Telecommuting Can Be Bad For Those Who Don't

SirLurksAlot writes "An article up on Ars Technica reports on a study of telecommuting from the point of view of those who show up at the office every day. The study discovered that telecommuting can have adverse effects on the office-bound. Researcher Timothy Golden 'found that in-office employees took less satisfaction in their jobs and felt less of a relationship and obligation to their company as the number of telecommuting coworkers grew. In-office employees in his study became disappointed at having fewer and weaker relationships. They also got frustrated at a perceived increase in workload and difficulties that telecommuting can present to finishing projects and building strong working relationships.'" The article notes that telecommuting is "not an exact science." Some good insights in the discussion forum too.

Comments

I agree with this

[PCM2]

I've seen it in action. It also seems pretty intuitive. Working as a bunch of like-minded, geographically disperse individuals does not seem as likely to inspire morale and productivity as "working as a team" -- meaning you see the people every day, you meet with the people face to face, you drop by their desks when you have questions, and so on.

The question is, what can this tell us about how to successfully manage community-based open source projects?

Re:I agree with this

[kionel]

As a person who telecommuted from 1997-2006, I concur completely.

Unfortunately, in my neck of the woods at least, telecommuting seems to have become a bad word. Workers who once had the option of working 2-3 days a week from home have now been demanded to come into the office. Off-site workers have been transferred off projects and into projects closer to their geographic location, or let go entirely. To even ask to work from home for legitimate reasons ("My kids are sick, and I'd like to be near them if they need me, but will get my work done,") is suddenly blasphemous.

As near as I can see, there is zero business reason for this move. Instead, new management -- often from outside of the IT or engineering field -- has stepped into squash "waste". It doesn't matter that our productivity has dropped into a hole. It doesn't matter that contractors and employees have fled the place (sadly, only to find that other companies in my area seem to be adopting this stance). Nope, all that matters is that they have their worker bees in front of them to see them buzzing away.

My guess, sadly, is that businesses have taken a negative attitude towards telecommuting as one last backlash against the "good ol' days" of the tech boom. As one who had his butt kissed as an engineer during that time, I'm intensely aware of the hostility that me and mine receive from leadership now.

Of course, as fuel prices go up, this might become a moot point.

Oh, who am I kidding? We're just drones, right? We live to serve.

Sadly, I absolutely know of individuals in corporate leadership who think exactly like that.

Let's hope that changes soon.

Best Team I Ever Worked On Telecommuted

[tjstork]

The best team I ever worked on telecommuted. We were working on a new internet thingy back in the day when everything on the internet was new, and there were about a half dozen or so developers, working on a couple of spiffy new Sun boxes via telnet over ssh. It was a blast. Moral on the team was high, and we often burned the midnight oil simply to see this thing get built, and becuase our fearless leader was a genuine visionary. We communicated via email and comments in code and rcs. Then we would do weekly statuses via a conference call, but for the most part, we kept in touch via email and it worked like a champ.

We were the black project, Dave's crazy thing... building an internet service model in an organization that didn't even really see that much of a need for even computers from the get go. It was a tremendous amount of work but also a great deal of fun. It was a genuinely wonderful experience for me. We had a colorful team, filled with a bunch of just super people, and that's what really matters. If you've got good people, you are going to have a good team almost regardless of whether they are in the office or not.

Re:As an non-social nerd with a touch of the autis

[Amorymeltzer]

Not being in the office is plenty distracting. Your standard cubicle and coworkers has a lot less to offer than something like your own home, especially far from supervision. Most annoying people walking by will probably learn after being asked once or twice to only stop by if it's important. I've always seen the personal interactions being far superior to some slight decrease in productivity.

Telecommunicating redistributes types of work!

[compumike]

If somebody were to take a look at a company that implemented telecommuting, and took a big step back to look at the big picture, there's one big thing that will stand out: the kinds of work that various employees (including those "left behind in the office") do will change because of telecommuting.

With the way that telecommuting has taken hold, it's often the case that the work that needs to be done by department XYZ hasn't changed... but that there are some things that are difficult from remote offices. This means that those parts of the new telecommuter's job will have to be moved to an in-office employee. So yes, it makes sense that telecommuting comes with this price.

The real question is whether companies use telecommuting as a reason to change processes, such that it isn't just redistributing work, but changing the nature of the work itself. Since this article just refers to a single company, it's pretty clear that they haven't thought about redefining processes -- just reassigning work and locations. But hopefully more companies are as they move down this road.

--
Educational microcontroller kits for the digital generation.

Agreed on the in-person relationships

[Weaselmancer]

At the company I work for, our main office is on the other coast. We're a splinter office (well an acquisition really) of about a dozen guys. The guys on the coast really don't have any idea where I'm at anyways. I've done several projects and never even seen the other guys on the team. I email them status and code, they email me requests.

