Telecommuting * By Robert Moskowitz
Certainly, there are still people in this world who praise telecommuting so faintly that they appear opposed to its benefits and advantages. And of course, there are outright devil's advocates who look hard to find fault with telecommuting and all it represents. As an unashamed proselytizer for the good life that telecommuting can bring, I'd like to discuss the arguments that both these schools of unbelievers are advancing.
By some counts, the raw number of telecommuters failed to grow from 1994 to 1995, and in fact declined by anything from 5% to 11%, depending on whose numbers you are using. This appears to be the first time growth in the ranks of telecommuters has ever turned negative. Yet it's frequently cited as evidence that the trend toward telecommuting has peaked and is now locked into a downward slope.
In declining to accept this assessment, I'd like to say that even if the numbers are accurate, a one-year drop provides no proof there has been a change in the overall trend. Few trends continue in a straight line, and since no one disputes the strong growth trend evident in the ranks of telecommuters during the past two decades, I'd say one year's figures are far from conclusive.
But I'll go even further. I'll question the accuracy of the numbers themselves--not just the numbers for the most recent year, but all the numbers bandied about during the past five or even ten years.
With so many known instances of telecommuters setting themselves up to work from home on an unofficial or "guerrilla" basis, asking companies to report on the number of employees who telecommute may be like asking employers how many of their sales and field agents sometimes work at home--you're going to get a vastly understated figure.
In addition, there have been no widespread reports of companies intentionally curtailing their telecommuters, no mention of wholesale downsizings among telecommuters, and no announcements that departments once sent home to telecommute are now being recalled to the office.
Thus, I'm wondering exactly which million or so telecommuters secretly gave up the practice during the last year? And why?
Although telecommuting provides numerous, significant, and almost immediate advantages to the individual and family, to the employer, and to society, there are academics and management consultants who actively argue that its advantages are narrow and weak.
For example, I read a recent article stating that telecommuting does not reduce workers' travel by 12%, but only about one-half of one percent (0.5%). This sounds so negligible that readers must be expected to conclude telecommuting offers very little of real value.
But a percentage is meaningful only in relationship to its basis--the number it is a percentage of. So let's look a little closer at the numbers:
Does anyone dispute that if you consistently stay home to do your work one day a week, you're going to travel 20% fewer miles to the office? Sure, you might drive places for other reasons on your telecommuting days, and most analysts do include these categories of mileage in their calculations. But driving that's unrelated to your job doesn't change the basic issue of how many miles you're driving (or not driving) to work.
If you're doing other work-related driving on your telecommuting days, you're still saving miles. The only plausible scenario in which you won't save work-related miles on telecommuting days is when all your destinations are located along a straight line drawn from your home to your office and beyond, and all lie on the far side of your office. If these destinations are off the straight line, you'll save miles by "cutting off the angle." If they're closer than the office, you'll save miles outright.
So if we analyze the mileage savings attributable to telecommuting this common-sense way, it's clear there's some advantage. But how big is it? Let's consider the percentages.
The most obvious case would be a straight deduction of the miles you no longer drive to and from work. If you work five days per week, fifty weeks per year, each day you stay home to work gives you a 0.4% savings in miles. So if you telecommute from home one day a month, you'll save 4.8% of your miles driven to work during the year. If you telecommute one day a week, you'll save 20%.
The only plausible way the miles saved by your telecommuting would amount to only 0.5% would be if three conditions are met: First, we're considering both your business and your pleasure driving, which for Americans totals an average of about 12,000 miles per year. Second, the average trip to work is only 2.5 miles each way, while in California the average distance to work is 16.5 miles each way. Third, the average telecommuter works from home only once a month, although this pattern is relatively uncommon compared to the pattern of telecommuting two, three, or four times a month.
You can juggle the variables any way you want, and a mileage savings of only 0.5% still comes out to be highly implausible. For example, if you were to telecommute just 2.5 miles each way as often as one day a week, you'd have to drive 50,000 miles per year to limit your savings to just 0.5%. If your commute is ten miles each way, telecommuting just once a month would require 48,000 miles of driving annually to keep your savings down to the 0.5% figure.
What's the point of all this math? To show that no matter what the figure, figures don't lie. Savings from telecommuting logically and necessarily must be significant. The calculations that hold true for miles driven to work also apply to the bills for cleaning work clothes and for lunches eaten at restaurants or cafeterias, as well as to the time spent commuting and the energy and enthusiasm drained away in those commutes.
The naysayers seem to have taken a page out of the Pentagon play book, which often argues that, sure, building the B-2 bomber or Bradley Fighting Vehicle does cost $XX billion, but not building it would cost even more!
During the last few months I've been accosted by at least half-a-dozen journalists looking for material to fill their assigned articles on "the downsides" of telecommuting. Searching out a new angle, I guess, these investigators have been eager to pounce on every concern or imperfection and blow it up to a headline-sized problem.
Here are their major revelations, with brief explanations:
Telecommuting costs too much.
For many who oppose telecommuting, the process inevitably requires a major investment in office furniture, files, and lighting, as well as many new telephone lines, and expensive personal computers.
In truth, a great deal of productive work can be accomplished via telecommuting that doesn't require much beyond paper, pencil, and (perhaps) a telephone. But even if you need all that expensive equipment, most of it can be rented by the month for far less than the cash savings telecommuting will generate.
