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Six Questions To Ask Before Telecommuting
Lucas123 writes "With gas prices 30% higher this summer over last, telecommuting is back on everyone's radar. According to a Computerworld story, however, IT and telecommuting don't have a great record of success. For example, citing negative impacts on productivity, HP ended its telecommuting policy for hundreds of workers two years ago, and this year, Intel began requiring more than half the teleworkers in its IT group to report to the office at least four days a week. So before leaping, some questions you should ask as a manager if you're considering telework include: How will you define and measure performance? Will creativity suffer? What about employees stuck in the office?"
Frankly, without someone to poke me with a sharp stick now and then, I wouldn't get much done.
I want to telecommute now.
If each mistake being made is a new one, then progress is being made.
The most important question is...
Can you reboot it remotely. If you physically need to press a button, or change media, you won't be telecommuting.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
That's why I don't telecommute, even though I could - I get nothing done.
Well that and I have no excuse as I live a half hour's walk from work.
Most modern servers have facilities to do just that.
I do a day from home each week and use remote tools for everything from power resets to OS installs remotely.
The times you have to touch a server itself in a modern environment is infrequent enough you can work from anywhere most of the time.
Frankly, without someone to poke me with a sharp stick now and then, I wouldn't get much done.
I sometimes wonder how much gets done even when people are physically present, there is a lot of solitaire and web surfing going on in many offices. Perhaps with a rise in telecommuting we can switch to getting paid for generating x amount of work done instead of x hours in the workplace. It would lead to huge efficiency improvements, and it seems the only practical way to quantify "a days work" telecommuting.
We are all just people.
As many on slashdot have pointed out in previous threads about offshoring, one of the main drivers of the high cost of living, i.e. a high salary is the necessity of working in expensive urban areas.
Companies are perfectly willing to take non-trivial jobs and ship them overseas, but seem to be extremely reluctant to let workers telecommute, which would probably help in lowering costs, allowing the jobs to stay here.
Really, WTF ?
Absolute statements are never true
Try THIS link.
Many of these questions should be asked for ANY position, regardless of how much telecommuting is involved. Questions 2 & 3 are relevant to most any job (i.e. "what am I actually paid for?"). #4 & 5 are relevant in any place that has teleworkers, even if it's not you, since they might be on your team, and 6 applies to just about any job situation. It's the "what if things change?" question.
A while ago, I was finishing my degree while maintaining a full-time job. I reached a point where I needed to take time off in order to concentrate on one of my classes - so I did. In those two weeks, it immediately became apparent to me that I could not get things done at home (too many distractions), nor at the library (I have to pack up everything in order to use the restroom?).
So I made the 45 minute trek into work (each way - 1.5 hours round trip) in order to have a productive place to concentrate on The Code. While this is my own experience, I do realize that others can be productive in the middle of the Sahara or in a dimly lit basement. I'm just trying to provide some contrast to this panacea that everyone is painting with telecommuting.
It doesn't work for everyone.
More
so you can make $0 while you wait for other people to do there job so you can get your done.
One page version: http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=printArticleBasic&articleId=9112621
what it means for a manager to "work at home". Email and IM are simply much lower quality tools than face to face communication.
Well, maybe if they're working on a keynote speech for the trade show, that would make sense. But for the most part, it seems like a good excuse for people to do housework and work on their hobbies on the company dime, while occasionally glancing at their inbox and firing off a bunch of inconsequential emails ("hey Joe, can you look at this?")
Look at this: IP KVM.
With many of those products, you can not only remotely control the system (including see the power on self test, modify CMOS settings and even install an operating system) but they have a feature to cycle power as well.
We've been using them for several years now. Works great.
I'm a big tall mofo.
Heh. I actually just made a journal entry regarding this. I work for a gov't agency that does not have a clear telecommuting policy and we're about to actually find out how well it will work.
Unfortunately, a concrete schedule hasn't been decided on so it will be played by ear till we figure out if the arrangement is going to work or not. I'm pretty sure I'm the first worker that is actually going to telecommute the majority of the time.
I think the biggest problem with non-software companies is to determine what requires face-to-face time and what doesn't. I know I'm going to be pretty dejected if I show up to work and end up spending a week behind a monitor instead of meetings with Finance, etc.
You can tell if I'm getting work done by issues being resolved. No "If I'm doing it right, you'' see nothing at all." job here. I feel if they allow me to do this, I'm going to have prove them right in letting me work offsite.
Another question is why they simply don't replace me. Our two recent hires left much to be desired, so I'm guess the market here is pretty bad or they are looking for talent in the wrong places.
If it doesn't work, I'll at least say I gave it a shot. And no, I'm not saying which agency.
import system.cool.Sig;
and, on occassion, I still try to do it (telecommute). Unfortunately, my new manager does not see the advantages and it's less likely these days that I am allowed to. I can see my managers point, even though I might disagree. I am just as productive (if not more productive) at home as I am when at work. The "problem" my manager sees, though, is something along the lines of needing a clear separation between "work" time and "lesiure/relaxation" time. Having a physical distinction (i.e workplace/home) between these two activities he sees as a way to ensure that employees lives are balanced and the home does not become just another workplace. Personally I have no problem seperating work and home, but I can understand his point, and I can understand his dilemma (how would he "know" that I can make this distinction). It gets me angry sometimes that I can no longer telecommute, but I guess I should just be grateful that I have a manager who (apparently) looks out for the mental well-being of employees.
yeah.. I clicked on the link and got an empty page... weird..
Carpool is a simple Google Maps based app I wrote.
Your employer (or you) can create an account for your place of work. All the employees can then create an account and join the account created for the workplace. Just send your coworkers the username and public password for the place of business so they can join the group. The public password can't be used to log into the account. It's just to help maintain your privacy.
You can then see (or have the site tell you an approximation of) who would be best to carpool with.
Even though I live 50 miles out of town I always seem to find at least one coworker to carpool with which cuts my gas bill in half.
For the curious, I'd have to drive 1 million miles at $4 a gallon before I spend as much money in gas as I save on my mortgage.
Work Safe Porn
Another editor will get his head chopped off. Guys in /. have no mercy about editorial mistakes.
when telecommuting, you will find it VERY difficult to explain being late on any milestone. in office, you are there, people see you 'work', and therefore your excuses (valid or not) has greater acceptance. however when telecommuting, everyone is on the lookout to prevent slacking, and any excuse will have a greater rate of being taken as slacking.
simple as that. milestones, output. rock solid.
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the user that posted it was zackzero, http://yro.slashdot.org/~zackzero/ I saw it too. I also saw a story about the ISS being threatened by the Caucasus conflict, something to do with using Soyuz rockets, that had been commented on, which has now disappeared. I know we've had some dodgy stories this week on Slashdot (Duke Nukem Forever being my favourite), but deleting entries? Come on.
im working from home since 2 years. and its true that home becomes half a workplace after some time. its not a total work place, not a total relaxation place, but becomes something in between. you are never as stressful as at work, or relaxed as at home. you live in an optimal point in the limbo between them. half ready to work all the time, half ready to have fun all the time. weird.
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Yeah I saw it, too, but it wouldn't let me post.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
I'm also disappointed that the article called out two examples of companies that back-tracked on their telecommuting arrangements without discussing any of the success stories--and there are many. I realize this is shameless self-promotion, but last month I wrote an article for CIO.com about a small software company, Chorus, that closed all of its offices in an admittedly rather drastic cost-cutting move, and now everyone at Chorus--everyone--works from home. And you know what, the strategy is working out well for Chorus employees' productivity. The company made some mistakes in rolling out the telecommuting strategy, but overall they approached it sensibly, and it's working.
Let's learn from the success stories and not use the failures to promote an anti-telecommuting agenda.
I work from the east coast, for a company on the west coast. I can tell you it isn't as glamorous as people think. It is tough on the employer, and tough on the employee.
Employee:
Your work will encroach upon your personal time, and you will miss that commute time as a way to separate your personal life from your work life. If you work in the same space you play, you will have a hard time separating work stress from your home life. How do you handle design meetings? Code reviews? Staff meetings?
Employer:
Some companies just don't know how to handle telecommuters. How do you know someone is not happy with their job, or is having personal problems, if you can't see them on a daily basis? Another hint: Staff meetings over IM are not highly productive!
-- ...45 minutes later, the 15 minute staff meeting continues...
11:45 (Manager) Joe, what is your status on Project X?
*crickets*
11:50 (Joe) Sorry, I went out to get the mail.
--
Does the company pay for separate work and home licenses for software? Or do they give you a laptop? These are all expenses the company needs to consider.
Overall:
Both the employer and the employee need to spend more time communicating and collaborating, and more time on tools and licenses than when someone is working from the office. Beware.
Where did the Wii article suddenly go?
Cancel unproductive workers who telecommute instead. In all seriousness, it takes a special person to be able to actually keep on task at home. Hell, most of us are posting to slashdot from work. Just think about this--NSFW doesn't apply when you telecommute. I'd tell my boss straight up that I wouldn't be able to telecommute because I wouldn't get any work done.
you can set them and have them for any kind of work, software or not. any company/agency, government or private. they work.
actually they are the prime identifier of any output. therefore if you set those, facilitate the communication tools (contact IM contact, email, a solid web project manager software), you can get all kinds of stuff done.
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http://www.google.ca/search?q=Nintendo+Wii+Targeted+In+patent+Lawsuit&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a
This is the problem I would worry about. I know I've had to wait for others to do their job (due to their own procrastination, etc) so I could get something done that was due already. Heck, anyone who has done a team assignment in middle school has had that experience.
I have a simple solution to this: every moment I'm working on your project, including waiting on you (and subordinates) because you didn't do what you said you would, I charge you. I'll bill 3 people at once while I wait around. If we pre-arrange that I won't be working during a specific time (because you're busy or whatever) that's fine. But if I am supposed to be fixing your project and I can't because of you, you're still paying.
