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Building a Case For Telecommuting
Esther Schindler writes "Many of us geeks prefer to work at home without distractions, but a lot of bosses still believe that if they don't see you, you must be lolling about, eating bon-bons and playing Angry Birds. 'There may be many reasons a manager is distrustful of telecommuting but the phenomenon of what Albiero calls "presentism"—that is, only trusting and rewarding the folks you see at their computer is a major factor.' So it may be of some use to read through the research compiled by Diann Daniel that says telecommuting creates happier and more productive employees (which naturally include fewer distractions and better work-life balance), and an accompanying infographic showing the environmental benefits from reduced commuting. She follows it up with suggestions on how managers can mentor and support teleworkers. Some of this is general advice, but some of the tips are more specific: 'It may seem like a lot more work—all this up-front addressing of communication issues that happen far more naturally in the office—but the upside is increased efficiency. Albiero sees this especially in the area of meetings. He speaks of one client who has now instituted a meeting format that is structured to allow for the first five minutes of all meetings to be "small-talk minutes." Thus, everyone knows they needn't call in for those minutes unless they want to join."
Going to work creates a balance by segregating time between work and pleasure. I work at home and the only thing that happens 18 hour days.
I got lucky and found a job where I can telecommute from Seattle to San Francisco. I go to SF about once a quarter just to get some face time, but I spend my working time here at home. I put very few miles on my car now and I feel great about that. I don't take up office space there in SF and I feel good about that. I'm productive and my bosses are happy about that.
I fully realize this can't work for everybody, but it sure works for me. My superviser and I communicate through Skype and GotoMeeting at least a couple times a day, once for SCRUM and every so often to get some information across to each other. It would be a boost to the economy, I would think, if more places would do this.
Being in a 6 by 6 foot cube surrounded by co-workers who have annoying habits or have extended conversations.
No, they think your posting to slashdot.
Classical case of false metrics. For practical business purposes, you should be measured on what you're actually getting done, not on what you might be doing alongside of it. I mean people do that kind of stuff in the office, too, you know. At the end of the day, the question is, did the job get done?
I did part time telecommuting for a few years. It saved my an hour a day in commute time and reduce my gas purchases by half. There is one downside to telecommuting that wasn't mention in the article. At times, it can be difficult to separate work and personal time. If the work is engaging, it is easy to lose track of time and work many more hours. When working on tasks that are boring and monotonous, it can become impossible to focus. It is much easier to get into work mode when the environment changes.
Implicit in the idea of "telecommuting" is the idea of "at a distance," a.k.a. "tele" -- the same root as "telecommunications" and "telephone." If you need to get in touch with your employees quickly, is there a reason you can't just make a phone call? Obviously, if your business is of a kind where employees need to be able to do things hands-on, then probably it's not a good candidate for telecommuting and TFS doesn't really apply to you. Otherwise, I'm not sure I see what the problem is.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
My standing rule for working from home (I spent years as a consultant and often find myself telecommuting with my current job): Get up at the same time you would if you were to go in, get dressed, shower, shave (if that's your thing), brush your teeth, have breakfast/coffee/etc... away from your work space. At the point you would typically leave for work, sit down at your desk. Do so dressed as you would at work.
Keep your desk in the same state you would feel comfortable at your job. If you smoke, go outside for a typical smoke break. If you stop for coffee, do so by walking away from your desk.
Take lunch away from your work space.
Finally, log off VPN at the end of "your shift". Don't fall into the habit of "working late", it's only going to set a habit of allowing your schedule to fluctuate and will make you less productive where it matters.
#SickNotWeak
...you enjoy your job and what you're currently doing. I've telecommuted with a team of 18+ other software engineers for the last 5+ years, and did a stint a while back. When you're engaged in what your doing, and believe in it, working at home is awesome. You focus, you maximize your efficiency by finding the optimal interlacing with the rest of your life. But when the company is jerking you around, or dumps crap work on you, working at home is really hard.
So my word to employers is if you believe in your product and your people, then this really is the best arrangement for you. Otherwise, get our the whips and put 'em in them thar cubies.