Telecommuting feeds feelings of isolation.
One of the most heralded problems of telecommuting, feelings of isolation, is frequently portrayed as a dangerous side-effect of sending people out of the natural work environment: the office. The only cure is to let them back inside, where they belong.
But these feelings of isolation can be viewed with equal validity as the natural squinting and disorientation anyone feels immediately after a working lifetime of blinkers and physical restraints are removed--like a newly released prisoner shielding his eyes from the sun after stepping outside for the first time in many years.
Please remember that few telecommuters remain away from the office continuously. Most telecommute only one or two days a week, so they have plenty of opportunities to renew acquaintances and maintain office relationships.
What's important is not whether newly appointed telecommuters immediately feel isolated, but whether they still feel isolated six months or a year later--and whether or not they want to go back to working in the office every day.
Telecommuting makes other workers jealous.
Since telecommuting makes others aware they can't work at home, goes the same argument in a different guise, it creates motivational and other emotional problems. The only cure is to remove the telecommuting privilege from everyone.
But if logical, this argument would also force employers to eliminate posh offices, executive washrooms, preferred parking, and higher salaries for the top brass--all of which make others who don't get these perks feel jealous.
Another way to look at the same evidence is that non-telecommuters often do feel jealous, but mainly because telecommuting provides a major improvement in working conditions. And since it actually saves the employer money--unlike posh offices and higher salaries that cost extra--telecommuting ought to be expanded to as many people as possible.
Telecommuting makes you lazy.
If your view is that employees need to be prodded to meet their commitments and produce their deliverables, then telecommuting is a danger not just to productivity, but to all of society.
In fact, however, telecommuters tend to be among the most productive, most responsible, and most successful employees in an organization. I'm not sure if this is because telecommuting makes them more productive, responsible, and successful, or because only such employees are allowed to telecommute.
Whatever the reason, laziness tends to be one of the least plausible worries for those who supervise actual telecommuters.
Telecommuting takes you out of the loop for recognition, raises, and promotions.
Along the lines of "out of sight, out of mind," it seems logical that working away from the office would make a telecommuter fall out of line for opportunities and rewards rationed out to other, eager faces seen more often around the office.
But where's the evidence for this? Aside from a few anecdotal stories--and who can't produce a few people who honestly feel they have been passed over because of any particular reason you care to study?--we're looking at another "bogey man" argument.
Investigations have consistently shown no significant differences in the quantity or quality of raises, promotions, and opportunities given to telecommuters, compared with those given to employees who work only in the company's offices.
Handing out goodies to those you see most often may be the management style in elementary school, but businesses tend to have performance objectives and job requirements that individuals must meet. How many supervisors will fail to notice that a telecommuter is meeting these objectives, particularly if offered reminders from time to time?
I would argue that if successful performance fails to win attention and appropriate rewards, your job is more in jeopardy from bad management than from telecommuting, and it's probably prudent to start looking for another position before the whole company goes under.
I'd be happy to hear from anyone on these or related points, particularly if you can show me where I've gone wrong in my thinking. If you have a different point of view, please let me know.
As work progresses on many individualized fronts toward building an economy and society more supportive of modern work methods, particularly telecommuting, we're likely to see lots of innovative offerings.
One I've just learned about comes from atelier 4 Architecture (a4A), which I mentioned some time ago as the first online provider of ergonomic consulting services. Capitalizing on their expertise in that area, I suppose, a4A has come up with a plan for installing user-friendly environments in hotels, airports, train stations, office buildings, retail settings, and other facilities. The environments, call "CUbE," will help business travelers work more effectively while on the road.
The "CUbE" modular offices provide an integrated architectural and information environment that delivers simple, useful office support at any given time and location. The "CUbE" spaces are designed to be built into the heart of any hotel or other facility, and provide a specially designed area that blends the business features of an executive lounge with the comfort of a private office, including both basic and advanced communication, telematics, and other office services.
Here's how it might work: After a long day of work, travel, and phone calls on the run, you notice an inviting area just off the hotel or airport lobby, where you can grab a cup of coffee and hook up your laptop. You sit down, plug in, and within seconds you can begin to pick up your email, download a final report you need to make last minute adjustments to your next day's presentation, and print or copy twenty duplicates of the presentation for use as hand-outs.
Finishing that task, you refill your coffee cup and move to an an enclosed personal office that allows you more privacy and concentration. From there, you call your spouse and discuss the rest of your travel itinerary, then call your office and discuss with your company's top financial manager a new business opportunity that was offered to you earlier today.
Whatever the scenario, the idea of the CUbE is to provide individualized workspaces that busy business travelers can use when and where needed.
In its current design, the CUbE would include as many as three private mini-offices, each one about 8' x 8' square, complete with air conditioning, a desk, a PC, a laser printer, and a phone, plus a full complement of wall-jacks for plugging in laptop computers and modems. In one design, the walls are glass that can be switched from clear to opaque using charged liquid crystal. There would also be a mini-conference room equipped with a teleconferencing system to accommodate groups of up to six people, and a variety of open seating areas where guests can relax and work.
Like any office setting, the CUbE would provide a high-quality photocopier, a fax machine, plus generic office and shipping supplies.
The company intends to roll out the CUbE product by the end of 1996. For more information, contact a4A at (201)943-7154, fax: (201)945-5584.
Copyright © 1996 by Robert Moskowitz. All rights reserved.