Telecommuting: Is working from home really all it's cracked up to be?

I have commented before on the growing legion of companies allowing their employees to work from home due to rising gas prices and the ease of communication; but now I am going to take a deeper look at whether or not this is actually something companies should be pursuing.

In a recent article in the Metro Newspaper, staff writer Amy Zimmer reported that many luxury high rise apartment buildings in New York City are beginning to take advantage of the recent telecommuting boom and are adding small work spaces or business centers to their buildings. Additionally, Zimmer notes, "Of Fortune magazine's most recent 100 best companies to work for, 84 allowed employees to telecommute or work from home at least 20 percent of the time, including GoldmanSachs, which has 22 percent of its employees telecommuting and Cisco Systems, which has 70 percent [wow!] telecommuters."

There is obviously something to be said for working from home, both from an employees standpoint and an employers standpoint. For many employees, working from home saves them money on the gas it would cost them to drive to work, reduces the potentially stressful morning and evening commutes, increases potential work time, and, if nothing else, allows them to work in their pajamas. For employers the value in having your employees work from home is obvious - reduced overhead. Why pay for expensive corporate headquarters during a recessed economy when you can have many "mini-corporate headquarters" in your employees' homes?

Telecommuting sounds great, right? Well there is also a downside and it is important for organizations to weigh these negative attributes carefully before allowing their workforces to make conference calls from their beds.

The Downside to Telecommuting

1. Reduced oversight - Though this may not be a huge problem plaguing successful companies, the risk of having employees slack off due to the lack of oversight is increased by not having them come in to the office. The home can be a very distracting place, especially when you are working on a project that doesn't truly excite you. The siren song of daytime soap operas or Judge Judy may be too strong when you have a boring spread sheet to fill out and, as a result, you may put it off until another time or rush through the project during the commericals. With the advent of the Internet and other time distractions at work, it comes as no surprise that employees are not always 100% focused on their actual job, but at least when they are in the office, managers can help them refocus and motivate them to achieve their goals; this is not the case when working at home.
2. The lack of human contact - Though many of our modern communication tools can keep us in touch with each other 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, they have also, to a certain extent stifled many of our primal communication abilities. Too often I have heard people say, "oh I'll just shoot him/her an email and wait for them to get back to me." Instead of picking up a phone and verbally communicating with a colleague, email has arguably taken over as the number one form of business communication (I'm pretty sure people use their blackberry's for email more than they do phone calls). When people are working from home, this can passive communication trap may get worse. Though communications today may be reduced to a few bullet points in an email, when people are working in an office they are forced to interact with other people, even if it is only a run-of-the-mill "good morning" to the security guard at the door. Communication is essential for successful business; reducing your employees opportunities for interaction may reduce organizational efficiency and cripple team work.
3. It stifles creativity - People are social animals and feed off of each others' creative energies. It is hard to share ideas when you are sitting at home in front of your laptop. Even for those people who have a workhorse mentality and would rather focus on a single task at time and follow it through to completion, working in a team and surrounding yourself with others who are working toward the same goal can help stimulate your productivity and creativity. This leads to a more rewarding experience and a better overall outcome of the project.

My point in all this is not discourage people from working from home or to convince organizations that there is no value is allowing employees to work their pajamas. What I am saying is to weigh the costs and benefits carefully and perhaps create a compromise that attempts to harness the benefits and minimize the detriments to telecommuting.

Labels: Aspen Organization Development, Organization Development, organizational development, telecommuting, working from home