Of course, you have to be really really good at your job to be able to get terms like that. That's why pretty much no one would be willing to accept those terms. I know I wouldn't hire someone else with those terms unless I really trusted them. And I wouldn't trust them that much without working with them, which I wouldn't do without....
I'm with you. The "let's all bill based on actual work and not just 40 hours a week thing" is great in theory but unless you're the guy everyone else is always forced to wait on it won't work out.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
In fact, in my experience, the people that matter work wherever they are, and the people that don't matter are never going to put in an honest day.
A good work ethic does not differentiate based on environment.
What has a far more negative effect is being treated like shit in the workplace. I've seen so many devoted, committed, hard working employees let their work go south because they finally realised that there is no fucking point; they can spend all year making a difference for one stupid ill informed management decision to put them back way before where they started.
The saddest thing is it's these fucking managers who go home and 'telecommute', and sit around doing no work, who think that must therefore apply to the rest of us.
But the truth is that a bad manager can do fuck all wherever he is, and the worst thing about that is that sometimes that's better for the organisation than them getting their fingers into the pies and fucking everything up.
I'm the exact opposite. I work for a medical transcription company, managing a team of voice recognition editors/transcriptionists. I work at home, complete telecommute, and I get lots done. I put in a good day's work, I look for and call out problems, and keep tabs on the store basically.
I have the option of working out on the deck in my yard in summers. If I need to travel for vacation or whatever, I just take my laptop and other gear with me and still catch lines while I'm gone, if I'm really good and bored. Try it, you might like it. To me, work is Slack. Or kill me.
Praise "Bob"!
That if your job can be done via telecommuting, then your company can just as easily fire you and hire some guy in India or china to do the same thing.
4. How will telework affect collaboration?
IMHO, this is the most thoroughly neglected aspect of telecommuting. Collaborating with people over the phone is hard. You can't look over each other's shoulders as you work, and you can't share a white board. Productivity suffers, big time.
Thing is, there are some technical solutions to these problems. Handy little online meeting tools like WebEx abound. But too many places (including all the places I've every worked) just can't be bothered with them. I'm guessing they don't want the expense of the tools and of training people to use them. Which is darned short-sighted.
this year, Intel began requiring more than half the teleworkers in its IT group to report to the office at least four days a week.
If you're coming to the office four days a week, you're not really a teleworker, are you?
The problem is how do you quantify productivity. In some jobs it's easy, but for most creative work it probably isn't. Not to mention dealing with collaboration, and people who contribute most as morale boosters or brainstormers (for lack of a better term).
That's the beautiful thing about telecommuting. I've done it. Being free of constant supervision is disorienting at first, but wow, is it ever a relief. It is VERY tempting to watch TV, go hit golf balls, have a few beers with lunch, etc. Eventually, self-preservation kicks in and you realize that you have to get your ass in gear. You become more organized. You plan your day. You learn to push back on spouses/kids/whomever who think it's okay to interrupt your workday with housekeeping requests. IMHO, those capable of it will become more mature employees.
I prefer rogues to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest.
HP specifically rescinded telecommuting for IT employees who are required to work onsite at specific IT locations. Other HP employees are not bound by this as it is an IT rule for their people. Now those IT core sites are being consolidated and ITers are being required to move or they 'voluntarily resign' and do not receive severance benefits. Telecommuting is quite common for non-IT HP employees and in some cases is encouraged in order to free up cubicle space.
That is fine if you are a worker drone that produces X widgets per hour, or answers Y calls per hour. Having a job that does not lend itself well towards telecommuting is GOOD. It means you are valuable for something more than what can be written down in a procedure and shipped overseas. Personally, I don't want my work intruding on my personal space. Because sometimes work sucks, and when it does my home is where I go to get away from it and relax.
I Heart Sorting Networks
I have telecommuted for 9months. You have to visit intelligently. (Before they bitch). Call them often. Laugh often. Never argue. Avoid blaming emails. Don't plan on it lasting forever. When it ends, go back in and offer yourself as 1099 contractor. Tell your peers that you make less money than they do.
I currently do it one day a week, and work better for it, the change of pace, the ability to not have to travel for the one day all works really well. I have some of my best coding days when I work from home.
BUT
You really do need that real facetime with people, and the office environment with your colleagues to keep it all working.
I would say you need AT LEAST 2 days a week in office to make it work.
Unless what you're doing is a real 'package' of work that is self contained and can be done without any real collaboration until you've finished it.
Perhaps with a rise in telecommuting we can switch to getting paid for generating x amount of work done instead of x hours in the workplace.
And just how do you propose to measure the amount of work done? By number of emails sent? Lines of code written? Bugfixes patched? The problem is that there's just no accurate metric for this kind of thing.
kernel: lp0 on fire
the commute. now thats very detrimental to concentration and energy. a 30 minute in a traffic jam kills much energy. and in general any commute creates much wear and tear.
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Working from home is only productive, long-term, for persons of a certain personality type. I'm not going to flat-out say "and that type is usually described by a word beginning with "A", ending in "S", and with "SPERGER" in the middle, but for most OTHER people telecommuting just doesn't work as anything other than a short-term option.
I get so much more done working from home, with my fast PC and large monitor, than I do stuck in an office, hunched over a 2005-era laptop and being bothered by inane questions or stupid smalltalk all day long by co-workers.
I don't have to put up with the smell of other people's lunches, I don't have to put up with alpha-male managers sitting on my desk while they discuss their sportscar's superior performance with some idiot who sits behind me.
Humans were not meant to spent eight hours a day in the close proximity of other people. Telecommuting is the future.
-- Even if a god did exist, why the fsck should I worship it?
Ummm.. isn't this what managers are supposed to do anyway? In other words, if you have performance objectives in the office, shouldn't they be the same as in telecommuting? In other words, if a manger hasn't defined performance objectives in the first place he/she is a poor manager.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
With a mortgage you're stuck paying it until it's done.
With cars you can do things to cut costs. Like carpool. Get an electric car. Buy used. Find a different job. Ride a bus. Telecommute. Your mortgage isn't going to adapt.
In your calculation that good chunk of the way leaves about $67,000 worth of gas you've saved over the life of the mortgage at 24mpg.
The biggest savings is in the ability to pay the mortgage off in 15 years as opposed to 30. If I lived in town that extra money going into the mortgage every month would be part of the minimum payment for the full 30 years.
The amount I'd save in gas doesn't come close to covering the amount needed to pay off that more expensive mortgage in 15 years.
People are freaking out about gas not realizing it's a flexible bill and there are better ways to save money.
Work Safe Porn
so I can mow the lawn,walk the dog,read a book,go jogging,build lego creations with my nephews,take a walk in the park,make a sandwich,etc while I wait for other people to do their job so I can get my done. I'd rather it that way then waiting for someone else, while pretending to be busy in a cubicle. Either way I'll likely have to work after business hours if I am kept waiting too long, but if I am waiting in my home, then those delayed hours aren't detracting so much from my home life.
We are all just people.
I have a job which allows me to work from home a couple days a week, and add an extra day here and there as the need arises. My commute is an hour and a half each way on the days I do go in to the office. I've found that I'm often more productive at home, because it's a perk I not only don't want to lose, but that I want to expand.
The fact is that anything I can do from the office, I can do anywhere that there's internet access. There have been times when I had to do some after hours work, and I went to a local coffee shop with free wifi. At a previous job, the mail server crashed, the message stores needed to be rebuilt, and I finished the work while I was having lunch with the boss by using my smart phone.
Hell, if I can convince this job to let me work remotely all the time, I might just hook up a broadband wireless card and trade the house for an RV.
Web 2.0 == Giant Blogspam Circle Jerk
Mod -5 pain in the ass for having to click through 4 pages!
"My immediate reaction is "WTF? What kind of moron doesn't make things 64-bit safe to begin with?" Linus
Companies with downtown offices need to consider satellite office space near suburbs. This would minimize commute time/money/carbon while keeping productivity in check.
Finally, someone is willing to tell the truth about those deadbeat American IT workers!
As we all know, Americans don't want to work.
Yes! All they want to do is stay home and take care of their annoying little brats or work on stupid crap, like having a life.
Well, this country wasn't built on that bunch of shit!
So, Computerword, with their history of protecting corporate and management self-serving interests (and that's a good thing), is on the ball with this fine article.
A brief synopsis:
Fuck you, you lazy motherfucking American IT worker-motherfuckers!
Management wants face time bitch. Don't make me slap you!
You work from home? You're a deadbeat. You're fired. Fuck you!
I am a manager. I get paid to show other managers that I got bitches working for me.
I don't give a fuck what you do at home. That's "home". That's not work.
I need you bitches to be here so when the Indian outsourcing mofo's show up, you can tell them what the deal is.
I am not paying you to have a life, bitch... Fuck you! ...
Also, other recent Computerworld articles you might be interested in:
How to suck your manager's dick.
How to make your manager feel good about firing you.
How to help the outsourcing company get rid of you faster!
Words of wisdom that don't mean dick: "deliverables", "resource", "timeline", "paradigm shift", "bring it to the next level", Use them!!!
How to get ahead by sucking dick and fucking people over.
How to fuck your workers and have them apologize for it.
Back stabbing for dummies
All that and much more.
So, let it be known that satan666, of Slashdot, has overwhelmingly endorsed this fine Computerworld article!
Fuck you and goodnight!
I'm very pro-telecommuting, but I can understand why it fails for so many people.
Reasons it works for me:
- I'm a developer, and almost all the jobs we see are one-man gigs - it's not a team development kind of company.
- I communicate via email and phone, and rarely attend meetings. I just take the specs and produce the app. Client interaction is very limited, mostly handled by our dedicated sales and support guy (our human shield!)
- I'm self-motivated. If I'm working 9-5, then I'll work 9-5 from home too, and the wife can pretty much pretend I don't exist during those hours.
- I live with the wife, but we have no kids
- I have a ridiculously overpowered workstation, and I know how to use it
- I can focus better with some background music, and the headphone thing just doesn't cut it, compared to my nice speakers
- I actually find the office distracting, since we're all quite rowdy and jocular (think Animal House)
- If a box barfs or panics, I can always hop in a cab and fix it - IF it happens! If it's mission-critical, the appropriate KVM-IP and/or remote-reboot gadgets be acquired.
