• Telecommuting Is Often Poorly Understood
Deb Perelman over at ZDnet posted a blog last week titled “What your boss hates about telecommuting.” She argues that
- Telecommuting is often poorly defined.
- Not every company, or job role or individual is cut out for remote work.
- There is no substitute for face-to-face interaction.
Can’t argue with any of those points, in general. But she doesn’t seem to understand some of the fundamentals of telecommuting.
Telecommuting, like any other business method, needs to be understood and managed. If it’s poorly defined then someone isn’t doing their job. Furthermore, if anyone thinks that telecommuting simply means not driving to the office, that you should be at your desk just as if you were in the office, then some education is in order. In the office and at home results are what matter not sitting at a desk from 9 to 5. If you or management can’t define your work in terms of product, not process, the definition problem goes deeper than just telecommuting.
She quotes Susan Harkins at Tech Republic’s Tech of All Trades blog in defense of her second point: “…Technical support can be awkward. IT has never made a house call to my house.” But tech support using remote desktop software and other more sophisticated tools means that most tech support solutions will work at home. Obviously if your job depends on technology and you don’t have a clue how to do what’s necessary to keep it working there’s a problem that isn’t a telecommuting issue.
While the ‘out of sight, out of mind’ problem may be an issue in old style companies, modern companies actively embrace the advantages of e-work. The three founders of the hugely successful mySQL (24 million installations, 50,000 downloads a day)), for example, each live in a different country. Today their 400+ employees live in 26 countries on every continent except Antarctica.
July 22nd, 2008 at 11:15 am
All in all, there needs to be a system of checks and balances in place…like you said…it needs to be “managed and understood.” Once this has been achieved, you can begin tweaking the areas that need improvement thus maximizing the potential.
July 24th, 2008 at 7:47 pm
[...] I need to do this more, not less. I’m not sure if its the culture at my office or it’s simply an American culture that makes me feel guilty about working from home, but I am feeling [...]
July 27th, 2008 at 1:40 am
[...] I need to do this more, not less. I’m not sure if its the culture at my office or it’s simply an American culture that makes me feel guilty about working from home, but I am feeling [...]