Telecommuting * By Robert Moskowitz
The ultimate telecommuter of today is probably Brian Alexander. He's the newspaper and magazine writer who is traveling North America on his Yamaha motorcycle, all tricked out with a portable notebook computer, a dial-up email connection, a digital camera, a wireless fax/modem, and a cellular telephone. His purpose: To demonstrate that you can accomplish a great deal of important work perfectly well over long periods of time without sitting behind the same desk in the same office every day.
As a full-fledged telecommuter "extraordinaire," Mr. Alexander has been able to conduct interviews over the telephone, type notes and reports on his computer, take pictures and include them in with his reports, print and fax his complete documents to others, and exchange timely information via phone calls and email with people working in his employer's conventional office.
Not only is Mr. Alexander traveling as he works, but as part of his demonstration of telecommuting effectiveness he is in fact easily able to conduct telephone conversations and exchange information with people all around the country and across time zones. He's proving that it's possible for telecommuting to take place very effectively, even when one non-techie must do business with another non-techie.
The only problem in all this has been that traveling away from main highways into rural America sometimes runs him out of the cellular telephone coverage umbrella that's nearly ubiquitous in urban areas today. Even within urban areas, he occasionally finds himself in a distant cell that has no "roaming" contract with his particular cell-phone company. But even in such dire circumstances, Mr. Alexander is not completely out of touch. During the day he simply uses pay phones for voice communications, and after settling in for the night he relies on his hotels' dataports for email, and on its fax machines for hardcopy transfers.
One of the biggest surprises for those involved in this experiment (sponsored by Canon Computer Systems) turned out to be that Mr. Alexander, no technical whiz, has suffered so few surprises. So far, his biggest struggle has been the personal one between his impulse to take extra time to enjoy the various locations he's visiting and his recognition of the need to meet his deadlines and accomplish all of his work.
While no one is suggesting that everyone presently working in fixed offices should immediately throw a computer and wireless modem into their backpack and head out into the hinterlands, it's clear from this demonstration--as well as from decades of experience--that telecommuters can overcome practically any obstacle presented by distance and logistics. It's now clear that unless there's a specific reason to spend time in the same office with co-workers, most of us can work just as productively without wasting the time, effort, and resources required to travel to a central location.
One of the biggest obstacles to the growth of telecommuting has long been the reluctance of first-level supervisors, and sometimes middle managers, to support telecommuting among the groups for which they are responsible.
In the early days of telecommuting, these people simply claimed to be uncertain that a telecommuter would actually do any useful work if permitted to remain away from the office during business hours.
Today, this rather simplistic reaction against telecommuting has given way to a more modern, more sophisticated, and more complex set of reasons why the same set of first-level supervisors, and sometimes middle managers, should still be cautious about throwing their support behind telecommuting.
Let's take a look at what they're saying, and at some reasonable, slightly more enlightened responses:
* "Managing telecommuters is more difficult than managing centralized workers because their flexibility limits my control over the work flow."
There's no question that having the entire team in the office at the same time allows a supervisor to parcel out work assignments in any manner he or she pleases, to postpone specific activities at a moment's notice, and to pressure individuals to juggle their work sequences in hopes of better meeting an important deadline. All of this becomes more difficult to do when some of your workforce is located outside the central office.
But except in certain fast-paced situations like retail and other real-time service industries, any supervisor who continually juggles assignments and deadlines not only day-by-day but hour-by-hour is probably foregoing a great many opportunities to increase productivity and cut down on redundancy, waste, and unnecessary activities--all of which costs money.
Supervisors who shoot from the hip generally miss the target a lot more often than those who plan more carefully. As soon as you put in place even the simplest system for anticipating work, scheduling assignments, and coordinating activities, you automatically gain the tools you need to supervise telecommuters just as well as (if not better than) you supervise those who faithfully travel to the central office.
* "Managing telecommuters is more difficult than managing centralized workers because their distance limits my access to them."
This is a spurious worry. It's just as easy to contact a worker by telephone as to walk into his or her office--easier, sometimes, because you don't have to walk across the building or up a flight of stairs. If it's just a matter of telling someone the news or exchanging information to better coordinate team activities, a speaker phone and a conference call works just as well as a team meeting.
The kind of access that's missing with telecommuters--the "broadband" face-to-face interaction that most of us enjoy--can't yet be replaced via technology. But remember that most telecommuters are absent from the office only one or two days a week. So there's nearly always plenty of leeway, in a well-run operation, to have that face-to-face conversation a day or two later the same week.
* "Managing telecommuters is more difficult than managing centralized workers because their irregular schedules and movement from place to place limits communications within my team."
