Six Questions To Ask Before Telecommuting

Lucas123 writes "With gas prices 30% higher this summer over last, telecommuting is back on everyone's radar. According to a Computerworld story, however, IT and telecommuting don't have a great record of success. For example, citing negative impacts on productivity, HP ended its telecommuting policy for hundreds of workers two years ago, and this year, Intel began requiring more than half the teleworkers in its IT group to report to the office at least four days a week. So before leaping, some questions you should ask as a manager if you're considering telework include: How will you define and measure performance? Will creativity suffer? What about employees stuck in the office?"

How likely are your employees likely to slack off?

[Haoie]

Frankly, without someone to poke me with a sharp stick now and then, I wouldn't get much done.

I want to telecommute now.

Re:How likely are your employees likely to slack o

[Nursie]

That's why I don't telecommute, even though I could - I get nothing done.

Well that and I have no excuse as I live a half hour's walk from work.

offshore jobs but won't allow telecommuting

[cats-paw]

As many on slashdot have pointed out in previous threads about offshoring, one of the main drivers of the high cost of living, i.e. a high salary is the necessity of working in expensive urban areas.

Companies are perfectly willing to take non-trivial jobs and ship them overseas, but seem to be extremely reluctant to let workers telecommute, which would probably help in lowering costs, allowing the jobs to stay here.

Really, WTF ?

With all due respect...

[edcheevy]

Many of these questions should be asked for ANY position, regardless of how much telecommuting is involved. Questions 2 & 3 are relevant to most any job (i.e. "what am I actually paid for?"). #4 & 5 are relevant in any place that has teleworkers, even if it's not you, since they might be on your team, and 6 applies to just about any job situation. It's the "what if things change?" question.

so you can make $0 while you wait for other people

[Joe The Dragon]

so you can make $0 while you wait for other people to do there job so you can get your done.

I've never really understood

[Anonymous Coward]

what it means for a manager to "work at home". Email and IM are simply much lower quality tools than face to face communication.

Well, maybe if they're working on a keynote speech for the trade show, that would make sense. But for the most part, it seems like a good excuse for people to do housework and work on their hobbies on the company dime, while occasionally glancing at their inbox and firing off a bunch of inconsequential emails ("hey Joe, can you look at this?")

Re:offshore jobs but won't allow telecommuting

[plutoXL]

When you offshore, they still keep the whole big office on the other side of the world, you still have slaves and slave drivers in the same place.
If you telecommute, you get one slave with his tv, bed and fridge close by (or nagging significant other and bunch of kids running around) and no one to kick him around when he gets lazy.

Re:offshore jobs but won't allow telecommuting

[JaredOfEuropa]

Companies are perfectly willing to take non-trivial jobs and ship them overseas, but seem to be extremely reluctant to let workers telecommute, which would probably help in lowering costs, allowing the jobs to stay here

Companies usually offshore whole teams or departments rather than individual jobs. The guys in India work as a team under a team lead or manager, sitting together and (hopefully) communicating effectively. If you want to compare it to telecommuting, it would be allowing you to work from home, but only if you'd let your team mates bring their laptops to your place and work with you...

I am a full-time telecommuter

[MobyDisk]

I work from the east coast, for a company on the west coast. I can tell you it isn't as glamorous as people think. It is tough on the employer, and tough on the employee.

Employee:
Your work will encroach upon your personal time, and you will miss that commute time as a way to separate your personal life from your work life. If you work in the same space you play, you will have a hard time separating work stress from your home life. How do you handle design meetings? Code reviews? Staff meetings?

Employer:
Some companies just don't know how to handle telecommuters. How do you know someone is not happy with their job, or is having personal problems, if you can't see them on a daily basis? Another hint: Staff meetings over IM are not highly productive!

--
11:45 (Manager) Joe, what is your status on Project X?
*crickets*
11:50 (Joe) Sorry, I went out to get the mail. ...45 minutes later, the 15 minute staff meeting continues...
--

Does the company pay for separate work and home licenses for software? Or do they give you a laptop? These are all expenses the company needs to consider.

Overall:
Both the employer and the employee need to spend more time communicating and collaborating, and more time on tools and licenses than when someone is working from the office. Beware.

Re:Carpool

[Free the Cowards]

For the curious, I'd have to drive 1 million miles at $4 a gallon before I spend as much money in gas as I save on my mortgage.

Well, over a typical 30 year mortgage at 50 miles each way per workday, you'll be driving about 624,000 miles so you're already a good chunk of the way there. Add in to that the additional wear and tear on your vehicles, the probability of gas prices rising further, the likely need to have two vehicles instead of one at least at some point, and this ceases to sound very good to me.

