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Striving to Keep Teleworkers Happy
coondoggie writes "Employees who work from home or in remote branch offices often feel disconnected from corporate life and worry they will be forgotten and bypassed for promotions. Managers and employees have to make a concerted effort to stay in touch, experts say. At IBM, Pelino and others set out to improve corporate culture. The company sparked new life into an old tradition: IBM Club, which brings together employees for intramural sports, picnics, movies and other types of social, cultural and recreational activities."
But if a promotion didn't come, I wouldn't be upset. As a teleworker for a local staffing service, I save enough money on gas alone. I have the comfort of my own bathroom, the comfort of my own house, and the comfort of my World of Warcraft video game on my breaks. I really wouldn't trade that to have to travel to the office every day and interact with people, even if it means never getting promoted.
As someone that was an IBM employee and still knows people that work at IBM I can tell you that this is mostly spin. Moving people to work from home is all about the mighty dollar. IBM saves quite a bit in expenses by having people work from home. Also, IBM doesn't really care that much about it's U.S. workforce as it is primarily interested in moving jobs to India. The last announced goal for the workforce in India is 40,000 employees. Little hiring is being done at all in the U.S. by IBM while attrition continually reduces the U.S. numbers.
"4)I have not partied with Andy Dick" -- Matt, Salon.com 11/23/99 "I Anakin"
Beat the shit out of the managers that make teleworkers have to justify that we are really doing our jobs away from the office.
It never fails, it seems every quarter some moron in Finance or some new manager in some department questions the value of teleworkers and other stupid comments or questions about the people they dont see daily.
When you have to defend yourself in SPITE of your work quality and quantity on a regular basis it kind of makes us really pissy.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
As bad as it sounds, promotions typically come to those who are willing to drop everything for their employer.
I can tell you that statement is actually quite often crap. Working extra hours and dropping all sense of personal life for your employer is like putting a giant sign on your forehead that says DOORMAT. Why should they promote you and pay you more when they can pay you exactly what your getting now for the same price?. Aside from that it shows you have no backbone and therefore no leadership abilities. If you can't stand up for yourself now how will you stand up to people under you?
This is a lesson I learned the hard way. I used to spend all my free time at work and put in whatever hours the boss asked for. Now I find I get taken much more seriously now that I have learned to stand up for myself.
I work full time from home in a senior development position and can relate very much to the disconnected feeling that is discussed in the article, but the solutions that are discussed are addressing the wrong problem in my opinion. The problem is communication but it is professional communication, not social communication that is often lacking.
:)
We have found that short and sweet daily "stand-up" meetings in the morning with only the immediate team members (others of whom work from home as well) are far more helpful than weekly or monthly all-staffs or get togethers. In my experience it is rare that more than 2-3 people actually speak on an all-staff conference call of more than 10 people - how can that help improve communication? Get togethers at a restaurant or park, what have you, are fun and allow for familiarization but they are outside of work and do nothing to improve the day to day communication of the issues at hand.
We have also found webcams to be unhelpful, the concensus being that without eye contact it's just TV. Screen sharing tools like VNC or webex paired with a speaker phone are far more effective when extended collaboration has to happen, while IM takes care of the rest.
As far as the promotions go if the team you're on isn't communicating professionally and producing crap code you have no chance of getting promoted - no matter how many funny jokes you tell at the IBM "Lunch 'n Bowl"
while [ 1 ]; do echo -n -e "\xe2\x95\xb$((($RANDOM&1)+1))"; done
When I was 100% telecommute I was always terrified I would be promoted and given responsibilities that required me to travel, or else, forced to relocate to a main office.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
"Anyone that puts family or themselves first NEVER get promoted." I completely disagree. I have yet to give two shits about any company I've worked for, and usually get promoted pretty quickly. Office space has it right. Just a straight shooter with upper management written all over me, I guess. You're definitely right about good work having zero to do with promotions, though. Talking with your boss(es) instead of working is generally more to your advantage.