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| TELECOMMUTING: DREAM COME TRUE? November 14, 1997 |
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Questions asked
in this forum:What are the risks involved with telecommuting? Does the U.S. lead the way, or are other countries implementing successful telecommuting systems? Are there any tax deductions that encourage telecommuting? What is the accountability process for telecommutiers to show their work? Additional questions and comments.
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Dan Getachew of Palo Alto CA asks: I am an engineer working for a defense and aerospace company. There are several co-workers, including myself who end up travelling a sizable amount for our work. Whenever we are travelling, we do use different telecommuting methods to stay in touch. But when we approached our company to sponsor telecommuting here at our home base, i.e. provide ISDN connections, more access to the intra-net, and other telecommunting essentials, we have met with a lot of resistance. What would be a good way to approach this dilemma ?? And Richard P. Carrano of Cincinnati, OH asks:
I recently moved from a 3 year engineering consulting assignment in Sacramento, CA to Dayton, OH. I encountered resistance from my client, a government manager in his early 50s, who said he liked being able to reach out and "touch someone" working for him whenever he felt liked it. Despite the fact that I did my most important engineering work in the field far from his office in remote locations throughout the world. I feel as multi-national firms branch out globally, more education is needed to convince employers that a short leash is no guarantee someone can get the job done. What do you recommend?Dr. Michelle Weil responds:
Telecommuting is very new to our work environment and has only really started to catch on as the technology has made dramatic advances in the past few years. However, whenever you propose changing the work environment there may be hesitation on the part of management. Perhaps the most important way to approach management about the value of telecommuting is to recognize that they will be worrying about such issues as productivity, fear of loss of control and possibly even fear of liability for off the job injuries.I would go in to your management armed with results that show the added benefit that telecommuting has shown in experiments in Los Angeles and other locations. In our book "TechnoStress," my colleague, Dr. Larry Rosen and I provide results from several of those studies as well as reference sources to find additional support. I would also acknowledge that if management has concerns about productivity, workflow management or anything else that you be prepared to suggest a trial run that might include using employees who already have sufficient equipment at home so that no additional costs are incurred.
Mr. Jack Nilles responds:
These two questions have a special significance to me since, in the first years of my career, I was both an aerospace engineer and, while an officer in the Air Force, worked at Wright Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton. I'm familiar with the territory. There are two primary issues to overcome in these situations.The first is management reluctance; the "how do I know you're working if I cant see you?" syndrome. My approach, particularly with numbers-oriented organizations, is in two parts. First, give the boss the numbers in the form of a pro forma cost-benefit analysis. I won't go into the details here but the net annual benefit to the employer is several thousand dollars for each part-time telecommuter. That is, the employer reduces operating costs, especially if there are many telecommuters, and gets improved performance from the telecommuters. One cost element that is very location-dependent is the charge for ISDN lines; that should be checked out with your local carrier if you need that bandwidth.
Second, address the in-touch element. Most telecommuters don't do it full time; they're in the office typically half time or more, so it's not as if you're disappearing off the face of the earth. The trick in successful telecommuting is to rearrange your schedule so that your solo work, plus work that does not require face-to-face interaction, is done in telecommuting mode and your face-to-face interaction is clumped into as few days per week as is feasible.
Further, emphasize (diplomatically) that you're getting paid for performance, not your location. Work to establish a joint agreement with your boss on performance requirements and measures and volunteer to have a trial telecommuting period of a month or three so that s/he will feel more comfortable with the dreaded separation. You may even want to install a simple desktop videoconferencing system to further allay those concerns. Finally, you might also want to establish specific rules of conduct, such as when you'll be accessible, work hours (if they're non-standard) to deflect workers' comp concerns, etc. Check my book, "Making Telecommuting Happen" for details.
One other point with defense contractors is that of security. Although the Department of Defense supports telecommuting, and was a sponsor of Telecommute America '97, they still may take a very dim view of home-based telecommuting involving access to classified materials. If, on the other hand, you have access to a telework center near home that has appropriate security provisions, that problem may also be minor.
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