Telecommuting Growing Pains:
Five Tips to Make Your Program Work

Surveys suggest that telecommuting programs are losing favor with some employers concerned about managing employees from afar.  With proper care and management, however, these programs can be successful.

Are telecommuting programs on their way out?  Viewed alone, data from several surveys would seem to point in that direction.  Consider the following statistics:

-- Sixty-five percent of companies surveyed by CareerEngine.com say they plan to hire fewer telecommuters; 21% plan to phase out telecommuting altogether.

-- One-third of the executives polled by the American Management Association (AMA) say they would prefer not to deal with the issue of telecommuting; six out of ten say their employees are not asking for it. 

-- Studies by the Boston College Center for Work and Family and the University of Central Lancashire in the United Kingdom reveal that many telecommuters are plagued by stress, feelings of guilt, and frustration.  

These are inauspicious findings for a phenomenon that was supposed to revolutionize how and where work gets done.  Was telecommuting just a passing fad, or do these numbers reflect a concept that just needs a little retooling?  A report by the Department of Labor (DOL) indicates that telecommuting is still a viable work option, if employers are willing to take more control.

Telecommuting’s Tribulations

The negative publicity and survey data related to telecommuting are not altogether surprising.  In the past, employers rushed to implement telecommuting programs, urged on by claims that telecommuting would help them attract and retain employees, increase productivity, and reduce costs.

Unfortunately, the success of telecommuting depends heavily on applying it to the right position, the right employee, and the right supervisor.  Many organizations simply jumped on the telecommuting bandwagon without first developing a comprehensive, well-thought-out telecommuting strategy.  The result?  Failing programs, resentful managers, and frustrated telecommuters.

DOL: Telecommuting Holds Vast Potential

Still, the DOL suggests that employers should not be too quick to abandon or forgo telecommuting programs.  A new DOL report on telecommuting, Telework and the New Workplace of the 21st Century, released in December 2000, argues that telecommuting has unlimited potential if employers understand it and manage it properly.  The report cites the ability of telecommuting programs to help balance employees’ work and family demands, promote diversity, and increase worker productivity.  The report therefore concludes that with proper management, the benefits of telecommuting can outweigh its costs. 

Employers may be heeding the DOL’s advice.  Despite the gloomy projections of the CareerEngine.com and AMA surveys, the number of telecommuters is on the rise.  According to the International Telework Association and Council (ITAC), there are 16.5 million regularly employed workers in the United States who telecommute at least one day per month.  Slightly more than 17% of these began telecommuting in the past year.  Just over nine million workers telecommute at least one full day per week.  The ITAC projects that there will be 30 million telecommuters in the United States by the end of 2004 and nearly 40 million by 2010.

Five Steps to Better Telecommuting Programs

So, if telecommuting is here to stay, what can you do to implement and manage an effective program?  Consider the following five suggestions to make your program run more smoothly:

1.  Designate jobs for telecommuting. 

Many employers make the mistake of approaching telecommuting with a “wait and see” attitude and neglect to identify in advance what jobs are well suited for working away from the office.  This approach is flawed for two reasons. 

First, not every job lends itself to telecommuting, and sometimes the ones that work best are the least obvious.  For example, the DOL says that telecommuting is best suited to jobs that are information-based, portable, and predictable or that demand a high degree of privacy and concentration.  The ITAC further suggests that you should analyze the job activity, not the job title, to determine suitability.  The key, it says, is to find jobs with at least a portion of the work that can be done as well, or better, away from the office.  Telecommuting can take advantage of technology and get the employee away from the distractions and interruptions in the typical work environment.

Second, if you do not identify jobs up front, you put the burden on your employees and managers to guess which jobs are eligible for the program.  That approach signals that your plan is disorganized, or worse, that you are not committed to the program.

