Telecommuting By Robert Moskowitz
Whether you telecommute two days a month or five days a week, some of the
features you'll appreciate most about the telecommuting lifestyle are the
intangible benefits it brings you.
The key to making the most of these intangible benefits is mastering the practice of "time shifting." In fact, this is one of the most powerful ways to gain the advantage of the extra time telecommuting makes available.
It's very much akin to the process of taping a TV show that starts at midnight and then watching the tape when you're relaxing the next evening or on the weekend. However, there is one major difference: You can't simply "tape" and "replay" hours of your life. Instead, you must reschedule one or more of your real-time activities in order to effectively "shift" those extra minutes to the time of day when you actually want to use them.
For example, let's say you avoid a thirty-minute commute to the office starting at 8:15 am on Monday morning, and another thirty-minute commute back home starting at 5:15 pm. That gives you a full hour of extra time every Monday. But for various reasons--such as the kids having to leave for school at 7:30 pm, an adult class you want to attend starting at 8 pm, your family preferring to eat dinner after 7 pm, and so forth--there's a good chance you won't have the opportunities you want for fun, growth, or family togetherness precisely during these two half-hour time periods.
So you'll have to "shift" these minutes to a more desirable part of the day.
How? Not by shifting the minutes themselves, but by shifting your activities. Simply get in the habit of filling your two "extra" half-hours with discretionary activities you normally do at other times, but which you can do at the times telecommuting newly makes available. For example, between 8:15 and 8:45, and again between 5:15 and 5:45--your normal commuting times--you might make some extra telephone calls or do some extra financial computations. Or you might use the time to do laundry, go food shopping, get the car fixed, or help your child with homework.
By chipping away at your work load or family responsibilities during these extra minutes, you effectively free up a full hour from another time of the day or night and make it available to be filled with discretionary activities.
* Classes, Hobbies, And Personal Time
The time gleaned from physically commuting to work can be used to pursue
personal growth and pleasure activities, such as classes at local schools
and learning centers, hobbies like pottery or gardening, or just plain fun
with friends and relations.
Whether it's continuing education or just the relaxation of doing something for fun, these classes, hobbies, and personal time make up necessary but frequently neglected parts of a well-rounded schedule. Telecommuting gives you the extra time to participate in these kinds of beneficial experiences.
* Extra Sleep
One of the most surprising benefits of telecommuting is the opportunity it
brings to put in some extra "sack time." Studies show the average American
gets about an hour of sleep per night less than doctors recommend for
all-around good health.
The usual pattern is to build up a "sleep deficit" during the week, and pay off this deficit by sleeping relatively late on weekend mornings. In a real sense, this extra sleep is itself a form of "time shifting" that reduces the time you have available for relaxation, family experiences, quality of life activities, and even household chores.
Telecommuters frequently say the few extra minutes of sleep they can get because they're not traveling to the office on a particular day makes a big difference not only in their enjoyment of life, but in their productivity and effectiveness on the job.
* Family Time
For many reasons, family time is one of the first things to be squeezed out
of a schedule that's too jammed with responsibilities and chores.
Spending less time in travel leaves more time for basic family togetherness--helping the kids with their homework or games, enjoying meals together more frequently, or taking time just to be with a spouse.
Telecommuting effortlessly creates many new and exciting opportunities to put family time back into your days.
* Home Cooking
Whether they prefer to cook or to eat a home-cooked meal, telecommuters
frequently point to home cooking as one of the most enjoyed pleasures they
derive from eliminating physical commutes. The extra time required to
travel to and from the office often crowds out the time and energy needed
to do the shopping and food preparation that's an integral part of home
cooking, and sometimes even cuts into the time available to just sit down
and enjoy a meal of this kind.
* Self-Scheduling
While most telecommuters are asked to be available during certain "core"
working hours, nearly every telecommuter has the tools and the flexibility
to do some or all of their work any time of the day or night they prefer.
For example, computer programmers and data keypunchers can start work after
midnight, if they wish. Analysts and writers can work for a minute or an
hour whenever they light up with an inspiration or a new thought. Number
crunchers or theoreticians can keep working on a detailed task or a complex
problem until they complete it, regardless of when they start or how late
they stay at it.
Because of this flexibility, a telecommuting analyst who puts in two hours of work after dinner doesn't have to begin work the next morning precisely at 8 or 9 am, and a telecommuting number cruncher who works until 9 or 10 pm can legitimately take three hours during the afternoon to attend a daughter's soccer game.
Not surprisingly, telecommuters report this freedom to schedule their own time is one of the most satisfying benefits they receive from this new mode of work.
Like a new driver or a new parent, a new telecommuter faces many practical, emotional, logistical, and strategic concerns to which they attached little or no importance until now. Coping with all these issues for the first time, and simultaneously balancing them into a satisfying work/life style, understandably requires a certain amount of elapsed time, plus a good deal of practice and attention to the details.
