Will Telecommuting Kill a Career?

coondoggie writes to mention that Network World has a piece taking a look at the effects of the telecommute on advancement within your career. From the article: "Over 60% of 1,320 global executives surveyed by executive search firm Korn/Ferry International said they believe that telecommuters are less likely to advance in their careers in comparison to employees working in traditional office settings. Company executives want face time with their employees, the study said."

Comments

It might do if you want to progress further

[LiquidCoooled]

Whilst it might slow down your progress if your goal (at that point) is progressing, it might actually be the intended target.

Getting to handle home life and work life and having time to relax and be yourself in the evenings might just be the drug some people seek.

Re:It might do if you want to progress further

[asliarun]

I have a slightly different view on this, and not necessarily the opposite of yours. I actually LIKE the fact that my work life is clearly separated from my personal life. My previous job gave me a laptop, free home connectivity, and official permission to "work from home" a day a week. My new job has given me a workstation. Surprisingly, I'm enjoying the fact that I don't carry my work (laptop) home every day (even if I wouldn't have opened my laptop at home). It enables me to mentally "switch off" the instant I leave my office. So, even though I end up working slightly longer hours, I'm mentally at work ONLY when I'm physically at work.

Best of all, the fact that I cannot "work from home" forces me to be extra disciplined during my work-day, and I make sure that I prioritize my tasks and complete all my important tasks before I head for home. Admittedly, this is a generalization and may not be true for everyone, but it works for me.

Conversely, if I went back home at 6 sharp (because I had the ability to carry my work home) and still had some pending work for the day, I would never be able to truly unwind at home until the pending work has been completed. A beer tastes way better when you're tired and satisfied.

This isn't data. Sheesh.

[Grendel Drago]

This is a study? It's an opinion poll! Unless it's a longitudinal study comparing workers who elected to telecommute against those in similar positions who didn't, it's not an answer to the question posed in the article's title. Since when have executives been a reliable source for hard data of this kind? I know we sort of canonize the executive class in this country, but this is ridiculous...

Frame of reference issue....

[ivan256]

Executives have a very hard time seeing outside of their sphere of influence. If a telecommuting employee isn't promoted as much as they desire and deserve within a company, they will advance their career by changing jobs... It wouldn't matter if telecommuters never got a promotion. If they are both ambitious and deserving, they will still advance their career.

Live to Work or Work to Live?

[bill_mcgonigle]

If you want to climb the corporate ladder, turn off your computer and go into work. Right now. OK? No, no, stop - go in to work, you can reply there.

If you want to be independent, set your hours, spend more time with the kids, choose your employers and your work, or whatever, then by all means, go file for an LLC and get to work. It's hard and you'll probably earn less and get less sleep.

I've seen even the best employees who were teleworkers get let go before the mediocre folks who bitched at the water cooler, come lay-offs time, that's just the way it works, humans are social creatures. It's a bad 'career' option, but a good lifestyle choice.

Neither choice is right for everybody but it's good to honestly assess which is the right one for you.

What does "progress" mean?

[EmbeddedJanitor]

I telecommute, as well as doing contract work - often for people I have never seen, which is extreme telecommuting. I have been offered management positions but I have turned them down, opartly because I don';t want to be a manager and also partly because I believe you can't manage effectively if you are remote from most workers. If you consider management as progress, then yes it should be a problem. I think you need to be in the office every day to be an effective manager (management by walking around and all that).

If you're a pure-play techie, then it does not matter. What does "progress" mean to a techie? It means being taken more seriously and doing more technical leadership stuff (architectural etc). In these positions I don't see that telecommuting poses any problems.

Re:What does "progress" mean?

[AuMatar]

Eh, I'd say being able to hold a whiteboard conversation with ones peers is extremely convenient. Or the ability to talk to the guy who wrote the code you're fixing right now, rather than wait a few hours on an email. Or show someone a bug in person, to show how its happening. You don't need to be in the office 9-5 daily, but a half days overlap 2 or 3 days a week is very helpful.

Re:What does "progress" mean?

[Fordiman]

Well, that may be true, but straw man is straw man; your personal account includes variables that can't be accounted for.

What I mean is this: Using a game-statistical model, with various directions of advancement, and attributes like skill, office presence (ie: not telecommuting), charisma, and such, it may be provable that, all other things being equal, having an office presence provides social connectivity, allowing the player to advance more easily in his chosen direction.

In cases where the player's other stats are higher, this may be irrelevant - he is more able to move on his own merit, and thus doesn't need the 'social grease'. Additionally, it may be showable that having a periodic office presence has significant advantages over having none, but a continuous office presence may have little advantage over a periodic one.

Of course, the game dynamic changes for a contractor versus a firm-static employee; the contracter lives more on reputation than on social contact, and thus has little need for face-to-face meetings. Meanwhile, the firm-static employee's advancement is eased by the ability to personally impress his superiors and coworkers - his good reputation is formed from good social interaction.