2.  Choose the right employees. 

Just as not every position is right for telecommuting, neither is every person.  The most successful telecommuters typically are motivated self-starters, able to work without much supervision, and capable of handling the stresses of isolation and the blurred boundaries between work and home life.  According to the study carried out by researchers at the U.K.’s University of Central Lancashire, telecommuters who need the emotional support and camaraderie typically found at the office often end up suffering from poor concentration, sleeping problems, worry, and stress

3.  Get management support at all levels. 

Too many telecommuting programs fail because senior executives and managers do not really support them.  Often, programs do not have the necessary “buy-in” from the people who have to approve and manage the telecommuting process because the programs were developed as knee-jerk reactions to media reports or competitor practices or as quick-fixes for retention problems.

In addition, some supervisors reject telecommuting because it does not fit with their managerial style.  Managers who are uncomfortable losing physical proximity to their employees can sabotage the program by ignoring the basic tenets of the telecommuting arrangement on issues such as meeting times, work hours, and technical support.  Nothing is more frustrating to a telecommuter than a boss who repeatedly schedules meetings for telecommuting days and then either expects the worker to come in or says the worker’s presence is not needed.  In the first case, the telecommuter feels that the supervisor is not honoring the agreement; and in the second, the worker feels unimportant and replaceable.

To gain management support, employers should involve supervisors in every aspect of the telecommuting program.  Managers should be required to help determine which jobs are well suited for telecommuting positions and which employees should be eligible.  In addition, managers should be evaluated on their ability to supervise telecommuters.  In turn, HR and upper management should recognize and publicize telecommuting success stories to show company-wide support for the program.

4.  Provide training to supervisors, telecommuters, and on-site employees. 

Telecommuting is a big adjustment for most everyone.  Supervisors need to adopt new management styles, telecommuters have to adapt to new work environments, and on-site employees must cope with changing cultures and new ways of working.  The best way for these three groups to make this transition successfully is with the help of training.

A major component of the training should include an explanation (and written provision) of the organization’s telecommuting policy.  This policy should outline the company’s positions on eligibility, work hours, equipment provision, technical support, performance measurements, family care, recordkeeping, ownership of physical and intellectual property, requirements for in-office appearances, and termination of the program.

By providing all employees—telecommuters and non-telecommuters—with explanations of their telecommuting policies, employers can prevent many of the questions and resentments that arise when telecommuting is introduced.  For example, speculation that workers are using their time at home to be with their children can be stopped before it starts by clearly stating the company’s policy that alternative child care arrangements must be in place during the agreed upon work hours.  At the same time, grievances about any inability to reach telecommuters during the office workday can be alleviated by sharing the telecommuters’ work schedules with employees and setting up regular times and channels for communication.

5.  Make telecommuting an integral part of the workplace. 

To succeed, telecommuting must become an accepted, integral part of the workplace.  It must be considered whenever business objectives and human resource strategies are discussed.  As new lines of business, products, services, or initiatives are introduced, HR professionals should determine what new positions will be needed and how many of them will be suitable for telecommuting. 

Finally, HR and IT professionals should look for new technologies that may make telecommuting easier.  The development of instant messaging capabilities is one example of a relatively simple, widespread technology that can enhance the telecommuting experience.  By providing the ability to hold real-time conversations on the computer, instant messaging can help employees at home and in the office connect with one another in a way that formal telephone conversations or time-lapse e-mails do not.

Manage the Process to Reap the Benefits

These are just a few steps that you can take to enhance the value of your telecommuting pro-grams.  Given the potential benefits, you can still reap a meaningful payoff from telecommuting if you follow these tips, take control, and actively manage the process.

For more information on Telecommuting 

AMA/ITAC Survey on Telework, available on the AMA Web site at www.amanet.org/research/pdfs/itac_sumary.pdf

Telework and the New Workplace of the 21st Century, available on the DOL Web site at www.dol.gov/dol/asp/public/telework/main.htm

Telecommuting information and resources, available on the ITAC Web site at www.telecommute.org