Turn all of those things around, and you'll get all the reasons why some people can't telecommute. The noise, the distractions, the plentiful opportunities for laziness - some households just aren't suitable for work.
Me, I work all the time. I have private contracts, I build web sites, I produce music - my home is my office. Another little bit that helps is my job is a 10 minute bike or bus ride away, so I don't care about travel time. I telecommute because I like it, and I wish I could do it more because I think I could accomplish more work per week. I'm comfortable at home, no need to buy lunches (not a pack-lunch kinda guy), and since I'm so used to working here, my brain subliminally shifts into high gear - at the office I'm always kinda half-dazed, the environment just doesn't suit me.
One day a week will accomplish nothing. It takes a while to get into the telework mindset, it's a psychosomatic thing - working from home is like trying to change your sleep schedule: the first few days will be chaotic, but over time you get the hang of it and you're back to sleeping/working like you always did.
I could write a book on the topic, but really most of it is just common sense. Make a list of your reasons why you want to telecommute, then make a list of goals or success indicators. If you hesitate while writing either list, then telecommuting is not for you.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
I don't think it your scenario would lead to a rise in efficiency, unless you mean how efficiently the company handles it's money. It would not have to pay as much, as people would be getting paid by how much work they do, rather than getting paid for a 40 hour work week.
"I love deadlines. I love the whooshing sound they make as they fly by." -D. Adams
It seems to me like it depends on the job and it depends on the worker. Not all jobs can be measured well by "generating X amount of work". Sometimes the issue really is having someone standing by, available for when you need them.
And then, also, some of those people who spend half the day playing solitaire would spend 90% of their day playing solitaire if their boss didn't walk by now and then. Ignoring the problem of jobs where efficacy is hard to measure, you still need someone to come up with measurements, and then to spend time analyzing the metrics you collect.
To put it another way, let's assume for the sake of argument that every job can be measured well by objective statistical measurements, and also that those measurements can be taken remotely from a telecommuter. You still need a system for collecting and verifying those measurements. Then, on top of that, you need managers who can understand that data, identify problems, and rectify those problems remotely.
That sounds pretty simple if you're imagining a job where you can just mark someone as an "underachiever" and fire them if they don't shape up, but management is often a bit more complicated. Everyone has strengths and weaknesses, and part of a manager's job is knowing the strengths and weaknesses of the members of his team. It's often not realistic to fire/replace someone when you see a weakness, because you'll just replace them with a different worker who has different weaknesses. Instead, you either have to position them so that their weakness isn't detrimental, or else try to help them grow and overcome that weakness. That would be pretty hard to do remotely.
So what I'm saying is, even in the best case scenario, it could make things very difficult to manage. The result is that you might be putting a lot of faith in the ability of the managers. Is that something you want to do?
Geez - I've been telecommuting first part-time for NASA; 3 days at home 2 in the office and now full-time for the past two years as a contractor. The best situation is a mix but it only works if the person doing the "work" and I do mean work and not just butt time in a chair is ethical enough and has enough self-discipline to make it work. Another key aspect is that your work has to be productivity driven and recordable, not just billing hours for sitting at your home desk doing nothing. That's the biggest change in management style b/c most companies are set up to only track hours and not actual productivity.
The best projects have been those that kicked off with face-to-face meetings where all the parties had buy into the project goals. Then everyone could go off and be productive and use regular groupware and other technology (email, irc/chat, filesharing) tools to get that work done. And this was done with the teams being globally distributed (US, Australia, UK, the Netherlands).
It can and does work, the biggest obstacle is a management structure that can't see past having their minions in little cubes looking productive rather than being productive.
I telecommute one day a week, and, when it comes to getting my jobs done (as opposed to responding to interruptions that I admit also sometimes need to be taken care of) I typically get more done at home than at the office. Today, though I got off to a slow start, I put in a good 8 hours, not needing to stop during for lunch, able to spend a couple of breaks outside in the good weather with our dogs and my son, and finishing some calculations that I haven't had a chance to start for the last two weeks. It also seems to help make the rest of the week in the office much more productive, as it breaks up the drag of what can sometimes otherwise become a monotonous daily routine.
Exactly, and I'm up front with it. Last productivity meeting with the new bosses I sat there and said... I work 2 hours a day, the other 6 I screw off. They know what I do, I laid out a nice huge list at their feet and also mentioned that they would have to hire 2 people at my rate to replace me. I'm arrogant about time because micromanagers are worthless (I said that as well) and when I am needed I work with a vengeance. If you give me useless busywork, I'll do it crappy or not at all.
I did this the last 5 times I had a productivity meeting with new owners and always end up promoted. Just be up front with them and hold no punches, managers worth working for understand it.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Something that is being discussed at a major VFX house I work at occasionally, is satellite offices.
These are secondary offices, often single rooms, stuffed with hardware and a big pipe to the central office, located towards one corner of the city, where a significant slice of their staff reside. Their commute is much shorter, and the pipe means they effectively have full access to the main servers and content.
This studio already has a satellite office overseas, so they already have the experience to do local satellites, which have the added benefit of occasional direct face-to-face as needed.
I'm not a programmer, I'm a translator, so my work is automatically telecommuting.
The price you pay for your work hours not detracting from your home hours is your home hours not detracting from your work hours. The clock doesn't get to watch you, but you don't get to watch the clock, either. When those people finally get you that work you've been waiting for, suddenly the pressure's on you, and no one's interested if it's already nine at night (and you've already had a coupla beers).
What if I do the same thing, and I do get different results?
I think there are definitely working environments were telecommuting makes sense.
09F91102 no, 455FE104 nope, F190A1E8 uh-uh, 7A5F8A09 that's not it, C87294CE no. Ah! 452F6E403CDF10714E41DFAA257D313F.
I can't year you please yell louder and use moer curse words!!!!!! SNAKERS!!!!
As I recall, HP ended telecommuting as a cost cutting measure, i.e., requiring a bunch of people who don't live near HP offices to suddenly start coming in was the functional equivalent of firing them, minus all that messy paperwork. Which kinda contradicts the slant of the summary re: telecommuting's track record. Of course, the article's link about telecommuting at HP goes into detail about how wasn't a telecommuting problem, but HP's massive reorganization (Carly ran HP into the ground?).
In any case, telecommuters should be aware of how vulnerable they are. The day your manager gets sick of you, you'll be on notice to start showing up in the office, even tho you live 600 miles away. I've never seen a telecommuting agreement that didn't have the provision to end with a few days notice on either party's part.
I work from home 3 days a week. Go into the office 2 days a week. Because I'm programmer it's pretty easy to tell if I get my work done. I got this arrangement because they decided to move my office somewhere the bus doesn't go.
I also develop software and hardware that helps IT staffs work remotely. There are ways to hit the power button remotely you know. Wiring on the other hand is more difficult.
You must be a manager.
Telecommuting should be easy to do, arrange, and should be a top-notch way to get high-quality work out of employees. I attribute the most basic problem with telecommuting failures to be a lack of a manager's ability to accurately identify what a good metric is, with respect to measuring production. As a corollary to that, most managers (in my experience) are concomitantly unable to recognize good from bad performers, since the metrics that are used fail to correlate with productive work. If you can find a management chain that has a solid understanding of the workflow, the requirements of the product or service being offered, and can accurately set milestones along the path to whatever the work goal is, you should be able to do nearly all IT work remotely, all the time.
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former. (Einstein)
Um... fuck all is certainly not a new term. I've heard it used since before I was in high school, ~20 years ago.
And where do you work that has retarded language filters on?
*elevator music plays*
It just so happens that tomorrow will be my first day back in the office after about a month and a half of telecommuting. For me, it's been a pretty bad experience. I don't like driving in Atlanta traffic every day to get to work, but for someone like me it's better than the alternative.
Measuring work metrics has never been an issue; in my industry, and especially at my company, customers are very, very quick to complain about the slightest problem. So if that server doesn't get fixed or if that database is acting up, they'll call in, the support queue will back up, the emails will pour in, and it will quickly reach my boss's attention. Combined with our ticketing system and small-office, close-knit atmosphere (e.g., communication), I've never been concerned about anyone thinking I'm not doing my job.
No, the problem is actually finding any motivation to do work. It's far too easy to roll out of bed at the last possible minute, stumble into the computer room, and sit there in your pajamas feeling like Hell because you haven't showered or dressed. You've got a host of video game at your fingertips. There's a case of beer in the fridge calling your name. Your cats are cute and want attention, or they're knocking things over to ruin your concentration. The jerk in the apartment upstairs is riding his pogo stick again. In short, there are a million little distractions at home, which aren't at the office, which will prevent you from really focusing on anything productive.
Beyond that, I don't like work. It's not my job, or the people, or the company -- those are all fine. I'm just one of those people for whom work is a necessary evil. I therefore require a distinction between work life and free time, and the blurring of the two is extremely uncomfortable. Particularly when a user gets obnoxious enough to the point where they get sent to me -- now I have to talk to them on the phone, and it's like they're invading my home! My home, where I live. Where I come to play with my toys.
Furthermore, the tools available to a home worker are, at least in my experience, never as good as what's available at the office. If I need information now I don't have to wait for a coworker to maybe respond to an IM when he gets around to it -- I can walk down the hall and ask. I have direct access to our servers and such, without the need for ssh over VPN which is about as snappy as the days of dialup BBS. When someone wants my help they generally come ask for it, and if they see I'm with someone else they wait, as opposed to my having to manage six ongoing IM sessions with various people at once. I don't need to wait for endless back-and-forth emails from the salespeople to try to get a straight answer -- I can just waltz down there and yell at them myself. Plus, just going to the office means I've already showered, dressed, and had some time (the commute) to wake up and become human. At a proper desk in a proper office environment I feel like I'm at work and I can focus enough to get into the groove of whatever I'm doing.