Re:I am a full-time telecommuter

[geekoid]

YOu only proved that telecommuting doesn't work for people who don't know how to behave professionally.

Re:Anecdotes

[houstonbofh]

One thing I have found is that if you want to work from home, you need a home office. It needs a door, and should have nothing but office stuff. (No TV) Other people in your home need to understand that if someone opens that door, and no one is in need of urgent medical care, someone will be. Many companies that I have seen do telecommuting well require a picture of the home "workspace" for approval.

Re:How likely are your employees likely to slack o

[wild_quinine]

You see, what you say is funny, but it's really the employers biggest reason for not investing. They're scared that you'd sit at home and do fuck all.

In fact, in my experience, the people that matter work wherever they are, and the people that don't matter are never going to put in an honest day.

A good work ethic does not differentiate based on environment.

What has a far more negative effect is being treated like shit in the workplace. I've seen so many devoted, committed, hard working employees let their work go south because they finally realised that there is no fucking point; they can spend all year making a difference for one stupid ill informed management decision to put them back way before where they started.

The saddest thing is it's these fucking managers who go home and 'telecommute', and sit around doing no work, who think that must therefore apply to the rest of us.

But the truth is that a bad manager can do fuck all wherever he is, and the worst thing about that is that sometimes that's better for the organisation than them getting their fingers into the pies and fucking everything up.

this is not teleworking

[boguslinks]

this year, Intel began requiring more than half the teleworkers in its IT group to report to the office at least four days a week.

If you're coming to the office four days a week, you're not really a teleworker, are you?

Re:How likely are your employees likely to slack o

[NotBornYesterday]

That's the beautiful thing about telecommuting. I've done it. Being free of constant supervision is disorienting at first, but wow, is it ever a relief. It is VERY tempting to watch TV, go hit golf balls, have a few beers with lunch, etc. Eventually, self-preservation kicks in and you realize that you have to get your ass in gear. You become more organized. You plan your day. You learn to push back on spouses/kids/whomever who think it's okay to interrupt your workday with housekeeping requests. IMHO, those capable of it will become more mature employees.

Re:How likely are your employees likely to slack o

[mrroot]

Perhaps with a rise in telecommuting we can switch to getting paid for generating x amount of work done instead of x hours in the workplace.

That is fine if you are a worker drone that produces X widgets per hour, or answers Y calls per hour. Having a job that does not lend itself well towards telecommuting is GOOD. It means you are valuable for something more than what can be written down in a procedure and shipped overseas. Personally, I don't want my work intruding on my personal space. Because sometimes work sucks, and when it does my home is where I go to get away from it and relax.

Re:How likely are your employees likely to slack o

[brianez21]

Perhaps with a rise in telecommuting we can switch to getting paid for generating x amount of work done instead of x hours in the workplace.

And just how do you propose to measure the amount of work done? By number of emails sent? Lines of code written? Bugfixes patched? The problem is that there's just no accurate metric for this kind of thing.

Re:I am a full-time telecommuter

[Psychotria]

[...] you will miss that commute time as a way to separate your personal life from your work life.

You know, I'd never thought of that before. My commute is 45 minutes each way and I am thinking of work in both directions. It's true though, the 45 minutes into work my mind is preparing for work. The 45 minutes home, my mind is tying up loose ends so when I finally get home, I can switch off. I do write notes when I get home if I think of something while in the car driving, but they're very short notes that I email myself so I can refocus on them the next day. If it were not for the drive, I'm not sure the switching off when I pull into the garage would be as easy.

Re:Carpool

[mrroot]

Well, over a typical 30 year mortgage at 50 miles each way per workday, you'll be driving about 624,000 miles so you're already a good chunk of the way there. Add in to that the additional wear and tear on your vehicles, the probability of gas prices rising further, the likely need to have two vehicles instead of one at least at some point, and this ceases to sound very good to me.

I didn't check your math, but you are RIGHT about your point. People only think things through the first step, but if you add up the additional costs, sometimes what appears to be a financially smart move actually is not. And don't forget the non-financial costs of living farther from work... having to spend more time in the car, instead of doing whatever you like. And also the fact that you are more likely to get into a car accident, since you spend more time on the road. Or what about the health toll? So you get home later and you only have time to eat fast-food for dinner, or don't have time to go for a jog or work out?