And that's true at the office I'm in too when the project is in-house. Had a guy two cubes down from me get added to my project, and he had to ask me my name. He had forgotten. We still got things done though, once he remembered who I was.

Point is, I've worked a lot with people I've never seen while sitting in my cube. If I was at home, I honestly think people wouldn't even know, much less care. Meet your deadlines and you've done your part. And I do. I only go in to the office most times just because it's expected of me. It doesn't really help in any way.

It needs to be done right

[MikeRT]

Telecommuting works great if you have a few trusted employees. One of the developers on a team I used to work on about 8 months ago had to commute from about 45 minutes away to get into the office. He telecommuted a lot when he felt like. Our manager bent (more like broke, later on) the rules so that he didn't have to add 1.5 hours to his commute. My coworker and I literally lived down the street from our new office. Why should we be allowed to telecommute? Seriously, we lucked out such that we could walk about 10-20 minutes away from our apartments to get to the office on a bad day.

I think it all depends on three things:

1) How far away does the employee live
2) How well can you trust them to do their work
3) Can they do all of their work from home, and if not, will the come in and do what they can't in the office

Telecommuting ought to be a privilege, not a right. Part of the reason my company ended up having a general policy of ending telecommuting was the abuse. Too little work was getting done by most of the telecommuters.

Re:Perhaps looking at it the wrong way?

[Seumas]

This sort of study is the same reason we end up calling everyone an "engineer". The guy who picks up your garbage is a sanitation engineer and the pizza boy is a food services transportation engineer and the mailman is a printed communications engineer. I'm sure the low-paid secretary or office admin would like to be in the position of everyone else in the office who makes more money and has a more prestigious title, just like those people would like to be telecommuting.

Also, a lot of people I know COULD telecommute but do not want to. That's their prerogative. Nothing wrong with that. But your personal choice shouldn't be inflicted on everyone else who is as or more productive and are able to work remotely. As someone who witnessed a two-hour long nerf-war in the office last time I dropped in, I am completely thankful I work from home where my largest distraction is the hum of the air conditioner and the case of coke zero in the dorm fridge next to my desk.

The grass is always greener + why I do office work

[rjamestaylor]

Those not $SITUATON are disgruntled against those who $SITUATION.

Anyway... I worked remotely, telecommuting, since 1996. Eventually I went full-time telecommuting -- even when I would come to "the office" I would be in a conference room, lunch area, etc., free to sit where I wished and work how/when i wanted (unless there was a specific meeting in progress). Last year I went to work in an office to do shift work as a system admin for a hosting company. Love it.

I still work on little projects and am planning that "big project" in my spare time, but my *work* is 10 hours a day, four days a week AT THE OFFICE.

It's a freeing change for me.

One day (well, over several years) I realized that the problem with me working at home or away from the office is that whenever I was home or away from the office I would work. Even when traveling 1500 miles for Thanksgiving...I worked 10 to 12 hour days.

Stupid.

So, because I'm a workaholic, I only drink, er, work, at specified times in specified places. Sure, I may have a single "email check-in" session at home, but no prolonged working. If I need to cover a co-workers' shift, I go in to the office (if possible). No more working at home alone. Work, for some, is intoxicating.

Re:Perhaps looking at it the wrong way?

[R2.0]

"I can't help but suspect that the whole low morale issue is created by those in the office feeling that they're not being treated so well as those who get to work from home in their pyjamas, and, as a result, resenting that they have to be in the office."

I think it's a little more complex than that. There's a guy in the Purchasing department who handles almost all my contracts. He telecommutes 2 days/week and his schedule seems kind of random. But since he forwards his phone and responds to emails, it's pretty transparent - until I need him to actually DO something. See, he doesn't take all of his office home with him, just the computer. So if I have something urgent come up, he can't help me. Period.

So now, not only am I irritated and delayed, but the guy that sits across from him in the office is pissed. Why, you ask? Because if it can't wait the until the first guy gets back, I go upstairs and drop it on his coworkers desk. So now his coworker is doing his job.

Is it supposed to work that way? No. Does it work that way in real life? Yes. And isn't that the root cause of stress - that things don't work the way they are supposed to?

Re:Stuck in the office because everyone else ran a

[zifferent]

You hit the nail squarely on the head. As an employee that works at a business that has had a tendency to liberally allow work from home for all it's employees when necessary. I prefer going in to work mostly because access to network resources are closer and faster (I do a lot of remote desktops across the Internet to random places in the US) and partly because I live so close that it's only about a 5 minute walk down the street and I can't generally justify working from home. Unfortunately, the people left behind are the scheming, whispering kind of people that like to complain about anything and everything amongst themselves about how everyone else in the company is lazy but them and how they carry the company upon their poor broken backs (man, that kind of banter gets tiring.) The truth is that when they aren't visiting each other and carrying on they are visiting each other and shooting the breeze. I can't imagine them getting stuff done. Very accurate stuff indeed! Thank you sir Spaz you have made my evening.