One Third of Telcom Staff More Productive Working From Home

Qedward writes "British telecoms operator O2 has found that 88% of its staff are just as productive working remotely, while one-third claimed that they actually got more work done when they worked from home. 3,000 employees at O2's head office took part in a program that had them to work from home for one day, as practice for problems that may occur during the Olympic Games. From the article: '“The success of O2’s experiment extends much further than just allowing some of the workforce to stay at home and work. It proves that with the right thinking and planning, even the largest organizations can protect themselves from the most severe disruptions to their business,” said Ben Dowd, business director at O2.'"

Comments

Reduces pollution too

[cpu6502]

Keeping workers at home saves ~10 gallons of gas per person per week. Which is 200 fewer pounds per person per week of CO2.

Companies are starting to listen

[wynterwynd]

I work in first-line management for a major telecom and this idea is really starting to take hold. And it's everything I imagined it would be.

If you aren't directly managing employees and/or it isn't necessary for you to have physical access to equipment, there is no reason why working from home won't work. My boss and all my team are scattered all over the country, we've never met each other face to face. All my meetings are over the phone and via web conference. Nothing requires that I be anywhere near an office, just that I have a quiet place with telephone and high-speed internet access.

We recently switched to allowing telecommuting 2-3 days a week. And let me tell you, it is Glorious. Those 2-3 days are the most productive ones I have, maybe because I'm comfortable and able to clearly think through issues, instead of being constantly interrupted by the asshole across the cube farm's ringtone or the loudmouth Sales guy on a call next cube over or a million other irritations at the office. And as far as the time-worn fears of slacking are concerned, honestly I have too much to do to slack off - any supervising manager would be able to tell pretty quickly whether or not their subordinates are abusing the privilege.

Now, this clearly won't work for everyone for obvious reasons - IT support staff, hardware maintenance, client/customer support, supervising managers; you can't really cash in on this goodness. But if you don't deal with face-to-face interactions and your work is mostly conducted electronically, there's no reason not to - that is, as long as you can easily get to the office should the need come up or should your environment prove disruptive.

Some people do abuse the shit out of it - I wanted to strangle the lady who was watching her kids while hosting a call; the kid was yelling and she was goo-goo talking to him and it was just grossly unprofessional. But most people who've been working from home have been extremely professional about it - in fact I usually never know who's at home and who's in the office.

I'm glad to see stories like this - telecommuting has taken tons of stress/aggravation out of my work week and it's had an unfair reputation pinned to it by traditional managers who think it's just too good to be true.

Re:Companies are starting to listen

[Kjella]

If you aren't directly managing employees and/or it isn't necessary for you to have physical access to equipment, there is no reason why working from home won't work.

If the people you're supposed to manage aren't at the office either, it hardly matters.

And as far as the time-worn fears of slacking are concerned, honestly I have too much to do to slack off - any supervising manager would be able to tell pretty quickly whether or not their subordinates are abusing the privilege.

Just wait until there's a quiet period, you'd be surprised how quickly you get used to not working a full day and/or being able to do everything else in between work. Sure if I was grossly slacking my manager would notice but I've never had a boss yet who knew exactly how hard the assignment he gave me was and even if he did, there's a good variance on whether I've done something similar/exactly like this before and any ad hoc issues that might turn up. Hell, even the same person in the same job changes over time when new versions come that make everything easier or harder. Maybe if I was consistently on the poorer side of his estimates over time, but I'd just as easily wager his expectations would be lowered instead. The effect is less if you're at the office during business hours whether there's much work or not.

Also there's another effect I've seen, it's cramming as much work as possible into your working days which obviously impacts quality to do as little as possible during your days at home, sending out yesterday's work as today's. The derogatory term for it here in Norway is "gjemmekontor" instead of "hjemmekontor" - literally translated "hiding office" instead of "home office". Oh sure they usually can't be completely unreachable as that would give it away but they're always conveniently running a quick errand or was putting on a washing machine or some other reason for not answering right away. Of course people do some minor personal stuff at work too, but not all day long. Okay so people don't do it during crunch time but it's a way to get "days off" without taking the financial penalty during normal times.

You don't have to be a slacker to see how the slackers exploit the system. Some people are simply there that they want to deliver an adequate to below average work performance knowing they get an okay pay with a minimum of effort and yet aren't so horrible they'll get fired. And if they put that cleverness into doing their jobs instead of working the system, they'd be very good employees but they don't find there's enough incentive. It's actually very hard to find out whether your employees are really working their best or not. Of course slackers slack at work too, but it's not that enticing there.

Re:"Telecommuting" still taboo

[jtownatpunk.net]

They're not all totally useless. I accidentally became one for a while and didn't realize it until a friend pointed it out. I griped that I'd been busting my ass all week juggling work schedules, project priorities, placating clients, liaising between subcontractors and government agencies, ensuring that my group had enough work to keep them busy, handling exceptions, training, etc. but I hadn't produced anything. "Dude, you're a manger."

A good manager does the annoying crap that's necessary to keep his/her group running smoothly.

Re:"Telecommuting" still taboo

[rtb61]

A 'bad' manager does the annoying crap. A good manager enjoys the varied trouble shooting they do every day, dealing with problem clients, calming upset employees, reorientating upper managements ideas into something workable and basically planing ahead sufficiently well to make themselves redundant (others always create problems to make that goal impossible).