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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?"
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.
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'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 did telecommuting for about 6 months. I loved it, no doubt, and wish I could do it again.
Some notes from the experience:
* wife/kids initially respect the boundaries, but it very soon becomes real effort to maintain them.
* wife realized what I actualy do for a living. Got this gem several times: "why can't you go do XYZ? You're just sitting in front of the computer anyway.". WTF? Yes dear, I'm a computer programmer. Apparently she didn't realize it involved the computers.
* people can't figure out why daddy doesn't want to talk/play/whatever every 15 minutes. This turns into "you're ignoring me/us", to which the only answer is "well, I"m certainly trying, but you're making it pretty difficult."
Now, you may see those and think "Hah! See? There are too many distractions at home!" ... And you'd be totally ignoring what goes on in the office.
Office has bench-style desks where everyone sits side-by-side. The level of noise and commotion sometimes reaches the level of the absurd - especially around lunch time (between 12 and 2, as not everyone eats at the same time). The air conditioning vent is right over my head and makes an unholy racket. Every time I have to pee, it's a 5 minute walk.
Add into that 3 to 4 hours of travel every day, and the office just doesn't seem to have many advantages over working from home.
There are significant distractions in both places, but at least at home the distraction is my daughter giving me a hug or my son showing me what he did at school. Lots better than the inane chatter and insanity around the office.
That's not to mention the fact that my home office has a door that, while easily opened by the random interloper, does a much better job than the open layout office where there's never a moment's peace.
Which one's better? Truth is, they both suck, but working from home sucks a lot less.
By the way, I'm writing this at 10pm on the train on my way home. I got to the office 13 hours ago, left my house 15 hours ago, and won't be home for another hour. When I get home, there's another hour of work to do. If I worked from home, I could have done all that work, and still had a much shorter day. The office? No redeeming qualities as far as I can see.