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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.
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.
This is my sig.
Imagine how people will feel when they find out half of their "co-workers" are just shell scripts.
THL phish sticks
Hey, there's social rules and peer-pressure to consider. This is Slashdot, man; and here you're suggesting I could RTFA..? I'd be a laughing stock... ;)
I must say that the in-person relationships are over-rated. If I'm really crunching on some problem, I don't want you stopping by to say hello and distracting me. Send me an IM if it is urgent, or an email if it isn't. Ad-hoc conference calls fill in the gaps if the scheduled meetings aren't going to be timely enough for a given issue. Shit, I've been on disperse teams for years, and sometimes I've never even seen a team-mate outside of their headshot on the company whitepages site.
I like working with my teammates, and don't mind a little small talk, but really...I'm here to make money not friends. The fact that I enjoy the work is a plus, but it's not super important to me. My home-time is spent doing things that most 'middle Americans' would find scary or offensive so I really don't want to mix my work/home lives.
Blar.
As a new-grad entering the workforce I have mixed feelings over telecommuting.
The first 2-5 years of your employment can be a crucial component to the success of the rest of your career. I get the feeling that you most definitely want to be coming to work everyday. Certainly you may change tracks, jobs, or even fields down the road, but the business/social skills that you'll learn and more importantly, the relationships you will develop are very important and seem impossible to foster over the phone or a video conference. Spending time at your company's office means you are working, eating, and socializing (work and recreational) with your peers. You will undoubtedly discuss your interests both related and unrelated to your job that may lead to hundreds of different possibilites. For example, during a lunch break at the office with your friend you may have a discussion on a common interest technology that could lead to a startup. Or during an on-campus softball break you may find that a peer has a common interest or contacts in a different field altogether. Let alone the 'hands-on' communication needed to complete software projects, how in the world are you going to make these relationships and get these contacts when you are at home during the work week?
I'm not arguing that you can't be successful at your job telecommuting; certainly telecommuting may be beneficial for the truly brilliant people who can produce great code or make a sale to a client from the comfort of the home, but if you are that brilliant, imagine how much your peers would benefit from having you around more often to pick your brain?
Certainly for more veteran people who have 3 kids and live far from work, telecommuting can be a blessing and that is where telecommuting should be applied; experienced individuals who already have excellent communication skills and extensive experience in the industry. The benefits of increased productivity and the positive environmental impact are great positives.
As for disgruntled non-telecommuting employees left behind at work: I think a company that properly uses telecommuting has some sort of obligation to employees that don't telecommute to improve their office experience. The company should be saving a good amount of money from reduced operating expenses because fewer employees are on campus and increased productivity from those who telecommute. Certainly some of this savings should be put to use for those who still commute to work; improve their work experience by having more benefits on campus; drinks, food, recreation, and public transportation or company shuttles. Certainly these services should be simpler to implement on campus if more employees telecommute and would certainly be appreciated by those who still come to work.
I like working with my teammates, and don't mind a little small talk, but really...I'm here to make money not friends. The fact that I enjoy the work is a plus, but it's not super important to me. My home-time is spent doing things that most 'middle Americans' would find scary or offensive so I really don't want to mix my work/home lives.
I don't have autism and I'm not anti-social and I have absolutely no interest in making friends at work (I have discouraged it on Slashdot at least twice before). I'm there to get a job done and go the fuck home and spend time with my wife, dog and our friends that don't give a fuck about what we did at work.
I don't have any hobbies that make "Middle Americans" (I assume I'm one) uncomfortable but I honestly believe you work your shift and you go home. Once you're home you don't talk about work, you don't worry about work, and you certainly don't concern yourself with what you're going to be doing tomorrow.
Work isn't important enough to care about it that much. Do your job to the best of your ability and go home. Too many people have it backwards -- worrying about work at day and all night.
As someone who has been telecommuting for about a decade, let me give my thoughts:
Yes, if you don't get to telecommute, you may feel bad. I'm sorry. I feel bad when other people get huge pay raises that I don't get or when they get various forms of family leave for their own personal choices that I don't have or when the big-whigs get to fly around in the corporate jet and I have to spend two hours each way in commute. Life isn't fair and isn't always even.