Fortunately, concerned employers and supervisors or managers of new telecommuters can ease some of the difficulties of this transitional period by taking a few simple steps. These include:
* Ask About Problem Areas
It's plain common sense that problems kept in the dark tend to fester, and
generally create more difficulties requiring lengthier and more costly
solutions than problems openly discussed and thereby given earlier
attention and treatment.
So it should be no surprise that the best way to deal with any difficulties that arise while making the transition to telecommuting is to catch them early. This requires some effort--formal or informal--to inquire about problems and to follow up on the answers received.
* Connect Results To Telecommuting Efforts
A good way to reduce the distress of particular telecommuting problems is
to put them in context. And the best context is usually based on the
results the individual is obtaining directly from his or her telecommuting.
What you're saying to telecommuters, in other words, is something along the lines of: "Sure, you're having problems adjusting to your new telecommuting schedule. But look how much more you've achieved, how much time and effort you've saved, and how much more time you're able to spend with your family--all as a result of your telecommuting."
Hanging in the air is the unspoken question: "Aren't these problems worth the wonderful results you're achieving?" Telecommuters nearly always feel the answer is in the affirmative.
* Ease The Dislocation Problems--Both Ways
Because telecommuting creates extra "transitions" during the week--not just
between home and work or work and home, but also between working at work
and working at home, as well as between working at home and not working at
home--the average telecommuter normally faces a few new and potentially
daunting experiences during the work week.
You can ease the transitional problems of new telecommuters by making some of these experiences less intimidating.
For example, take steps not to let telephone messages or in-box materials pile up for telecommuters while they're working outside the central office. When this happens, the piles of paperwork create a major barrier to productivity--both practical and psychological--every time the telecommuter returns to his or her office desk.
Instead, see if you can't arrange to forward messages to the telecommuter as they come in. And if it's not practical to ship in-box materials to the telecommuter, perhaps you can organize some kind of buddy system between two telecommuters doing much the same work so each one covers the other's in-box on days they're working outside the corporate office.
* Go For Volunteers
One of the most important methods for reducing the negative impact of
transitional problems on new telecommuters is to ask for volunteers. These
people are more highly motivated than others to succeed at telecommuting,
and are therefore less likely to be intimidated or discouraged by setbacks,
difficulties, and changes in their lives or work that result from
telecommuting.
* Institute Replacement Procedures
Have you ever tried to break a bad habit, like smoking or cracking your
knuckles? For most people, it's difficult just to quit and do nothing with
that time and energy. It's a lot easier to replace a bad habit with a new,
better habit.
Telecommuters react the same way. For example, it's common for new telecommuters to feel dislocated because they're no longer attending the regular Monday morning staff meeting, for example, and instead must be satisfied with plunging into routine work first thing. It's usually easier for them to become accustomed to telecommuting if they replace the regular office meeting with a regular teleconference or computer "chat" session.
Some of the most "missed" activities associated with working in a central office include lunch-time chats, meeting with colleagues and talking about the details of current projects at the water fountain or coffee machine, and being frequently interrupted by ongoing activities or people with questions and comments.
Feelings of isolation and falling "out of the loop" can often be reduced or eliminated by replacing the office-environment experiences with their telecommuting equivalents, which include: conference calls, computer conferences or chats, and regularly scheduled phone calls at certain times of the day to discuss whatever's "hot" at the moment.
* Fill The Telecommuter's Plate
An idle brain is not only the Devil's playground, it's a fertile field for
nurturing problems that stem from making the transition to telecommuting.
That's why most telecommuters who have had the easiest time with their
transition suggest keeping busy may be the best medicine.
To do this, employers, supervisors or managers should try to give the new telecommuter a fairly full plate of responsibilities for those days spent working away from the main office. The pressure to accomplish a great deal while coping with the necessary adjustments in working habits will to a large degree reduce the opportunity to ruminate about the problems associated with telecommuting, and in this way ease the transition.
That's why it usually requires a little training or education to get people thinking a little more objectively about these old patterns of work, and to give them alternatives that make as much or more sense for the new paradigm of work--telecommuting one or more days of the week.
Training--for the telecommuters and those to whom they report--should cover at least three important areas:
* Communications
This would include such topics as: how often to communicate with the
office; how to set up and maintain relationships with supportive
"gatekeepers" at the office; how to communicate effectively with less
spontaneity and more planning; and handling multi-channel (fax and phone,
computer and fax) conversations.
* Goal Orientation
This would include such topics as: how to set and maintain daily, weekly,
monthly, yearly, and "per project" performance goals; formulating a goal
you can reasonably hope to attain; measuring progress toward a goal;
winning agreement on goals from others, including your supervisor,
colleagues, and subordinates; and adjusting goals to meet changing
realities.
* Self-Discipline
This would include such topics as: balancing work and family matters;
working when you'd rather relax; relaxing when you'd rather work;
recognizing the differences between "self-discipline" and "rigidity" or
"workaholism," and techniques to increase your self-discipline.
Copyright © 1997 by Robert Moskowitz. All rights reserved.