And finally, there's a social aspect of work. Working from home means spending the vast majority of your days completely isolated. It only takes a few days of your friends being busy so you can't go out at night, and suddenly you realise you've spent the past week without any human interaction whatsoever except the cashier at the grocery store. That wears thin very, very quickly.
I expect I'll get more done tomorrow at the office than I have for the past week at home, or at least, it'll feel that way. That having been said, I'm not looking forward to waking up an hour earlier.
mirrorshades radio -- darkwave, industrial, futurepop, ebm.
Surprised to see posts questioning the effectiveness of telecommuting in a presumably Open Source oriented crowd...
Of course a lot of people don't do well at it - it takes initiative and discipline, and it helps if you like what you do. At least for developers though, if you can't sit at home and design and implement good software due to a lack of motivation or the presence of distractions - you already know that, right?
I wouldn't go back to a cube farm if they bought me a car and gave me a $20k raise.
I worked at home 3 days a week for about a year. I didn't have a problem getting down to work and the type of work I did--working on the internal web site--either it got done or not so it would be easy enough to determine if someone was goofing off. On the plus side, it saved me a 60-mile round trip commute on those days. I was also able to organize my in-office duties of helping people and meetings so I didn't get constantly interrupted. I was the only technical person in our group so there was no one I was leaving behind to get jealous because my duties were so different from everyone else. My job was ideal for telecommuting. However, I wonder if telecommuting help lead to my eventual layoff. We changed managers...the main problem became, I think, that he thought I was a shared resource. IOW that the monies that paid my salary were shared by the other regional managers who used me to keep their web pages up. Then he found out I came out of his budget. Even though I did work for several regions/sections in my group, this manager's idea of a web page was just uploading documents and putting up a link. It wasn't promoted or to be used to help people--more like a file storage. There was no one else to take over my work, but this manager just didn't care that it got done or left other regions in the lurch. So if you telecommute, beware this: Be sure you 'toot your own horn' and make sure upper management knows all the important work you're doing and your contributions. Otherwise it can be "out of site, out of mind" and when cutbacks come up, if they don't value your work and they don't see you, they might just feel cutting you won't hurt the workload.
If you've never been modded as "flamebait" or "troll," you've never tried to argue a minority viewpoint here!
Confucius say "Man who work in house live at work."
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
Frankly, that sounds like a bit of poking is required when you're in the office, too.
As long as it's clear what and when is expected I seriously don't see why and how would a good worker be distracted regardless of the location. It's just a (very) basic sense of responsibility and a due respect to your employer, co-workers and your own self.
Confucius say "Manager usually ends telecommuting when he discovers that the house cat is unmotivated by money."
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
A few years ago the bulk of our servers were moved to a bigger centre in another city. So even when I go into the office I'm remotely doing the work. We moved to a VOIP system at work, so when I'm working from home my office line is forwarded to my home business line. We have offices across the country so most meetings are held via conference calls and/or netmeeting. So there's zero difference between me working from the office and me working from home, except to get some face time with co-workers and the boss (all of them also telecommute, so sometimes I'm actually alone in the office when I do go in!).
I also find that I'm more productive at home than in the office. I don't have people dropping by my desk every 5-10 minutes to chat. I don't have to go out for smoke breaks, and my lunch break consists of taking 3 minutes to heat something up in the microwave. Working from home also allows me to work when I'm feeling under the weather.
I'm also more productive on the home front. While stuck on conference calls that I don't chair or don't require me to be in front of my laptop, I can do things like do the dishes, do some laundry, etc... all while participating on the calls. Not spending 2-3 hours a day commuting also benefits my family life, as I get to spend more quality time with my wife.
Luckily my job and my boss permit me to work from home 3-4 days a week, and I have the fortitude to actually work and not slack off. Heck, I couldn't slack off even if I wanted to. If I did, users would scream when a system/app is down, project managers would scream if I didn't do my part of the work, etc.... For my line of work, telecommuting is a win-win situation.
It's better to burn out than to fade away
Confucius say "Telecommuting agreeable with employees. Daytime television not so much."
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
Hallelujah. The only jobs I've had that were really metric driven were graveyard-shift-convenience-store-clerk and calc-tutor (how many hours did you work - thankfully nobody has ever counted my lines of code or my correct forecasts per data). Since then, it's been tasks & deliverables, but very hard to metric. But, back when I did technical work (I've been drafted (kicking and screaming) into PM and am looking for other employment), work came home all the time. That was acceptable - Staying up late because I had some uncrackable correlation or an unsolvable hurdle was my obsession, not really the company's fault. Now that I'm in PM, I'm allowed to telecommute but hate it. It's all stress and extra work and I don't want to impose it on my family, but am expected to... It hurts me and them. If I was a bachelor or didn't care about my job, I might feel differently...
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
About your managers... their names weren't Bob and Bob were they?
The HP/Intel no-teleworking thing is just a way to fire employees. Employees are instructed to move to some new city or they're "forced to quit." It's effective.
-guitfit
I could write a whole article on this subject, but I will try to keep my comments brief.
I work in the software industry and for 22 years it was all "work from the office". For the last 5 years I've been working from home with a virtual team, spread around the globe, of people also working from home. We rarely physically see each other, but we communicate often.
As people have already posted, telecommuting is not a panacea and is not for everyone. Just like any other endeavor, in order to do it right, you need to think about what you're doing, why you're doing it and try to build a working environment that is as productive as possible for everyone.
Here are some thoughts about whether telecommuting might work for you:
1) Where do you get your motivation/focus/inspiration? If you get your energy from being around and working with other people, then working remotely is probably not the best option for you.
2) Can you be productive and still have a personal life when working solo? If you have trouble being self-focused, motivated and managed, then telecommuting may be a problem. Some people really do need separation from work and having work and home in the same space means that you never start or stop working. That would be bad.
3) How does the company/organization compensate for the fact that it's workers are remote? The three biggest issues with telecommuting are communication, communication and communication. Do you have the proper hardware, software and telecomm setup to make you productive and comfortable remotely? How are inter-group meetings and status managed, and does it work? How is the manager-employee relationship handled, especially around priorities, expectations and evaluations (regular communication or "annual surprise!")? There are significant repercussions to telecommuting -- make sure that you have thought them through before diving in.
4) Are the company processes and procedures oriented to facilitate telecommuting or not? Telecommuting sounds great, but if "all of the real action" only happens in the office (think forms, training, approvals, meetings, planning, etc.), then working remote can really be counter-productive.
I don't buy the "you won't be productive if no one is watching" nor the "you'll be super productive if you can just stop commuting". They are both myths. Productivity is a combination of personal motivation/self-management, the working environment, and the commitment/thoughtfullness/focus of the company/management to enable productivity in their employees. If those three things work, then telecommuting can be great. If those three things are not working, then it doesn't matter where you work -- you are not going to be very productive.
So, like any situation, you have to look at the pros and cons. Maybe telecommuting works for you, but not for your company/organization. Maybe it works, but not 100% of the time.
I do think that companies that are not thinking about telecommuting are really missing an opportunity. It can enhance people's lives, improve employee retention, reduce corporate costs and improve productivity. But telecommuting can also be a nightmare if not well thought through and openly discussed.
I've participated in and managed remote teams for several years now. I'm happy to answer people's questions or provide suggestions if you want to contact me directly.
Easy.
...
1. Get a computer
2. Work from home
3. Mow the lawn, walk the dog, read a book, go jogging, build lego creations with your nephews, take a walk in the park, make a sandwich, etc
?? Productivity!
Sig? SIG? We don't need no stinkin' sig!!!
On the other counts mentioned here, like productivity, I spend an average of 3 hours per day in teleconferences and on WebEx. We're a multinational with offices in just about every time zone (Scheduling teleconferences to accomdate those in the US, Europe and New Zealand is fun...)
I strongly agree with other posters, you have to be the type of person who's going to get work done no matter what. I personally don't have any problem mentally task switching from work to home and back.
We're well set up to handle telecommuters, and even those who are in the office 'full time' often work from home a day or 2 per week. All that matters is that people know how to get in contact with you. We use phone, IM, email, WebEx, and even the occasional face-to-face meeting. I'm 1400 miles to my nearest physical office.
One guy I work with is 'in the office' but stays online whether home, during the 40m train commute using his cell phone, or in the office; his IM status always shows where he is.
/F
Stupidity... has a habit of getting its way.
And for some of us, work is where we go to get away from home. :-)
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
>It is VERY tempting to watch TV, go hit golf balls, have a few beers with lunch, etc
Interestingly, I can do all those things without leaving my office building, or in the case of the golf balls, without leaving a 250 meter radius of it.
I've even been known to bring my dog to work and take walks with him during the day.
Of course, my job pays about 1/3 of my going rate, and about 1/4 of what I made at my last telecommuting gig. But oh well.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
So you work at Initech, then?
Don't trust a bull's horn, a doberman's tooth, a runaway horse or me.
I don't know, but I bet he's best buds with Michael Bolton.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
Fact: demand for Oil has continued to go up
Fact: the USA invaded Iraq for oil
Fact: Russia was happy to beat the crap out of the stupid Georgians so they could control the pipleline.
Fact: as oil depletes, gas will go up and down in price, but will trend upwards. Forever.
We don't have much choice. We need to insist on telecommuting and we need to make our computers and devices out of something other than oil and exotic materials.
Otherwise, game over.
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
Sure bob, let me tell you something about TPS reports.
Perhaps with a rise in telecommuting we can switch to getting paid for generating x amount of work done instead of x hours in the workplace. It would lead to huge efficiency improvements, and it seems the only practical way to quantify "a days work" telecommuting.
It's called being salaried and working for a company not in perpetual seppuku mode. I get paid to get work done and do it well. If I get work done well or if I manage to get more work done then I get a bonus or my salary goes up next time. I can of course also relax, go home early, work on something else, read up on something semi-work related and so on.
Like other have said in any decent position it's very difficult to quantify the amount of work in any sane way (doing so on a quarterly or yearly overall basis is a lot easier).
