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?

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.

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?

[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?