Define and measure perfomance

[plopez]

Ummm.. isn't this what managers are supposed to do anyway? In other words, if you have performance objectives in the office, shouldn't they be the same as in telecommuting? In other words, if a manger hasn't defined performance objectives in the first place he/she is a poor manager.

Re:so you can make $0 while you wait for other peo

[greenguy]

I'm not a programmer, I'm a translator, so my work is automatically telecommuting.

The price you pay for your work hours not detracting from your home hours is your home hours not detracting from your work hours. The clock doesn't get to watch you, but you don't get to watch the clock, either. When those people finally get you that work you've been waiting for, suddenly the pressure's on you, and no one's interested if it's already nine at night (and you've already had a coupla beers).

Re:offshore jobs but won't allow telecommuting

[devilspgd]

I've been working remotely for over five years now, and one of the biggest perks is that I get to use my own equipment.

I don't have to justify a couple 24" monitors to anyone, I just go buy 'em.

I don't have to get a doctor's note just to get an ergonomic keyboard, no one can turn down my request for a high resolution mouse and gaming grade mousepad (and no, I don't game, and yes, it does make a difference when you have 1920x2400 pixels and don't enjoy picking up your mouse and moving it from one end of the pad to the other)

I pay for my new toys using the money I'm not spending on insurance, gas, and car maintenance.

Re:I am a full-time telecommuter

[westlake]

YOu only proved that telecommuting doesn't work for people who don't know how to behave professionally.
.

I respectfully disagree.

I have seen too many family businesses - where you cannot separate work and home - in time or space.

The stresses on relationships are enormous.

There is no privacy - no buffer zone, no chance to decompress.

Things said "at work" cannot be unsaid "at home."

to me, it's all a management problem

[Quixotic Raindrop]

Telecommuting should be easy to do, arrange, and should be a top-notch way to get high-quality work out of employees. I attribute the most basic problem with telecommuting failures to be a lack of a manager's ability to accurately identify what a good metric is, with respect to measuring production. As a corollary to that, most managers (in my experience) are concomitantly unable to recognize good from bad performers, since the metrics that are used fail to correlate with productive work. If you can find a management chain that has a solid understanding of the workflow, the requirements of the product or service being offered, and can accurately set milestones along the path to whatever the work goal is, you should be able to do nearly all IT work remotely, all the time.

Re:How likely are your employees likely to slack o

[rantingkitten]

It just so happens that tomorrow will be my first day back in the office after about a month and a half of telecommuting. For me, it's been a pretty bad experience. I don't like driving in Atlanta traffic every day to get to work, but for someone like me it's better than the alternative.

Measuring work metrics has never been an issue; in my industry, and especially at my company, customers are very, very quick to complain about the slightest problem. So if that server doesn't get fixed or if that database is acting up, they'll call in, the support queue will back up, the emails will pour in, and it will quickly reach my boss's attention. Combined with our ticketing system and small-office, close-knit atmosphere (e.g., communication), I've never been concerned about anyone thinking I'm not doing my job.

No, the problem is actually finding any motivation to do work. It's far too easy to roll out of bed at the last possible minute, stumble into the computer room, and sit there in your pajamas feeling like Hell because you haven't showered or dressed. You've got a host of video game at your fingertips. There's a case of beer in the fridge calling your name. Your cats are cute and want attention, or they're knocking things over to ruin your concentration. The jerk in the apartment upstairs is riding his pogo stick again. In short, there are a million little distractions at home, which aren't at the office, which will prevent you from really focusing on anything productive.

Beyond that, I don't like work. It's not my job, or the people, or the company -- those are all fine. I'm just one of those people for whom work is a necessary evil. I therefore require a distinction between work life and free time, and the blurring of the two is extremely uncomfortable. Particularly when a user gets obnoxious enough to the point where they get sent to me -- now I have to talk to them on the phone, and it's like they're invading my home! My home, where I live. Where I come to play with my toys.

Furthermore, the tools available to a home worker are, at least in my experience, never as good as what's available at the office. If I need information now I don't have to wait for a coworker to maybe respond to an IM when he gets around to it -- I can walk down the hall and ask. I have direct access to our servers and such, without the need for ssh over VPN which is about as snappy as the days of dialup BBS. When someone wants my help they generally come ask for it, and if they see I'm with someone else they wait, as opposed to my having to manage six ongoing IM sessions with various people at once. I don't need to wait for endless back-and-forth emails from the salespeople to try to get a straight answer -- I can just waltz down there and yell at them myself. Plus, just going to the office means I've already showered, dressed, and had some time (the commute) to wake up and become human. At a proper desk in a proper office environment I feel like I'm at work and I can focus enough to get into the groove of whatever I'm doing.