One man's pink plane is another man's blue plane.
I work for a megacorporation. I can go to any nearby office and get a desk for the day (or a conference room for my team), but I can mostly work from home. I tend to go in and meet my team about once a month for collaboration and socialization. My company was able to close 10 pretty large office buildings in my region, at pretty substantial savings. I am pretty sure they get tax breaks for "green" business practices.
It's a pretty big company and we have a 20% telecommute goal, but it is mostly IT who are eligible, so nearly all of us in software telecommute now.
Everyone I know complains that "you never really leave work" when telecommuting, and most of the people I work with don't even stop for lunch any more. I try to have boundaries, but honestly as a developer you never really leave work anyway... but I can take a shower and eat dinner at home, which is great.
Mostly what they got from me though is loyalty. I have worked there for 8 years, only 2 of them telecommute, and no bonus, raise, or corporate title bought them the loyalty that telecommuting bought them. With this sweet setup, I will never quit... It would have to get pretty bad for me to want to... I am hoping that by the time I have to move on Telecommute will be the norm.
Public speaking classes tell you that over 1/2 of the communication between you and an audience is through non verbal cues including tone and body language, mostly body language. Even regular conversations are better in person because your meeting is better conveyed. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_language
If you're job can be done without communication then I can send that job to the cheapest place that can read the directions.
It's always been about employer risk. Certainly, many telecommuters do good work and do work well. That's not the point. For every ten good ones, there's at least one bad one. That bad one is really bad. And the problem is that it takes a long time, and a lot of effort and money to discover and deal with that one bad one. It's just not worth the risk.
I, as an employer, far prefer the costs associated with the office setup to have ten office employees who are each at 50%, than to have ten telecommuters, save the office expenses, have 9 at 100% and 1 at 20%. That one guys can take down my entire business. I've worked far too hard and risked far too much to let that happen.
And the article is correct. It takes longer to train a telecommuter -- who may not stick around longer enough to matter.
Telecommuting is for already-proven and trusted employees, who want a break and a better life. It's something to be earned.
I did part time telecommuting for a few years. It saved my an hour a day in commute time and reduce my gas purchases by half. There is one downside to telecommuting that wasn't mention in the article. At times, it can be difficult to separate work and personal time. If the work is engaging, it is easy to lose track of time and work many more hours. When working on tasks that are boring and monotonous, it can become impossible to focus. It is much easier to get into work mode when the environment changes.
Different people are different; I don't think one size fits all. For me, I found it much easier to balance work and home life while telecommuting, because of the flexibility it gave me -- not to mention the hours saved in commute time. I telecommuted nearly full time for 10 years, and then a year ago got a new job that requires me to be in the office most of the time, and it's been hard adjusting. I appreciated the ability to easily leave "work" for an hour or two to go to a kid's school production, or to go out for a run, or whatever. I shifted some of my "work" time late into the evening when my family was in bed. All in all, I really preferred it. I love my new job, but I'd love it even more if I could work from home.
I found that it is useful to maintain some separation, though, even when working from home, mainly so that your family can distinguish between your work and non-work time. I did it by designating my home office as my workspace. My kids knew that when Dad was in his office, he was working and not to be disturbed if possible. Though my wife never did grasp the concept, somehow...
That doesn't mean I only worked in my office. Geek that I am, I packed my laptop everywhere, and I didn't see anything wrong with answering a few e-mails while watching a movie with the kids or something. On the other hand, I also didn't see anything wrong with ignoring the e-mail when it wasn't convenient.
Company culture (this was at IBM) had quickly developed some rules of etiquette that really helped. For example, one rule is that you don't call anyone on the phone without first instant messaging them to ask if you can call. So when people aren't working, they shut off their IM client, and that's a signal to everyone else that they aren't to be bothered. Some other rules were that e-mail was not used when quick replies were expected and that background noise (kids, dogs, whatever) was normal and not unprofessional during conference calls.