That's not telecommuting. That's a 4 day work week.
I have all sorts of weird hours working for a global company. So working in the office at 7am and 8pm on the same day is a no-op
Moreover, most of my coworkers are all over the world. Should we all get on a plane every Sunday and 40 of us meet just so we can be miserable hanging out together for the work week?
I've tried a form of telecommuting recently, by taking on freelance work from my home office. I've done this in the past for minor projects, and building basic html templates while drunk worked out fine. When it came time to build complicated flash components and render 3d in my home "office" for X client, I found it to be extremely difficult to get anything done.
If I were to attempt a serious telecommuting effort again in the future, I would absolutely make sure I have a seriously distraction-free environment first.
I can't speak for anyone else, but there's something less than satisfying about "dropping a load" into my own toilet while billing $90/hr.
Doing on the customer premise at the same rate ... much better, even with a 45 min commute each way.
Don't get me wrong, I nearly went insane when I couldn't telecommute at least a few days each week, but there's something good about saying goodbye to Mom and heading into the office a few days each week. My basement is much cooler than the office, since it has a couch, tv, beer cooler, networking equipment, servers, and a very comfy chair.
I'd say it's up to the person. I'm permanently on the "can telecommute" list, meaning whenever I want/need to, I can telecommute. I don't need any special circumstances; we use IM exclusively as it is (nobody ignores IMs, it just doesn't happen), I have to FTP my changes or commit to SVN via HTTP anyway, and people know that if they want me to answer a question IM is the best anyway so I can manage multiple conversations. Not only that, but the ability to configure my home computer, which is more powerful than my work computer anyway, makes me more efficient. I have my home PC setup up just how I like it, with everything designed for me to be able to do whatever I'm doing fast. This applies in work. Also, at work, I don't have the kind of supplies I have here. I quite enjoy 4 monitors, with multiple workspaces. I just can't get them to get me 4 monitors at work (2, _maybe_ 3 in time). I have a good work ethic, and at my home there's not much else to do but my computer anyway, so it's not a matter of distraction. I actually take a shorter lunch, sometimes just working as I eat. Food is less expensive than eating out, gas is nothing. I can sit in my pajamas all day and sit in my really comfortable chair. My apartment is the temperature I choose, not what everybody else wants. Overall, all these factors make me more comfortable in my home than at work. I also have the kind of worth ethic that allows me to easily focus on work when need be. For this reason, those days that I telecommute (usually when I'm feeling sick, or just overly tired) I feel that I am either as productive, or moreso, than any other day.
:(){
How will you define and measure performance? At the end of each week, I will grade by performance from 0 to 100 and email the grade to my boss.
Will creativity suffer? I have access to many electronic devices in my home which inspire creative thought. If that fails, I know where to obtain a "supply" of creativity enhancing substances that aren't even in the office's supply cabinet. Creativity is going to soar, man!
What about employees stuck in the office? They have my sincere laughter.
The Lumbergs have definitely taken over for these Computerworld Management stories to have replaced the Alan Cox sleep deprivation studies. No, telecommuting is dead. That's why they made India. Better start saving up for that Silicon Valley nano studio apartment.
I'm the exact opposite.
When I am at home, co-workers can't waddle by my desk and start talking about the weather, or a football game, or what they're going to do that weekend, or some other thing that is wasting my time. And let's not get started with the pointless meetings.
I grew up with a good work ethic; I suppose that I'm lucky. I work from home three days a week. Those are the three days that I actually get things done. I can start working, get into a groove, and pump out large amounts of good code, or get testing done, or debug problems.
The two days in the office are a complete waste for me.
Love sees no species.
"You see, what you say is funny, but it's really the employers biggest reason for not investing. They're scared that you'd sit at home and do fuck all."
So let them do nothing, and then fire them when they don't produce and/or miss deadlines. If you're a good manager, you can tell a lot about an employee when nobody is potentially around to look over their shoulder every once and a while. Then again, the ones that are scared of telecommuting are probably not good managers.
Most people that I know in I.T do the work because they get enjoyment out of I.T type work, that's why I do it. I telecommute as much as I can and I think I'm more productive being away from the drone of a colleague telling me stories about his car, his lawn, his daughters at a private school over and over while I'm trying to focus on work.
Teleconferencing gives me the opportunity to decide the amount of focus to a meeting as it deserves. Enough so I am participating, but not so meetings monopolises my time and stops me from achieving what I am meant to do.
As for the perception of "not available" ummm Instant messaging anybody??? Can't call everyone for a meeting ummm isn;t that what a shared calendar is all about or -perish the thought, email - Hi everybody - just a quick message everyone be in the office 2pm Wednesday for a face to face, we're having a lunch for anyone who want to get there before 1pm - thanks - not really very hard is it.
This article reeks of mental laziness that is refusing to evolve with the times. If the Information Technology Industry can't deal with the soft issues of evolving effective telecommuting techniques that produce a less energy (and carbon) intensive business infrastructure for the rest of industry to follow - how the fuck are we supposed to deal with the hard issues of climate change?
Telecommuting and large telecommuting centres that organisations can share, are the future and if we have management that aren't capable of producing the type of management and social changes within business that support the technology innovations that society demands, then they aren't leaders are they and they should get out of industry that is responsible for innovation.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
I work in pre-sales consulting. I used to go into the office, which wasted at least two hours in the car each day. Sitting in one chair for 8 hours really saps your energy and will to live, and obviously this doesn't help productivity. How pointless! Working at home for the last few years, I've been happier, healthier, and I get more done in less time... that's not just my opinion, I've received 8-10% raises for four years straight, and I'm looking for another one this year. Most interestingly, many weeks I do not work 40 hours. I'm not lazy, but I'm paid based on results. As far as I'm concerned, how much time I sit at my computer is my business. Who decided 40 hours was the perfect number for every job and every employee? Without having to waste time commuting, or sitting in BS meetings, or worrying about a manager looking over my shoulder, I'm motivated to work more effectively. I know doing so means personal time I can actually use, rather than extra time to start a pointless task just to look busy and impress the boss. Long live telecommuting!
It is upto the manager and the employee in question to manage the schedule. The employee says that a particular assignment will take two weeks to complete, knowing fully well that it can be done in two days. So the employee gets it done in two days but does not tell the manager that the job is done. The employee utilizes the rest of the time devoted for the assignment to surf the web. A case of getting the job done and treating the workplace like a beach.
Everybody pads their dates, because no one wants to be under pressure.
I believe he was ranting. Try it sometime, it releases fuckloads of stress.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
http://www.thewebsiteisdown.com/
Unfortunately, while funny, this won't improve my karma.
that was 2 years ago, and they still haven't been able to replace me, due in part to the fact the system is python driven and it's a .net world.
so that's the thing i took away from the experience - if your a telecommuter expect to have no one appreciate the work you put in.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
At least when I have to be in the office, I'm sober while I surf the web and play my DS (solitare is borrring)
I work from home, and I can tell you that I actually work more hours now then I used to when I drove in.
I gain 2 hours by not driving, and usually end up working at least one of those hours.
The worst thing about working from home, is when other people are in the house, making normal house noise. You want to tell them to shut up, but they have a right to be here as well.
The best thing is the commute. I'm also lucky that my boss is very flexible with time, and I can set my own hours. As long as I get things done he's happy. (I think I'm more of a boss to myself then he is, but it's better that way.)
Personally, I think the freedom to telecommute as needed is indeed a major productivity boom - the person telecommuting (and only that person) can and should balance whichever way is more productive for the task at hand.
But I'm skeptical of absolute claims of greater efficiency - or of attempts to prescribe X days per week, or to use it as a way to save office space, for that matter.
Efficiency depends a lot on too many factors that are context-dependent: the exact work that you're doing, the work environment, technical reasons, etc.
Sometimes you're lucky and you have a good chunk of uninterrupted, isolated work to finish - and indeed you can be much more productive. But other times, there is a bunch of communication that needs to happen to enable the real work, and human presence just makes a thousand things easier (and faster). Remote communication also can limit your awareness of other people's work, which will affect you one way or the other. And sometimes you just need to access resources which are a hassle to get to through a VPN.
So far I prefer to telecommute about 1.5 days a week on average for the same reasons: I could get a lot of stuff done uninterrupted, and it balances out well enough.
I do understand the parent post's issue, though - I get as easily distracted as anyone at home. But just separating a 'working environment' tends to do wonders for that.
Humans are creatures of habit, so we tend to associate environments with their most common activities and mind-frames.
I've found just getting out of the house and working from a cafe or anywhere with net access does wonders for focus, because my home is most linked by habit to free time. For some people it is just the opposite.
Freedom is the freedom to say 2+2=4, everything else follows...
Are you Peter Gibbons and didn't you used to work for Initech?
employers should PAY FOR WORK DONE NOT FOR HOURS WORKED then telecommuting is gonna work
As the outsourcing started, the pay I could get for a well focused hour in my fully appointed lab fell totally. I had invested most of my income back into my lab, and the reason I could get some of these contracts was because I had a heterogeneous network with one or two each of about every kind of client and server. I had Unix servers, NetWare servers, lots of client boxes, all the compilers, three rooms full of $50 books. If I could save and hour by buying a book I did so. But my managers didn't see what was going on. They just saw I was writing good software. I wasn't there for the higher managers to see slaving away while they were on their way out of the office for whatever. When you are telecommuting, your job is already on the way out. If they don't need to watch you, what you are doing isn't that important and they won't be wanting it much longer. If I had a job these days, I absolutely wouldn't want to telecommute. I would want every possible opportunity to kiss ass and participate in office politics. Otherwise someone who does will get your job. It is inevitable. That is how things work. When you aren't there, you cannot defend yourself against behind your back accusations.
Think three times before agreeing to telecommute if you care about your job. Not being employed is much worse than having to pay for the gas.
Makes me think of this Dilbert :
http://pichaus.com/dilbert-comic-funny-liar-@4d60d26a4fe80d7db6205e23446ce15d/
Max.
