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

First Post?

[Agronomist Cowherd]

Tele-commuting didn't kill my career. Slashdot killed my career!

Re:First Post?

[DittoBox]

Tele-commuting didn't kill my career. Slashdot killed my career!

Normally I'd just laugh and mod you +1 funny. Sadly I think you might be serious.

I mean, you got first post.

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.

Re:It might do if you want to progress further

[n6kuy]

You get to unwind when you get home?

Buddy, you must not have a wife and kids!
They're more demanding than the work environment.
My office is my sanctuary.

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.

All telecommuters take note

[Anonymous Coward]

I have been working from home for a company based 400km away for 2 years, and having no face time has resulted in my position being viewed in a resentful and misunderstood manner by other staff. managment think i do nothing and are constantly having new brain farts attempting to make me do more work for the same money.

unseen == unappreciated. this is dispite the fact i dragged this multimillion $ company out of the dark ages and wrote them a business system and POS system linked together which run the entire venture, i also admin their web/email/db services at the same time. without me they would still be scratching away are hand written paper reports and trying to make it work on excel.

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.

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.

Not just telecommuting...

[OglinTatas]

Not telecommuting itself, but staying home and watching Scooby Doo sank my career. I would have gotten away with it if it hadn't been for those meddling managers and their pesky status reports, milestones and deadlines.

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:What does "progress" mean?

[WedgeTalon]

Ok, just from the top of my head or a quick google:

Shared Whiteboard: http://www.imaginationcubed.com/LaunchPage
Talk to the guy: Skype / IM / regular telephone
Demonstrate a computer environment: VNC / http://www.crossloop.com/ / https://www.iremotepc.com/ / many more

And as for other things like calendar and task management - there's a deluge of those.

Anything else? The internet has most likely got it covered! Face-to-face time is only really needed these days for those who get some sort of warm, fuzzy reassurance from it.

Taking this to the extremes...

[__aaclcg7560]

Company executives want face time with their employees, the study said.

At one company I worked for, management wanted to install new cubes with half-height walls so they could see if everyone was working with a simple glance out over the office. They backed off when we complained to their managers that the real problem was that out managers were insecure jerks who overreact to problems instead of proactively managing the department. It got even more interesting when our management banned the posting of Dilbert cartons on the cube walls that randomly appeared to mock them.

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.

It didn't hurt Charlie's Career...

[Think Loudly]

In Charlie's case, not only did he telecommute, but he was the boss. Heck, I don't think his employees ever saw him. Just a voice on the speakerphone. But then... his employees were angels.

Bah (telecommuting for 5 years now)

[Kostya]

The only thing that will hamper your career if you tele-commute is if you suck at tele-commuting.

I have been working from a remote location for 5 years now. For 3 of those years, I would travel once a month or once every two months for a week on-site. The rest of my time (that is at least 40, but usually 46, of the 52 weeks of the year) I was working out of my home. And during those three years, my clients were 3 time zones away. I was a senior technical lead and I usual lead teams from 2-5 people. I was a senior contributor and I received 2 "absolute best" team awards on one project. During the other two years, I worked exclusively from my home.

The only time telecommuting hurts your career is if:

1. You have poor interpersonal skills (well, this will hurt you regardless, but it tends to lead to even more misunderstandings if you are remote)
2. You are not self-motivated. If you can't stick with the code instead of catching ST:DS9 on G4 because you are bored or frustrated, telecommuting is going to expose this weakness.
3. You do not have a dedicated workspace. If you are trying to do 10 things at once AND work, you are screwed.
4. Your company isn't telecommuter friendly (kind of a "duh", but it needs to be said). You can't force a company to accept you as a telecommuter if they hate telecommuters.

I find a lot of companies that are "family friendly" are usually good telecommuting places. They usually have the infrastructure and have good speaker phones in their conference rooms. They are set up for it and they don't look down on you if you attend a meeting by phone.

You can also mitigate a lot of issues by coming in for face time on a regular basis. While it isn't my favorite approach, it tends to make most employers happy. Just having a good chat program and a dedicated phone will work wonders. If people can almost always get ahold of you exactly when they want to, they usually don't mind the telecommuting. It's when they can never get a hold of you and you never seem to be "on-line" that they get fiesty.

To be clear, I usually work the schedule of the company, not my own. So even if I could wake up at 12p and work till 8p, I don't do it. I work 8a-4p so that people in different time zones can reach me at a reasonable hour their time. And since most coders come in late and work late, that works pretty good when I am three hours behind them ;-)

All that said, I have never wanted to be a manager. Sr. technical lead is as far as I let a company promote me. So maybe I don't care about career advancement in the technical sense. I'm happy cranking out quality code, and companies continue to hire me for exactly that reason. Even if I had worked on-site all these years, my career would be pretty much the same, since I would never take a management position.

I don't think you can be a manager and tele-commute--unless your whole company is virtual or network based. There is just too much that goes wrong on a daily basis, and if 90% of your workers are in one place and you only see them once a week ... well, stuff is going to go bad.

Sometimes design or brainstorming meetings are difficult. But this could be solved with tech too--it's just that most companies don't want to be bothered with true teleconferencing setups and virtual whiteboards. I find this forces people to be a bit clearer when explaining things over the phone--which can be an added bonus. Or you just make sure you are on site for important design meetings.