That's correct. With part of your team telecommuting there's no way to get complete results by shouting out the doorway of your office: "Everybody in the conference room. Now!"
But today's communications options--fax, phone, email, cell phone, pagers, automated communications systems and "follow me" phone numbers--greatly simplify the task of contacting a telecommuter on short notice.
Even more to the point, however: Why is it so important to call those "short notice" meetings? In the usual office environment, how often can they be justified? Why didn't the supervisor anticipate the "emergency" that precipitated the meeting? And if these emergencies are few and far between, is this rare eventuality a worthwhile enough reason to curtail telecommuting the rest of the time?
* "Telecommuting threatens the organization's culture and values."
To understand this objection, it's important to consider the values expressed in the corporate culture we're trying to preserve. Telecommuters have consistently been shown to be among the hardest working, most loyal, most productive, and most satisfied of all employees--not only when they begin telecommuting, but after years of doing it.
So what values are telecommuters really threatening?
The biggest threat that remains is probably to such feelings as camaraderie and team spirit, which might conceivably be damaged by cutting back on interpersonal contact and having individuals learn to work more self-reliantly as telecommuters. But while one might fear damage to the corporate culture, where is the proof that telecommuters actually do damage to corporate cultures? And if they do feel a little estranged from the team, isn't this more than offset by their thoroughly positive feelings and actions toward the larger organization?
* "Telecommuting lowers the creativity and energy level within the office."
There's absolutely no evidence supporting the notion that people who work as telecommuters cut back on their energy level or creativity on the days they travel to the centralized office. If anything, telecommuters seem to maintain a steady level on the job, but show more than their usual energy and creativity levels on the days they work outside the office. So if you do the math, you see this pattern tends to produce a net increase rather than a decrease in the team's overall energy and creativity on days when people are telecommuting.
One suspects this objection contains within it a hidden assumption: That people who work outside the office walls aren't really producing anything of value, so their energy and creativity levels don't really count. Under this assumption, having a telecommuter at home is exactly like having one less person on the job. Since this assumption holds absolutely no water, there's no point in considering it further.
* "Telecommuting prevents my more experienced people from passing on their skills and knowledge to more junior members of the team."
With today's growing emphasis on "human resources" as part of the core assets of any organization, there's no doubt an organization benefits greatly from the cross-pollination and professional growth that occurs when team members work together and learn from each others' skills and experience. In most circumstances, this kind of sharing and learning is at least somewhat inhibited by the physical distance between individuals working in person at the main office and individuals telecommuting in from other locations.
But it's not completely eliminated by distance. People working on the same projects or task forces naturally talk on the telephone, exchange email messages, refer to each others' notes and memos, and study each team member's final contribution to the overall effort. It's hard to imagine that two people on the same team won't learn something of value just by working with one another. And if one of them is curious and the other is highly skilled or talented, some cross pollination and growth is almost inevitable.
Even if knowledge transfers among their team members are stopped cold by physical distance, supervisors can dramatically increase the transfer rate of knowledge and experience by instituting some simple programs, such as "show and tell," "working buddies," or regular rotations among various team positions.
The real objection here may be that telecommuting won't prevent valuable experience and information passing from one team member to another, but instead that it will promote the passage of unwanted experience and information: namely the benefits of and preference for telecommuting!
Let's face it. If you're against the spread of telecommuting, it's only natural to try manufacturing some additional arguments against it by the time-honored tactic of reversing the facts of the matter. Thus, the tendency of telecommuting to spread like wildfire can be twisted 180 degrees into a worry about too little information transmission from telecommuters to everyone else.
* "Telecommuting threatens the existence of my position, because it promotes a flattening of the organization."
Now we get to the bottom-line concern. It's only natural for people to protect themselves from changes that threaten the "status quo." And telecommuting is a very big threat to the "quo" of just about everybody's "status."
Whether you're a front-line supervisor or a mid-level manager, it's pretty clear that modern organizational structures are beginning to require fewer buffers and overseers between those doing the day-to-day work and those making the strategic decisions. The very notions of "pushing decision-making down the corporate ladder" and "empowering workers" contain within them the seeds of destruction for positions that have mainly been responsible for passing information up, and decisions back down, the corporate hierarchy.
Telecommuting obviously constitutes a large part of the revolutionary trend toward flatter, smaller organizations. And it threatens not only the front-line supervisor and his or her boss, but the power and prestige of the people in charge of corporate mainstays like hiring and firing, managing facilities, and providing support services. So why not delay the inevitable by taking up positions behind the barricades and presenting every possible argument against the onslaught of that most dreaded of all human developments: a better future.
Copyright © 1997 by Robert Moskowitz. All rights reserved.