And finally, there's a social aspect of work. Working from home means spending the vast majority of your days completely isolated. It only takes a few days of your friends being busy so you can't go out at night, and suddenly you realise you've spent the past week without any human interaction whatsoever except the cashier at the grocery store. That wears thin very, very quickly.

I expect I'll get more done tomorrow at the office than I have for the past week at home, or at least, it'll feel that way. That having been said, I'm not looking forward to waking up an hour earlier.

Re:I am a full-time telecommuter

[penguinbrat]

I wouldn't say it as much as being professional as it is in COMMUNICATING.. I used to have a contract position for coding a new online app, no big deal but when I came to a cross in the roads that I needed direction on, I emailed the "Boss" and explained the situation and that I was at a stand still until receiving feedback - I never did, in fact a week later when he emailed me asking for an update and progress report and I replied back saying I was waiting on him - he had the gall to blame it on me saying that he forwarded everything on to his boss and was waiting for a reply... How was I suppose to know that?!?! Shortly after I nixed the whole thing, sending an email to everyone involved that the communication was just not there and making it impossible to be productive.

Err..

[Anonymous Coward]

Surprised to see posts questioning the effectiveness of telecommuting in a presumably Open Source oriented crowd...

Of course a lot of people don't do well at it - it takes initiative and discipline, and it helps if you like what you do. At least for developers though, if you can't sit at home and design and implement good software due to a lack of motivation or the presence of distractions - you already know that, right?

I wouldn't go back to a cube farm if they bought me a car and gave me a $20k raise.

Always telecommute

[Sandman1971]

A few years ago the bulk of our servers were moved to a bigger centre in another city. So even when I go into the office I'm remotely doing the work. We moved to a VOIP system at work, so when I'm working from home my office line is forwarded to my home business line. We have offices across the country so most meetings are held via conference calls and/or netmeeting. So there's zero difference between me working from the office and me working from home, except to get some face time with co-workers and the boss (all of them also telecommute, so sometimes I'm actually alone in the office when I do go in!).

I also find that I'm more productive at home than in the office. I don't have people dropping by my desk every 5-10 minutes to chat. I don't have to go out for smoke breaks, and my lunch break consists of taking 3 minutes to heat something up in the microwave. Working from home also allows me to work when I'm feeling under the weather.

I'm also more productive on the home front. While stuck on conference calls that I don't chair or don't require me to be in front of my laptop, I can do things like do the dishes, do some laundry, etc... all while participating on the calls. Not spending 2-3 hours a day commuting also benefits my family life, as I get to spend more quality time with my wife.

Luckily my job and my boss permit me to work from home 3-4 days a week, and I have the fortitude to actually work and not slack off. Heck, I couldn't slack off even if I wanted to. If I did, users would scream when a system/app is down, project managers would scream if I didn't do my part of the work, etc.... For my line of work, telecommuting is a win-win situation.

Re:I am a full-time telecommuter

[phallstrom]

The transition time is very very real. I work from home and have for 3 years now. After a day's work I go for a 10-15 minute walk (or try to). My wife calls it my transition time. And it's exactly that.

Also, get a home office. With a door. And headphones that kill the noise. Most days are great, but sometimes our two kids decide to yell all day. With the headphones I don't hear them, zone out, and code. Without them I go nuts.

But it is pretty awesome when your 2 year old comes in just to give you a hug in the middle of the day!

Re:to me, it's all a management problem

[the_B0fh]

Bull. Who says I can't recognize good and bad performers? No, the problem is getting the correct metric in place so that you are truly measuring productivity and not training people to work to artificial metrics. All of a sudden, you have wonderful metrics, but actual productivity suffers.

For example, one of the teams I manage performs access administration. The amount of work to provision accounts on different systems is radically different. AD is simple, less than a minute, unless they have a lot of strange requirements. However, there's one truly screwed up system where it can take one whole day to create 8 accounts. My top performer/team lead took about 45 minutes to set up each account. Since she typically closes out twice the number of tickets compared to others, I doubt that she was being lazy on this ticket. Other members on the team hate this system too.

So, how do you measure productivity in cases like this? Yes, I can put a modifier on that.

AD account == 1 minute
Screwed up account == 45 minutes
etc etc

and tally up at the end of day. But that screwed up 45 minutes is only in the worst case. In the best case, it's about 5 minutes.

Oh, so now I should measure screwed up system more discretely.

