in front of it.

Hope you’ll find some time to listen to the webinar – it’s mostly about the issues and challenges facing IT organizations as they gear up to support mobile workers, but we also spent the first ten minutes or so talking about why mobile work is growing so rapidly (hint, it’s not just because technology makes it relatively easy – there’s much more to it than that).

We think you’ll find the session interesting and informative.

Tags:futureofwork mobilework mobiletechnology onlineaccess

Breaking the monopolization on programming

October 27, 2008 at 9:45 am · Filed under Web Apps, Web Commuting, Work Design

The Economist Magazine has a 14 page special report on Corporate IT in its latest issue. Most of the articles invariably talk about the “cloud” and how it along with software as a service is changing technology. The key point is that software as a service is transforming the technology industry and its importance cannot be overestimated. Whether it be Google App Engine, Salesforce.com, Netweaver and Windows Strata, all the major technology players are doing more with software as a service in the cloud.

But a critical question is what does this mean for the future of productivity in the workplace? Given less attention in the special section, was a thought that I found rather compelling. The notion that anyone can start programming (in less than 20 minutes!) using a new generation of cloud based, software as as service  tools that make development easy.

Think about that for a moment. Just as finger touch typing is becoming pervasive among the Gen X and Gen Ys so too may basic programming. Imagine the next time an employee needs to mash together data from different databases, visualize them and host a provocative discussion about the implications, he can do so by creating his own program on the fly. As the Economist article emphasized, the geeks would lose their monopoly on programming with these easy tools and employees could dramatically increase their productivity.

Maybe this is a little far fetched, but then again the thought of a computer on every employee’s desk was as well not too long ago. And some of the tools that make programming user friendly, already exist today. Its just a question of whether “self service” can be extended to the domain of employees creating their own programs to meet their immediate business needs.

Will the Economy Mean More Telecommuters or Fewer?

September 28, 2008 at 11:53 pm · Filed under Web Commuting

Two recent articles about telecommuting bring up an interesting question:  in tight economic times, is it better to be a telecommuter, or work in an office?

One point of view says it’s better to be a telecommuter.  Businesses can save on office space expenditures, and employees can save $1,200 a year on gas (assuming $4/gallon gas).  Brendan Koerner writes in Wired.com:

“Given that it costs more than $15,000 per year to provide an employee with 200 square feet of cubicle, the savings would be significant — so great, in fact, that companies would still come out thousands of dollars ahead after springing for workers’ broadband and VoIP expenses.

Ditching the office could also provide businesses with a leg up in the scramble to recruit and retain talent. For starters, location would no longer limit a company’s employment pool — gifted Kansans wouldn’t be forced to uproot their lives for opportunities in, say, California. Also, based on the average American’s commute time, driving speed, and vehicle specs — and assuming that gas costs $4 per gallon — a telecommuter would save around $1,200 a year on fuel alone — an instant salary bump, of sorts.”

So, save money on gas and office space — that’s one point of view.

Now here’s the other: in times of layoffs, it’s risky to be a telecommuter because the first to go may be the telecommuters. Karen Burns suggests at U.S. News and World Reports’ On Careers blog that in tough times being a telecommuter can be risky:

“Employers are only human. Humans tend to take the easy way out. And it’s easier to lay off someone you only see rarely than to lay off someone you see every day and who has become an integral part of your work life.

You may have fought to earn telecommuting privileges. You may love the savings in gas and wardrobe expenses. You may know in your very soul that telecommuting has made you a more productive, and hence valuable, employee.

But please consider this annoying-yet-true cliché: out of sight, out of mind. It’s human nature.”

So in times like these which is it for you? Would you rather save money and have the convenience of working from home? Or risk being the first to go if layoffs come?

I’m not saying that companies are going to start making layoffs or that telecommuters would definitely be the first to go if that happened — just thinking about all the potential benefits and disadvantages.

One More Time: How Do You Manage Telecommuters?