One thing that really makes a huge difference in your ability to successfully telecommute is the number of your colleagues who telecommute. At IBM it quickly became everyone, so it worked very well. At Google, where I am now, most everyone is in the office and while we have great tools for remote communication (Google+ Hangouts, basically, integrated into calendaring and with high-end audio/video equipment in the conference rooms), if you're not around for the water cooler conversation you miss a lot, and it would be hard to be productive.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
No, they think your posting to slashdot.
Classical case of false metrics. For practical business purposes, you should be measured on what you're actually getting done, not on what you might be doing alongside of it. I mean people do that kind of stuff in the office, too, you know. At the end of the day, the question is, did the job get done?
^^THIS
Most weeks I telecommute two days and go to the office the other three. We have a strong "get the job done, the rest is window dressing" philosophy. One of the things I tell my new hires early on goes something like this:
"I don't need to walk past your desk and see you working non-stop for 8 hours. I don't expect it to happen. If I walk past you and you're checking some news site or playing minesweeper or freecell or whatever it is you do to pass time, I don't care. At the end of the week, I know if you're getting the job done. I know if you've completed all your assignments or have good reasons for not having finished. I know which projects you've asked for more details or clarification about, and that tells me all I need to know. I don't care how or when you're getting it done, so long as you're getting it done."
William of Ockham had no beard. The most likely explanation is that it was chewed off by squirrels every morning.
I think the telecommuting debate can be easily answered by asking a single question-> which location offers the least amount of distractions?
If you have Office Space-style bosses, dropping by every 15 minutes, to see "how you're coming along with that project" then working at home is a godsend. You'll be more productive, and your code will show it.
If you have bosses who know to leave you alone while you're working on something (but they are known themselves for being generally available for when you have questions (you go to them) -> "What does the client want here?" or "Teach me how to Git" or "When you worked at Inuit, how did you guys solve this problem?"), and family life is filled with distractions (the GF is PMSing that week, the kids like to play loud music, the husband is in Marketing and has entered his mid-life crisis) than working at work would potentially be better. Hell, some of the most productive workers in human history are people who stay late at the office because they hate their family life.
And of course, if both home and work are filled with equal levels of annoyance, then you're kind of screwed. You can try working at a Starbucks or a Barnes and Noble, but it's still fairly rough. On the plus side, you do get the social interaction that you miss at both places, the coffee is usually hot, and there are lots of books on various subjects you might need to learn nearby (boss says learn Ruby, wander over to aisle with O'Reilly Ruby book in it).
If I had a choice in life, I'd have two offices -> one to meet with people in, and one to be productive in. The one to meet with people in would have conference chairs, a large Mahogany desk, and perhaps a small putting green next to the Koi pond (the palace at Versaille might be large enough). The one to be productive in would be at an undisclosed location, with a fiber connection & enough food / supplies to last me weeks (a Japanese sleeping tube might be slightly smaller than I'd potentially want here). The only people with knowledge of said undisclosed location would be the catering (for when I don't feel like cooking) and cleaning (for when I leave) staff, and they'd work for cash (no name given). I'd keep a separate email address and cellphone for said place; it's the only way to be productive. If you stumbled across the place, there'd be a pair of swords of the doorways, and a sound recording constantly being played over the outside speakers (said sound consisting of the last few moments of the life of the person who previously disturbed me while I was otherwise engaged in potentially deeper thoughts).
I am John Hurt.
Public speaking classes tell you that over 1/2 of the communication between you and an audience is through non verbal cues including tone and body language, mostly body language. Even regular conversations are better in person because your meeting is better conveyed. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_language
I completely agree with that.
If you're job can be done without communication then I can send that job to the cheapest place that can read the directions.
I completely disagree with that.
Communication *is* impaired by a lack of face-to-face contact. This means you need to employ (or train, but that is less reliable) employees that are superb at communication to compensate. Nonetheless, "reading the directions" is probably a very small aspect of most jobs. You need to find the place that produces the most cost effective results and I'm sure that there are many jobs that are ideally suited to telecommuting because you can still communicate when you need to, but you avoid a lot of the frivolous communication you see in office-based environments.
I say that as someone who works from home, and manages employees based in an office and other employees based remotely.