Oh, simplify that. Anytime a manager is late or misses a meeting, take the cost of employee salaries at that meeting directly out of the manager's salary. And charge double if the manager reschedules at the last minute, and triple if they switch what the meeting is about. (It's been an issue at work lately.)
If they actually do show up, charge make them pay for the coffee and donuts, out of their own pocket, not the company funds.
... if you can do you job entirely on a 'puter, you're either totally unnecessary to the real success of the business, or you're a prime candidate for downsizing/outsourcing.
I know several marketing and sales (snigger) people who think they're the business because they can do all their *work* from home. Sure they're laughing all the way to the bank when times are good, but they'll be snivelling the loudest when their job is cut first.
I can't see what the hot teen bitches problem with this post is?
Click here to download nude cheerleaders now!
3laws: No freebies, no backsies, GTFO.
Its not a pogo stick I'm riding.
By the way, your mum says no drinking beer before midday.
3laws: No freebies, no backsies, GTFO.
I am just the opposite. I work from home about half the time and travel the other half. I get far more work done when at home than when at the remote (for me) office. Too many interruptions and distractions.
It takes a certain mindset and some discipline to telecommute, but for those of us who can do so it's a godsend.
And don't forget about the workers who read and post on slashdot all day ;P
The thing is, telecommuting is going to be a part of an energy-rational future. We just have to figure out mechanisms to make it so people can be productive. Some sort of 3-D immersive environment maybe?
Catch telemarketers
Every day when biking to university I see cars and cars with one person each. Somehow I feel that carpooling might just solve... a damn lot. Of course it has its limits, but I can't believe that it's applied half as much as reasonably possible.
"Bi-la Kaifa"
I work for the government as a summer internship. If I can't do my job, why I am here? I'm just wasting my time. I'd rather be home resting.
I have been telecommuting for US companies from southeast Asia for 5 years now. I do MUCH better work from home. The simple reason? I am happier working on my own terms! I can work in my underwear, stoned, listening to my own music, with my dogs and friends around. And I enjoy it! I am very good at what I do and my clients love me.
One thing I will say is that you do need a good Project Manager on the client side to communicate goals, scope, schedule etc. A lot of clients expect you to read their minds, and that is not possible.
I don't get paid by the hour, but I do get evaluated on my actual output as opposed to how many hours a day I keep my office chair warm.
As it is my only real problem with working from home is that I don't feel productive, even though I only spend an hour or two a day working anyway. I'm allowed to telecommute, but I generally avoid it unless I have reason to do so. I feel guilty if I'm goofing off at home, but I'll quite happily goof off at work. As long as my bosses don't care, neither do I.
I once read that on average an in-office worker actually does about 4 hours of work in an 8 hour day due to chatting, bathroom breaks, unrelated tasks, paying bills, etc., so that perhaps factors in. I've been telecommuting for about eight years now. In any work location, it's the manager's job to assess performance, and it's not clear to me that this is any easier or harder for telecommuters. As has been stated, someone in an office typing away isn't necessarily working. Twenty five years ago I remember an early MS-DOS game having a "work key", which when hit in a panic would display a canned bar graph so that passers-by would ostensibly think the player was working. I find that IMing neatly duplicates the drop-by chat experience, and setting one's status to Away is like closing one's office door (for those whose employers are smart enough to eschew cubicles). I find it easier to concentrate at home. Our new place has a damnable amount of noise from outside, but mostly it isn't in the form of voices so it's easier to tune out. In an office setting I frequently found myself automatically attending to what others were saying around me, and being visually distracted by people walking by. On the other hand, at home the refrigerator is all too handy, and one reason I don't have sat/cable TV service is that it'd be too tempting to take a break and watch for a couple of hours.
Hmm I had someone like you at my last rehire, and he's still drawing unemployment. Pick your fights wisely is my motto.
Not for you. Got it. Darwin anticipated you. Resistance is futile.
Well, telecommuting should not equal working from (just any) home! It should mean "working from office space near to home".
Self-employed professionals who do their work in their residences do have studies, private offices, garage shops, etc ... in their homes. They also have work hours which their family must learn to respect.
For regular people who are employed in corporations and have no workspace at their residences, local commercial centers, aka shopping malls, which are usually built on strategically chosen spots that are proximate to a number of suburbs, should have buildings with offices (or cubicles, for cheaper companies) for hourly rent, equipped with necessary telco connections and computer equipment (perhaps with swappable HDDs, so that each worker can bring in own one and take it with, after hours).
Of course, computer cases should be transparent, and all connectors exposed so that it can be inspected that there are no hardware keylogers installed. This kind of work requires somewhat elevated parano...security awareness akin to one in certain government agencies or military (for instance, NO WASTEBASKET, you carry all of your spent writing papers with you), but it still retains low distraction + short commute benefits.
If your company pays the rent, they probably can subscribe on video surveillance and IP logs of your hours, as well as notification of arrival and departure time (renting company would issue you a swipe card for their building's clock). Therefore, corporate discipline could be detached and remotely enforced. I am certain they would like it more then letting you work from home, as they would retain their sense of control over you.
I can definitely see opportunity in creating supply for this kind of rental service.
then why not hire Indians and Chinese for 1/10th the wage?
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Apparently you are not interested in social contacts, because otherwise you would have addressed that. To me that is the main thing I like to work: the people I am with.
I have left places because I di not like the people and went working somewhere for a lower wage. The 1 hour drive in the morning and in the evening I also like. So what if I am not driving 120KMH and it takes 1 hour instead of 20 minutes? I just listen to some books or take a different route to or from work.
I even like it when people ask me a question, because that means when I need something I can go to them and ask them a question.
I get things done by social engineering. Even contact with mu co workers in other countries is not only by phone. We meet each other once in a while and have a beer together, talking about all these stupid little problems, the wife and the dog.
This then enhances the way we work together. We understand each other and can ask each other for help.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
home is where I go to get away from it and relax.
I work from home four days a week (sometimes more) and I confine my work to the home office. I have a separate notebook in the family room for non-work.
Getting "away from it" is a state of mind. I can be in a whole different place in the time it takes to get out of my chair and walk into the hall.
I have been working from home for about 2 years now. At first it was 1 day a week until we moved office and then I upped that to 3 days a week. I honestly find I get a whole lot more done when at home. as has been mentioned there is no constant interruption and social chatter. I'm a very focused worker. I get up and make sure I'm online at 8 and I work to 5 usually with only a moment for lunch. I'm too worried that my (micro?) manager will worry about me "scratching me bits while flicking the TV channels". I don't think working from home works for everyone but for me it does. As a developer there is no need for me in the office.
Oh, uh, good question. Now technically speaking, uhh, let's say, put me down as a... 'Whatever'?
there is a lot of solitaire and web surfing going on in many offices.
Or even slashdot reading and posting! Oh, wait...
Continuous positive slashdot karma since... uh, maybe next year.
When you're looking at how much you save on travel don't forget to factor in the less-visible costs of working at home. To begin with heating and lighting costs are coming out of your pocket, also you'll be needing a home office so you are effectively paying the same rent/mortgage but for a smaller living space. Plenty more small expenses that soon add up. Maybe there are the intangible benefits of being with your dog all day but make sure you do the numbers to make sure you are not losing out financially. That's why you have a job in the first place isn't it.
I can work from wherever I want but I choose to make the short journey to the office every day - home is home for me and I want to relax not work. I can see how my attitude might change though if I were faced with a long commute.
"Don't belong. Never join. Think for yourself. Peace." V.Stone, Microsoft Corporation
Leave
I worked at a Webdesign company that allowed it's copywriters to telecommute, if they wanted to, but it was paid based on production. So the copywriters would have to turn out a certain amount of pages in order for it to be considered an hours worth of pay.
Well those copywriters either quit or went back into work because each month the company would change the required production amount. Each month it got higher and higher to the point where they would work all day just to get 8 hours of pay.
Can I bum a sig?
I am the same--good work ethic and I take pride in what I accomplish. I am office-bound now but have been wanting to work from home for some time. What I do is exclusively on the computer and phone, and the only parts of my job I am dissatisfied with are in this physical office--coworkers, frequent interruptions, poor management, etc. Telecommuting would be great, but I doubt it will ever happen around here.
10 FILL MUG WITH COFFEE
20 DRINK COFFEE
30 GOTO 10
Gosh - I'd assumed Initech closed after the building burned.
I don't even know what "f*ck all" means. Is that a new high school term you created to show your prowess with swearing in front of your teeny bopper friends?
Maybe it's not in common usage in the US, but here in the UK it's about as old as the language itself. It means "nothing".
good job making it difficult for people to view your post while at work without triggering any filters
If your employer treats you like that, it's time to find a new job, for someone who realises that you're an adult.
It's official. Most of you are morons.
This is SPOT ON. If I could mod you up any more than 5, I would. God. Do you work here in this office?
10 FILL MUG WITH COFFEE
20 DRINK COFFEE
30 GOTO 10
Telecommuting is an odd word. The word is used to describe the solution, but the true meaning would more accurately describe the problem. Telecommuting is an option to avoid long commutes to work, by means of phones, the Internet, etc to allow you to work from home.
However, looking at the word, "telecommute" means a distant commute, in the same way that television means something to see at a distance and telephone means something to hear at a distance. Telecommute should mean commuting a distance.
Clearly the management-speak gurus picked "tele" as a nifty prefix with all it's modern sounding technological mystique and misapplied it. A better choice would be the somewhat dubious e- prefix i.e. e-commute. That would make much more sense than telecommute.
This pisses me off when I'm getting paid to wait, especially when the person you are waiting for has 30 hours of work to do, shows up at 10:30, takes a 3hr lunch break and leaves at 3 PM and tells you to "Get the fuck out of my cube" when you politely ask for a status and management doesn't do anything about it.
I'm not sure that working from home would be any worse for productivity, but getting paid for piecework would be the worst way to be paid in some offices. There'd be killings over it because now these people are impacting whether or not you can pay your mortgage.
There are people who would kill you over losing their house because you are a slacker.