I put in a lot of time working, simply because I have everything at my fingers here that I would have in the office, except I can put in extra hours any time of day or night that I want. I don't have to spend two or four hours commuting, either. I don't spend long periods of time chatting around the water cooler, either.
There are people who work hard and are productive and those who are not. Whether it's in an office or in a home office is not relevant.
Where I work, it wouldn't much matter wherever I conducted my business. Even if I work in the office, I am 1500 miles away from people on my team on the west coast and 1500 miles away from my boss and other people on my team who are on the east coast. Also, some of my team are in India. My colleagues and other people in the company that I deal with on a daily basis are spread throughout the world. West coast. Midwest. East coast. India. China. South America. Australia. Throughout the UK. Singapore.
The benefits to me are that I do not have to commute or sit in an uncomfortable office all day. The benefits to my company are that I can afford and am willing to put in far more time than I ever would before. For instance, I just put in a full week and today is one of my days off. I spent almost the entire day working. I won't be paid for it. I won't get anything out of it. I simply felt that we had a lot of things to get done and I could be of some benefit to my colleagues by helping out with the work load. I would not have bothered to shower, dress, go across the city to get to the office and spend all day in a noisy busy environment with people poking their heads over my cubicle walls. I think a lot of people would be more likely to adopt the "outside of 9-5 is MY time" philosophy and duck out the front door the moment the clock strikes 5pm than they would be if they could telecommute.
Again, that isn't most people. I'm just saying that is how some would react. In my experience - at least at my company - we have very dedicated people in every area regardless of how or where they work.
I also offer the company the added benefit that I am less upset when they don't had out pay raises for various reasons. After all, telecommuting does compensate for such things to a degree (though not infinitely, of course). And more than anything, I offer my company not only more work hours of my own accord, but faster response. When we are short-handed or otherwise have emergencies, they have the option of trying to get someone by phone or pager and ask them to get themselves together and come into the office. That could take a couple hours. Aside form the time they put in once they're there, it could involve three or four hours round trip. Or they could ping me and I can be working within a minute. From home.
I know that not all companies are globally distributed like mine, so they may have different experiences. I've simply found that we are spread about that whether I'm at a desk in the office or at a desk at home is irrelevant to the experience. After all, I've seen my boss in person twice in eight years. But I talk to him almost every day, thanks to email, phone and company-wide IM. And when one of our colleagues had a sad death in the family, the condolences were just as real and meaningful by those of us across the country as those sitting next to him and we were all eager to help cover him while he was gone for weeks to deal with the loss and everyone was equally concerned about him when he returned. Being across a desk from him or across two timezones from him was irrelevant.
Seems to me, the article talks about the effect telecommuting had on the extrovert. Well, sure. I can absolutely see where the lack of an audience is going to be a total bummer for the extrovert.
But us introverts say a prayer of thanks when the telecommute offer comes in.
The study is probably a little bit skewed, in that extroverts want to come to work, so that they do get their audience. When offered the telecommute, the extroverts probably turned it down.... Yes, they were left behind. And sure, they may be more lonely now. But given my 'druthers, I'd rather the extroverts work in Sales.
"The most sensible request of government we make is not, "Do something!" But "Quit it!"
There is a lot of truth in what you say. If you work slavishly then people think you are powerless and do it out of desperation, in the manner of begging. For example, if you work 12 hours it is because you believe your 8 hours is not good enough, so you have to compensate for your shit skills by working more along the lines of "well I am not that productive per hour, so let me work more hours in desperate hopes that my employer will notice me and at least refrain from firing me, or at least put me in the back of the line when firing." It's a fear-based, victim, loser mentality. And funny enough, if you stop doing it, people value you more. If you kill yourself for the company, you get fired with the rest of the workaholic office flotsam.
It's the exact same dynamic that exists between men and women. Men who are desperate for women and who bend over backward to please women are despised by women. Women hate the "nice guy". And the corps hate the "nice employee" too for the same reason.
I know this from experience. When I was "nice", I got zero respect and my only reward was an ever-increasing workload and responsibility with the ever decreasing decision making power. So if something ever went wrong it was my fault, even though I had no decision making power to do it better or even just plain differently. I was a nervous wreck on hastening to take my place 6ft under with no other motivation besides fear. When I realized how pathetic that was, for me and for others around me (even for the corp itself), I changed and never looked back. I'd rather die free than be a slave.