AD account == 1 minute
Screwed up Account Scenario A == 5 minutes
Screwed up Account Scenario B == 10 minutes
.
.
.
Screwed up Account Scenario J == 50 minutes
etc etc etc

And everyone better track everything they do to the minute!! Especially after I spent months tracking and averaging out the time!!

Oh wait, why don't I just trust that my folks do good work, and save myself that heartache? It does mean that we can't do telecommute easily, but *shrug*

Re:to me, it's all a management problem

[fishbowl]

>lack of a manager's ability to accurately identify what a good metric is

All stakeholders, regardless of the nature of the business, respond to one "metric", universally:

Their personal wealth increased as a result of employing you.

Re:How likely are your employees likely to slack o

[sootman]

And for some of us, work is where we go to get away from home. :-)

Telecommuting MUST be made to work

[Ralph Spoilsport]

Fact: Oil production peaked in May 2005
Fact: demand for Oil has continued to go up
Fact: the USA invaded Iraq for oil
Fact: Russia was happy to beat the crap out of the stupid Georgians so they could control the pipleline.
Fact: as oil depletes, gas will go up and down in price, but will trend upwards. Forever.

We don't have much choice. We need to insist on telecommuting and we need to make our computers and devices out of something other than oil and exotic materials.

Otherwise, game over.

RS

Re:How likely are your employees likely to slack o

[Bodrius]

Personally, I think the freedom to telecommute as needed is indeed a major productivity boom - the person telecommuting (and only that person) can and should balance whichever way is more productive for the task at hand.

But I'm skeptical of absolute claims of greater efficiency - or of attempts to prescribe X days per week, or to use it as a way to save office space, for that matter.

Efficiency depends a lot on too many factors that are context-dependent: the exact work that you're doing, the work environment, technical reasons, etc.

Sometimes you're lucky and you have a good chunk of uninterrupted, isolated work to finish - and indeed you can be much more productive. But other times, there is a bunch of communication that needs to happen to enable the real work, and human presence just makes a thousand things easier (and faster). Remote communication also can limit your awareness of other people's work, which will affect you one way or the other. And sometimes you just need to access resources which are a hassle to get to through a VPN.

So far I prefer to telecommute about 1.5 days a week on average for the same reasons: I could get a lot of stuff done uninterrupted, and it balances out well enough.

I do understand the parent post's issue, though - I get as easily distracted as anyone at home. But just separating a 'working environment' tends to do wonders for that.

Humans are creatures of habit, so we tend to associate environments with their most common activities and mind-frames.

I've found just getting out of the house and working from a cafe or anywhere with net access does wonders for focus, because my home is most linked by habit to free time. For some people it is just the opposite.

The simple fact is..

[OneSmartFellow]

... if you can do you job entirely on a 'puter, you're either totally unnecessary to the real success of the business, or you're a prime candidate for downsizing/outsourcing.

I know several marketing and sales (snigger) people who think they're the business because they can do all their *work* from home. Sure they're laughing all the way to the bank when times are good, but they'll be snivelling the loudest when their job is cut first.

Re:How likely are your employees likely to slack o

[haltenfrauden27]

The thing is, telecommuting is going to be a part of an energy-rational future. We just have to figure out mechanisms to make it so people can be productive. Some sort of 3-D immersive environment maybe?

Yet there's another option...

[barometz]

Every day when biking to university I see cars and cars with one person each. Somehow I feel that carpooling might just solve... a damn lot. Of course it has its limits, but I can't believe that it's applied half as much as reasonably possible.

Re:so you can make $0 while you wait for other peo

[Icarium]

I don't get paid by the hour, but I do get evaluated on my actual output as opposed to how many hours a day I keep my office chair warm.

As it is my only real problem with working from home is that I don't feel productive, even though I only spend an hour or two a day working anyway. I'm allowed to telecommute, but I generally avoid it unless I have reason to do so. I feel guilty if I'm goofing off at home, but I'll quite happily goof off at work. As long as my bosses don't care, neither do I.

Telecommuting is an ironic word

[Von Helmet]

Telecommuting is an odd word. The word is used to describe the solution, but the true meaning would more accurately describe the problem. Telecommuting is an option to avoid long commutes to work, by means of phones, the Internet, etc to allow you to work from home.

However, looking at the word, "telecommute" means a distant commute, in the same way that television means something to see at a distance and telephone means something to hear at a distance. Telecommute should mean commuting a distance.

Clearly the management-speak gurus picked "tele" as a nifty prefix with all it's modern sounding technological mystique and misapplied it. A better choice would be the somewhat dubious e- prefix i.e. e-commute. That would make much more sense than telecommute.