Moving further on, the impact of an office presence on a player's career would be inversely related to the percent of the firm that telecommutes - ie: the greater number of people without an office presence, the less likely it would be that having none would impact an individual's career. People would be used to it, and would very likely have a greater capacity for forming social contacts and personal respect for others via e-mail, phone, or other remote communication means.

So, will telecommuting kill your career? If you're good at what you do, not likely. If it's only most of the time, not likely. If you're a contracter and not an employee, not likely. If your firm is primarily telecommuted, not likely.

You, my good man, appear to be all three, so I'd say your 'player' would lay in a boundary condition in this 'game'. I don't mean to invalidate your position and experience, but to generalize a system and perhaps explain your relative position in it - that is, creating an statistical game doesn't bear directly on reality, but serves only to direct research and hypothesis (which in turn refine the game).

Does any of that sound about right?

Re:All telecommuters take note

[PoderOmega]

When I hear people say things like this I have to wonder... if you can really make 50% somewhere else then what the heck are you doing?! Go get it! You said that this is a multimillion dollar company and not a church or a charity house, so why why why?! Are you just too lazy to interview for that 50% more? If it is because the company that would pay you 50% more won't let you telecommute, then it really isn't 50% more money, because that is a benefit you won't have.

Re:All telecommuters take note

[greg1104]

managment think i do nothing

Then take a long vacation and prove them wrong.

to add to this insult, i did all this on a cut throat budget at a bargin price for them. my rate is 50% of what the next guy would charge.

When you come back, tell them you now have a better offer somewhere else, but since you're old friends you'd continue to work for them for double your current rate if they want to keep you. That will quickly make up for the money you lost from the time off, and if you're right they won't find anyone cheaper. People who are working for bargain rates rarely get any respect, telecommuter or not. Management thinks, "why, if they were really good, they'd charge more".

If they go for it, they should have new respect for you as a highly-paid professional who has significant value to the company that they missed when you were unavailable. If they don't buy it, you were wrong about your value to this company, and you can move on to another job where things may go better for you. Either way, your current problem is gone.

It does me.

[PopeRatzo]

Liquid is right. Maybe some of us are less concerned about "advancing" than having time with our families and a high quality of life.

I can't exactly put my finger on the day and time I decided I didn't need to "move up" any more, but let me tell you, it was a liberating moment.

The funniest part of it is that immediately after the first time I turned down a "promotion" because I felt satisfied with my life as it was, coincided directly with the really good opportunities showing up. It almost seems like happiness and satisfaction are qualities that draw success. Instead of running after success, if you reach a point where you're not quite so hungry, so desperate, success starts coming after you, instead.

I've seen what ambitious, driven people look like. Take someone like Dick Cheney for example. Here's a guy who clawed his way to the top, literally. He's worked his way to a level of wealth and power most people only dream of, and his face is like a road-map of pain and desperation. I wouldn't want to be inside his head on the day he shuffles off this earth.

Which only works for a small company

[Moraelin]

I'm not telecommuting at the moment, and living fairly close to the office, I'm not really trying to anyway, but... somehow I'm not seeing that as so critical. I have co-workers who are here 3 days a week, and, honestly, there are whole weeks when they're hardly actually needed. You'll want _some_ face time, but I'm not sure that even 2-3 days a week are necessary every week.

Going around and asking in person only works that well for a small company anyway. For example here I ended up maintaining the truly awful code of someone whose office is now at the other end of the city. If I wanted to talk to him, I'd have to set an appointment and drive there, which probably isn't any better from the office than from home. In fact, from home I'd actually be closer to his office.

Half the time we _do_ use email anyway, and the other half we just reach for the phone. Why wouldn't it work just as well from home? And since everything is in the same CVS, if you need any clarifications, you can just tell the other guy which project, file and function or line number you're interested in. Having to actually go to another department and ask in person is person is more the exception when phone and email failed, rather than having a permanent exodus of people going to paint something on other people's whiteboards.

Ditto for guys whose code we use, or guys using our code. Heck, some of the frameworks I've had to work with were from companies not even in the same city, or the same country altogether. Some of the guys whose code is being maintained don't even work here any more.

All in all, while I don't deny that sometimes it _is_ an advantage, I see more value in having good and clearly defined architectures and interfaces. That will keep serving you well even when the whole original team moved on to other jobs. It's not a theoretical situation, we actually have one framework here where that's exactly what happened over time.

And when they didn't yet, knowing (or having a way to find out quickly) who to phone or email if you have questions. If the architecture and interfaces are well designed and documented, and you have competent people at both ends of the line, chances are there won't be a whole tome of an explanation you need, so telephone and email work just as well. And when someone new to it needs a more thorough crash course, an appointment can be arranged... which is exactly what we're doing right now anyway, even without telecommuting.

Re:Which only works for a small company

[Original Replica]

there are whole weeks when they're hardly actually needed.

So, they can be outsourced no problem, right? That might interfere with their advancement.