September 7, 2008 at 4:36 pm · Filed under Change Management, Distributed Work, Management, Web Commuting, Work Design

 (this post is adapted from a similar one I just posted on the Future of Work blog, “Managing Telecommuters – Chapter 573.2“)

“How do you manage people you can’t see?” – that’s probably the number one question we get asked whenever we discuss the financial, environmental, business continuity, and social benefits of telecommuting (or, as we prefer to call it, flexible/mobile work).

And it probably won’t go away anytime soon. It’s a legitimate question, even though we believe the answers are reasonably well-known and not all that profound.

Anyway, with all the recent concern about gas prices and global warming, telecommuting (by whatever name) has been lots of attention lately. The most recent report I’ve seen is an Associated Press story by Joyce M. Rosenberg that appeared last week in a number of print and online publications (“Letting staffers telecommute requires management“).

Rosenberg’s focus is on the necessity for managers to reach out, to spend more time talking to remote employees by phone, and generally to focus more on results than on hours worked.

Here’s one small business owner speaking about one of his remote employees:

“The biggest issue I have is tracking time and knowing when he’s working,” said [Lloyd] Princeton, the president of Design Management Co. “The doubt starts to happen when he has offsite meetings — various doctor appointments or the vet.”

But, Princeton said, “he gets the work done. He does quality work for clients.”

That last sentence is critical. As we say all the time, “Manage by results, not by walking around.” Establishing clear performance goals and defining deliverables, budgets, and deadlines is Job One for managers of telecommuters.

But of course there’s lots more to it than that. Over the next week or two I’m going to offer some more formal guidelines and ways to think about establishing and managing a telecommuting program. And I’ll suggest at the outset that technology is critical to making telecommuting/flexwork work, but by itself IT is only a tool; as with any tool what matters is how you use it

The most important thing to remember is that it’s not just a matter of sending people home, or letting them come and go. There are a number of critical legal liabilities – to say nothing of management challenges – that will jump up and bite you if you don’t think them through in advance of launching a telecommuting program.

The benefits are enormous – for companies, for communities, for individual employees, and for the planet. But they don’t just happen naturally. Check back here frequently for suggestions and recommendations.

Tags: telecommuting management distributedwork flexwork futureofwork

Visual Networking & Telepresence:The Future According to Cisco’s John Chambers

September 4, 2008 at 9:19 am · Filed under Collaboration, Collective intelligence, Distributed Work, Economic Development, Videoconferencing, Web Commuting

Did anyone else hear John Chambers interviewed on CNBC Wednesday September 3?  The video is available here.

In response to a question from Australian telecommunications company Telstra’s CEO Saul Eslake about new ways for companies to grow organically, Chambers talked about the growth in video, telepresence and visual networking and it’s potential to increase productivity. 

Chambers made the case that the load on Cisco’s network grew 400% last year with rising use of video a key factor.  He forecasts generally 200-300% network load growth with  increased use of video and telepresence. 

Cisco’s CEO argued that while there has been a lull in U.S. productivity growth following the 3-5% during 1996-2004, he forecasts increases going forward driven by the Internet’s second wave built around visual networking and collaborative capabilities like wikis, blogs, discussion forums and telepresence.

Clearly given Cisco’s WebEx and other collaboration tools acquisitions Chamber’s promoting telepresence has a clear business agenda. Still the discussion about use of telepresence and visual networking in the context of a challenging high fuel costs, slow growth economic environment makes the case for less physical travel and increased technology enabled collaboration compelling.

John Chamber’s forecasts make Celine Roque’s recent post here about Are the reasons against telecommuting valid? a must read especially her closing call to action:

“..these obstacles should be seen as challenges and opportunities for businesses and their employees to grow together and actually make things work.”

No doubt the technology to support remote collaboration will continue to arrive and to compete enterprises must figure how to leverage and adapt organizationally. 

~ Jenny Ambrozek