-Viz
Don't kid yourself. It's the size of the regexp AND how you use it that counts.
I guess I'm the exception then. I HATE instant messages and ignore them frequently. When I do answer them, I find they're generally as wasteful of my time as co-workers who show up to discuss the latest bowel movements of their toddlers.
Frankly, without someone to poke me with a sharp stick now and then, I wouldn't get much done.
Yeah, it's tough for a monkey to make a living outside of a circus. ;)
I am able to talk to people just fine via IM. I joke with coworkers, ask them questions, and they ask me questions, just as it would normally be if I were at work. I also hang out, outside of work, with the coworkers that I actually like.
:(){
If you are that guy, the one everyone is forced to wait on, then you are the problem, the butt of all blame, and you won't last long.
...
I live ~90km from my job. Driving in takes ~1.5 hours one way, and can take up to 2.5 hours coming home on weekends. As such, I'm only required in the office twice a week. It works beautifully for me. On days I have to be in the office, I'm up at 5am, out the door by 6. On days I don't, I'm out of bed at 9am and working by 9:01. I don't slack off any more or less than when I work in the office (humourously, I'm in the office today and Slashdotting).
I know a lot of people require a separate office with door and all that, but I actually sit with my tablemate and laptop on the couch beside my wife while she's surfing the 'net on her laptop, or watching TV or doing the household chores thing. Our son is usually in school, but in the summer and after school, he does his thing.
I work through lunch since my wife cooks for me, and I still get my work done. It's a win for everyone involved. If I had to be here 5 days a week, I'd have to find a new job, and that would make me sad because I love my job.
That depends. Do you translate Russian?
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When those people finally get you that work you've been waiting for, suddenly the pressure's on you
Pressure is what you feel. The other party is experiencing irritation, impatience, et cetera. Besides finishing your work, adressing whatever they're feeling can also relieve you of pressure.
8 of 13 people found this answer helpful. Did you?
In my personal experience, the question is sadly humorous. Regardless of whether I come in or not, my meetings are all virtual with exception of the monthly staff. Even if I come in daily, I only see the people I actually work with once in a while if we happen to have a mtg in the same building.
Everyone in my group that works on the same projects I do work from home 90%-98% of the time.
With this scenario, working largely from home makes sense from both a managerial, personal, and environmental perspective.
#-#
Ad Astra Per Aspera
A rough road leads to the stars
Some jobs like mine work better if I could telecommute. 3/4 of the people I work with are in foreign countries and encircling the globe. There no problem when I need to work with South America, but if something needs to go to Asia after I get something from Australia I can't do anything during normal work hours until the next day when I can get Australia's piece, and then when I do send it to Asia the next day, Asia's asleep!
If I could just stay at home and do other things until 6-7pm when Australia's stuff comes in, I can do my piece and pass it on to Asia during their AM hours and they have the whole day to work.
So you posted to slashdot on your "productive" day? :-)
If my employer let me telecommute, I'd just sit around posting on Slashdot all day.
== Jez ==
Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
Yeah, at 9:38 pm. Compared to now, when I'm at the office and posting during business hours
Frankly, without someone to poke me with a sharp stick now and then, I wouldn't get much done.
Frankly, without anyone to poke with my sharp stick, I'd get nothing done.
I have telecommuted for over 10 years I work in Canada and telecomute to Oklahoma City each day. The comment I got from my boss was, "I get better support from you than I do from our local IT department". Our development team consists of 4 devs in different cities, a local informatics nurse, and myself Some benefits: Conference Call meetings are more productive because there is less chatter about he weekend football game. All parties tend to save up the important issues so that they can be delt with in one session. Current online meeting tools really remove the need to meet face to face. Plus we have an instant recording of the meeting, ie no bad meeting minutes. Working at home requires discipline. We did go through a number of developers who worked well for the first 2 weeks, but then fell prey to the distractions. I actually have a proper office set up. Not a home office that my family shares, but a place of work in my house. We had to come up with some house rules: When I am in the office, i am at work. Casual conversation from my wife and kids is not allowed. The rule we have is that "if you would not call me at work to discuss the issue, dont come into the office". I have regular core hours and flex time to support the different time zones we all are in, but it is expected that during the core time, messenger or the phone will be answered. Telecomutting is not for everyone and it has its draw backs. I actually miss some of the office friendships, at home you are by yourself. There is no one that comes and cleans the office (unless your wife does). All of our devs are required to provide their own hardware, so although you save on gas, you still need development hardware. The devs must also proove that their LANs are secure, plus I need to provide a secure VPN for each of the devs. All in all, it is a way to get some good people working on the same project that you normally could not. There is no way the team I have would have ever been put on the same project. None of us would move. Telecommuting works for us.
Mod parent funny.
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If I understand it correctly, you are working one hour and a half overtime for the company each day?
I only live around 10 minutes WALK time away from my company, and I only leave work when I've written down all the information needed for the next day.
The other way works the same.
Not to mention posting to crappy sites like slashdot. Seriously, there's also the distraction - one loudmouth gossip affects everyone's productivity.
Nice, but a lot of work isn't at all easy to measure.
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I have been working out of my home for almost 6 years now - converting from full office. To be completely honest - over those 6 years - I bet I have put in 100% more time than I would have being in the office. I too have good work ethic - and do work waaay many more hours than I would if I had to go into an office. It definitely depends on the person, but I would hate to see some people that take the wrong advantage ruin what has turned into an amazing experience for me.
You've either hired right or wrong. Then you've either managed them right or wrong.
You could graph this into four quadrants. And quickly see that only one quadrant will get any work done from home.
And that sub-set are more valuable than the other 75% you've got. So don't piss them off or they'll leave, telecommuting or not.
A good manager will find that self-motivated quadrant will likely work more than 8 hours - but it will be at all times of the day (you'll see emails timestamped from both midnight and 7am).
So watch the ones you need to and unleash as many as you can.
Does this mean I now have to actually go to /. to post on /.?
Man. I need to win the Microsoft Lottery.
I've even been known to bring my dog to work and take walks with him during the day.
I hope you're more considerate than a lot of the dog owners here. Your office doesn't reek of feces, I hope? And your slobbering mutt doesn't wander about into people's cubes, stuffing his nose into their crotches?
I know that pet owners assume everyone shares their love of their precious animal, but it's not the case.
--saint
Let me put it another way... If the work can be telecommuted, it can be outsourced. Not always, but mostly. Working at home was great because I maintained a better development environment there than I have ever been provided by an employer. Better computers, faster printers, better backup methods, more tools. But my position as a highly qualified software engineer with great facilities wasn't enough to compete with dirt cheap overseas labor, outfitted with cheap computers and $3 development kits from Microsoft.
Let me be clear, I am saying telecommuting is dangerous because it is only one step away from outsourcing. Any time I was able to get a client to actually see me facilities, they were blown away and could then understand why my deliverables were so good. No one seems to be clear of the outsourcing danger, and the danger is not just for programmers, but anyone that can do the work off site.
I telecommute everyday and it's pretty easy to tell if I'm working or not. Do I get my assignments done, yes or no? It's that simple. If I didn't get my work done then I wouldn't have a job.
"Ubuntu" -- an African word, meaning "Slackware is too hard for me". - stolen from Dan C alt.os.linux.slackware
I have telecommuted for the last 6 years along with my whole team at work.
We work a bit outside normal office hours and our daytime counterparts work mostly from the office. Our production, ratings etc are much higher than the daytime people along witha team that has changed very little over the past years. My company, a huge corporation, has pretty good experience with people working from home.
I love it! Nothing beats working from home and I always make sure that my work is done as quick and as correct as possible because there is no way I want to go back to working from the office. Nothing beats working outside by the pool most of the year, except for today, it rains like hell here in Florida!
If you mod me down, I *will* introduce you to my sister!
When I get called in by a company to help them out with an IT problem, I do sometimes get paid to wait on everyone else.
If I show up to roll out a new app, and your monkeys haven't gotten the prereq's installed yet and I have to wait, my ass is still on the clock.
Works the same way in many other trades. If I'm at your place of business... the clock is ticking regardless of what I'm doing, unless I'm goofing off intentionally. ;)
"I'm just trying to provide some contrast to this panacea that everyone is painting with telecommuting."
Try being a caregiver.* I have the connection and tools to telecommute (assuming I can find a career and employer that allows it. That's harder than one thinks). But OTHER people's needs would make the idea problematic (this also applies to a home business}.
*An aging US population makes this a growing issue.
Are you salaried or not?
If you are salaried and you establish 'work hours' then life is good. From 8am until 5pm you are 'working' and you need to be able to answer e-mails and phone calls. No problems.
What you want to avoid is doing remote contract work where you have to bill hourly. You are told to do X at 8am in the morning and after a few hours of development you realize that you need clarification on X. So you send an e-mail/make a phone call...and you get no answer. It's not until the next day that you get your answer.
So from 10am until 8am the next business day you were unable to do any work. You can really only bill for two hours though, because you were 'waiting' for the rest.
Of course, the same questions apply to offshore outsourcing, only moreso. But management dove right into that without chin-pulling consideration of these questions.
Oh, very well played, Sir.
...sometimes, in order to hurt someone very badly, you have to tell that person terrible lies. - PA
Just say it's the manager's fault for not motivating you. All of a sudden you aren't on the hook for not doing any work.
I'm the exact opposite.
When I am at home, co-workers can't waddle by my desk and start talking about the weather, or a football game, or what they're going to do that weekend, or some other thing that is wasting my time. And let's not get started with the pointless meetings.
I grew up with a good work ethic; I suppose that I'm lucky. I work from home three days a week. Those are the three days that I actually get things done. I can start working, get into a groove, and pump out large amounts of good code, or get testing done, or debug problems.
The two days in the office are a complete waste for me.
I agree... I actually get MORE work done at home. I've worked from home for about 2 years now... it was several days a week, but for the last 6 months has been full-time. I work for a VERY large bank, and they have a fantastic policy on it. I live in Arizona, but work east-coast hours because that's where most of the team is. If I had to drive into the office (23 miles 1-way) I would be miserable. That would be almost 2 hours a day WASTED on driving.
