Telecommuting sounds like a great idea, and I would be all for it (everything I do can be done from a workstation anywhere in the country). A local news broadcast this morning was talking about the tremendous savings to companies (I think I heard that Siemens saves $3 million a year by having sales reps work at home), as well as the great savings in fuel, pollution, traffic congestion & employee stress. All in all it sounds like any company that could keep its employees at home would be insane not to.
But here is the catch. If I get up and walk around the building, I can easily count about a dozen (out of 120 or so) people who should be working but aren’t. Either they’re yaking it up by the proverbial water cooler, goofing off in the break room, on personal calls for 30 minutes, or posting to message boards
In short, if it’s easy enough to goof off right here under the supervisor’s nose, how do you make sure that employees sitting at home don’t take a 90 minute lunch hour, 27 breaks and watch soaps all day long? Does the boss need to inspect your home before he allows you to work there? The company surely needs some assurance that your workplace is actually conducive to working.
I would be afraid that the whole job would become one big numbers game. You’d be told that you didn’t make or receive x number of phone calls or write x number of pages in my report, or that you just didn’t ring up enough keyboard clicks today and it better not become a habit.
A lot of people telecommute where I work. Some telecommute on certain days (my boss does on Wednesday and Friday) and some all the time. We are a pretty laid back company, and work productivity is essentially measured by What Gets Done. If the boss says, “do this” and it gets done, then all is good.
I work in the development (read “programming”) department. Unlike the many horror stories one hears of idiot managers who know nothing about computers, all the managers in the development department are themselves seasoned programmers, so they know exactly what to expect from their underlings. Makes things sooooo much easier.
I agree with friedo. When I worked from home I was given assignments and deadlines. The only thing that mattered was getting the assignment done by the deadline. It didn’t matter exactly when I did it. Often times when the weather was nice, I would play outside all day and do my actual work in the evening.
I was a telecommuter full-time for a year. As long as I did my work on-time, no one cared when I did it, or where (I did a bit of personal travel then, and did most of my work on the road with my laptop).
So, while I wasn’t at my desk at 9am each day, I certainly made sure my work was done before my boss (coincidentally, it was my mother) got to her desk by 9am in the morning.
I telecommute; currently part-time, but with a goal of full-time next year. The measurement of my productivity is whether I get the work done. I get as much or more done at home than I do at the office. Here, there are fewer distractions, and I save about two hours a day avoiding the commute. The danger for a lot of telecommuters - including myself - is knowing when to STOP working. Since the stuff is always here, I tend to keep at it.
You can find general telecommuting information and lots of links here:
