I spent 3 years partially telecommuting. For 6 months during the winter I telecommuted. For 6 months during the summer, I worked in the office.
From my experience, if you're motivated to work in the office, you're just as motivated to work at home. If you only work on an hour a day at home, that means you can get away with that level of productivity. Being in the office is highly unlikely to make you more productive.
I found little or no difference between my productivity between the alternating 6 month periods.
Whether telecommuting works or not depends on the type of work. Back then, I worked on small development projects with little interaction with other developers. It made little difference whether I was in the office or at home. Nowadays, I work in an agile team practicing SCRUM with plenty of developer interaction. For this type of work, I need to be in the office.
I think the biggest problem with telecommuting is that of perception. A lot of managers like people to be visible and in the office - 'bums on seats' (*). This may be for reasons such as reassurance that are people are 'working' (sitting at a desk is not the same as working), keeping up appearances or something else entirely. What these managers don't realise is that forcing people to be located in the office instead of home doesn't suddenly make them more productive.
As for the pyjamas - if the work is done, who cares?
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I spent 3 years partially telecommuting. For 6 months during the winter I telecommuted. For 6 months during the summer, I worked in the office.
From my experience, if you're motivated to work in the office, you're just as motivated to work at home. If you only work on an hour a day at home, that means you can get away with that level of productivity. Being in the office is highly unlikely to make you more productive.
I found little or no difference between my productivity between the alternating 6 month periods.
Whether telecommuting works or not depends on the type of work. Back then, I worked on small development projects with little interaction with other developers. It made little difference whether I was in the office or at home. Nowadays, I work in an agile team practicing SCRUM with plenty of developer interaction. For this type of work, I need to be in the office.
I think the biggest problem with telecommuting is that of perception. A lot of managers like people to be visible and in the office - 'bums on seats' (*). This may be for reasons such as reassurance that are people are 'working' (sitting at a desk is not the same as working), keeping up appearances or something else entirely. What these managers don't realise is that forcing people to be located in the office instead of home doesn't suddenly make them more productive.
As for the pyjamas - if the work is done, who cares?
* UK usage of the 'bum'