I work more hours when I work from home - and I'm ok with it. I fill up my car maybe once a month. I am on conference calls a lot during the day (project management) but if I'm on a call I don't need to be on - I can hang up! We use IM (MS Communicator - ugh) and email, phone, livemeeting, etc.
It does take getting used to though. You learn to recognize voices when you're on a call with 50 people, even though you may never meet them in person. You have to make yourself productive, keep track of tasks. It makes your job so much easier if you learn how to communicate clearly over the phone/email/IM. I feel that I have matured greatly as an employee. I usually eat at my desk anyway. I have my comfortable setup, the lighting I like. I can keep work/home computing separate... instead of checking personal email or websites (like Slashdot) on my work computer I can switch over to my personal one on the KVM and check it. If I need to go to the Dr or dentist, which are close to home, I don't lose as much work time.
The greatest thing about it for me? I still keep a work/life balance, and it is mostly under my control. I am up and working at 6:15 am, but I can still see my kids when they get up. When I am done working around 3 or 4 PM, I am HOME. No horrible commute to deal with or dread every day. I get to spend quality time with my family, and that makes me really appreciate my employer, and therefore I want to do good work for them. THAT makes for a good employee.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
remove any games and restrict timewasting websites to certain 'break' periods in the day (facebook, youtube etc)
From TFA:
2. How will you define and measure performance?
Most experienced managers stress that you must establish "well-defined deliverables" for teleworkers, and then judge performance accordingly.
On the face of it, that approach seems simple enough. For task-oriented jobs, it's easy to measure performance in terms of output. For an IT support person, for example, you might track how many tickets he handled per day and whether problems were successfully solved.
God, that's scary.
Interestingly, while the IT group officially ended telecommuting within HP, other groups - most notably IPG (the printer group) is practically *forcing* a high number of employees to become teleworkers to save money on facilities.
I find it's helpful to mix working alone with working (physically) with others.
As a consultant, I sometimes work on-site at a client, sometimes at our office with my colleagues, and sometimes at home.
All have their pluses and minuses. Sometimes you are literally 10x more productive on-site than anywhere else; sometimes being at the client is a total time-suck. Pretty much the same for office vs. home.
I would think that (aside from at-client stuff), 3-4 days in the office, 1-2 days at home is a reasonable mix. Any more time at home risks isolation & bad habits...
Simple Unexpected Concrete Credible Emotional Stories
My office is 100% ergonomic. The quality of furniture you find there is not present even in VP offices of our company.
A faster connection to the Internet.
24" color calibrated monitor. Easy on the eyes, plenty of real estate.
A Mac. I don't have to reboot it. It is alaways on. Does not blue screen. All UNIX power tools are there. Cygwin still requires a lot of Vaseline.
I write memos in RTF or PDF formats if necessary. Platforms are never an issue.
Good coffee.
I can do 120% of my daily work within a few hours. In the office, I have to spread the work through 8 hours by pretending that I am busy. At home I can do my work and then go and slack off knowing that I am still more productive than many peers.
My company has a totally screwed up performance metric that anybody can meet and exceed.
I've been telecommuting for the last 2 years (only going to the office when there is a meeting or to oversee hardware deployments) and I can second what you're saying. Not only takes it discipline to get yourself working, it also takes discipline to make yourself *stop* working even when something is not finished, yet.
That can be harder than it may sound but it's absolutely critical in order to maintain a sustainable work/life-balance.
I never really had a problem with the "pressure" you mention but that's probably because I don't normally get assigned tasks that take under a day to finish. My stuff normally takes at least 2-3 days and, well, in case of emergency everybody is expected to work "anytime" anyways.
I'm the opposite as well -- I find myself far more naturally productive at home in general. Working on house/yard/garden projects, etc. when I get into my gray windowless cubicle I'm about as productive as a prison inmate.
The biggest problem? Perception of availability.
If you are physically at the office, and someone goes to your desk for assistance, and you are not there, the person is disappointed but accepts the circumstance.
If you are working in the lab at home (better equipment, no line outside your cube, better chair, etc) and you are indisposed when a call comes in, the requester is much more liable to dislike your 'at home' practice. Even if you call them back right away.
My job has always required: phone and access. Why does that have to be on location? Because it makes 'them' feel better, and for no other reason.
However, I still prefer to do heavy lab work at home. It is far more productive, and it is GAME ON much sooner!
I disagree and strongly. I've heard this excuse too many times, usually from middle management: "We have no idea how to quantify your work, that's why we bill to the hour".
Excuses like that are a sure sign that your management has no clue what they're doing.
If you're doing productive work then there is always a metric to measure it. It doesn't matter if your contribution comes in the form of java classes, swf movies or graphics files and in what volume. A good manager always knows what everyone is doing, how they are progressing and how they are performing in relation to their task, skills and potential other duties.
When I ask my manager "how's our project doing?" he can rattle down on each individuals performance and progress, and he will say stuff like "Bob is a bit behind because of personal stuff" or "The new guy is slow but shows promise" or "I don't think the new guy will meet our expectations, but maybe he's just a slow-starter, I'll give him another month".
For a good project manager such assessments are trivial to make. Unfortunately 99% of all project managers I have met were not good, by any metric. I guess that's why many people, like you, think this stuff would be rocket science anyhow and why snakeoil recipe-books about SCRUM, Agile, XP etc. sell like hot-cakes.
With the right tools it's almost like being in the office. The team that I'm currently working on is only about 7 large and we're using Scrum. 3 of us don't even live in the same city where our company is HQ'ed (1 is in Vancouver, 1 in London England, the 3rd, myself, about 2.5 hours away).
We have our morning meeting in which we each discuss
a) what we did since our last meeting
b) what we're doing until our next meeting, and
c) what our impediments are
During this time we also go over everybody's burn down chart and track progress.
It's pretty hard *not* to get stuff done when everybody is keeping everybody else accountable. In 6 months we put together an incredibly complex enterprise system that goes from a pda to a laptop, across some web services and into an as/400, complete with a web front end. And it works.
My experience is leading me to believe that telecommuting isn't the culprit for poor productivity - rather it's the lack of appropriate processes and tools. We use Skype and iChat to video conference, desktop sharing and collaborative design tools - this has made remote communication almost as effective as in office communication.
If my office were to block access to Slashdot, I'd probably be 30% more effective at work.
And how do you propose they do that? What is the dollar amount I should get paid for answering an email or attending a conference call or writing a page of code?
Funny, that. Just got laid off myself, too.
I prefer rogues to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest.
And how do you decide what a page of code is? Is this worth less:
While this is worth more:
I like this part of the thread as I think there's 2 key points here. One is that when you first start telecommuting there are some temptations but once you get used to it you buckle down and it becomes your way of life. The other is that you really *do* have to maintain your "virtual presence" with your manager and peers. This is critical so they know what you're doing, include you in the right conversations, think of you when there's a new project, etc. This will make the difference between promotions and layoffs. There are many techniques to address this such as setting up short, recurring phone meetings with key team members and your boss, sending a weekly status update by email, keeping in touch via IM, going into the office at least once/week for some face time, etc. Nicole Bachelor - Master of Telecommuting Success Discover how to work from home effectively and successfully. Free report, tips and direct access to my Telecommuters Club at: http://avoidgoingtowork.com/
That is a good thing. Get off /. and do some real work.
And how is that different from what you are doing right now (or rather at 09:47AM)?
I never realized just how much middle management had in common with pimpin' hos until I read your comment.
Ask the pertinent questions of the person who will be supervising you. Some of the definitions will be theirs. Some will be mandated from higher up, but it's still the supervisor who interprets and reports to the highers up. Find out how mucvh leeway your supervisor will have (and will take).
My wife has doubled her salary to nearly 6 figures in 5 years, strictly telecommuting (up to 1000 miles from the office). She learned how to handle the virtual chain of cammand, and the real cvrossways communication where comes the real needs and techniques. It helps that from the outset she has helped devise the requirements.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
Maybe because you are missing those three days, your colleagues attack you more with jibber jabber. If you went to office all five days, the chatter will get distributed. :)
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Working from home for the last few years until last December I was more productive for the hours done. But it was the whole life style that made it so. The not commuting, not having co-worker interruptions and being able to do the daily things like the garden, take cars for servicing and generally shop freed my time from standing in queues and as a whole my life was way better.
Then I chose what hours to work and as some posters have said, if I got a task at 4pm I sometimes would get it done that night until midnight or two and leave it in the other peoples inbox ready for them to start with it the next day.
And once current circumstances pass such a self employed arrangement is what I shall return to.
Nope. I started off working in the office five days a week. They allowed me to work from home three of them as part of a deal to keep me from going to a new job. Even when I was there all week, I would get hounded constantly.
There is one thing that helped keep them off my back, though. I started carrying a little notebook around, and I would keep track of what happened and when. So when I started writing code at, say, 9:30, I would write down "9:30 - Writing code for foo". When someone would stop by and start talking about the hockey game (I'm in Buffalo, these people are obsessed with hockey) I would write down, "9:35 - Mr. X started talking about Hockey"
They would ask what I was doing, and I would tell them that my boss wanted me to keep track of my day. Some of the people eventually started to go away.
Love sees no species.
Home telecommuting is only one telecommuting option.
Workers, who do not have adequate facilities in the home or simply feel more comfortable working out of a dedicated office outside the home, can work from a Remote Office Center located near where they live. Remote Office Centers lease individual offices, internet and phone systems to workers from different companies in shared centers located around the suburbs.
Telecommuting is analogous to an exercise program. Some people are able to work out in their own home with home equipment. Others find they can not maintain a routine unless they go to the gym to work out.
The issues for some people are related to both infrastructure and structure. An effective telecommuting program needs to take into account all of the teleworkers needs.
Remote Office Centers are fairly new, but can be found on the internet by searching for "Remote Office Centers" in quotes.