I recently attended a work/life seminar, and was surprised by the differing ideas of what it means to telecommute. One of the guest speakers gave a long talk on the great flexibility of her job, because she has an hour-and-a-half commute (each way!!!), and telecommuting allows her to take conference calls while she’s driving to work. I felt a little bit as though I’d fallen through the looking glass- I had never heard anyone describe telecommuting as being on the telephone while commuting. Besides the fact that I don’t want to be on the road anywhere near her while she’s handling calls from Asia, I also suggested that if it doesn’t matter that she’s in the car, it shouldn’t matter if she takes the calls from home.
If common sense, advanced technology and high speed Internet are still slow to change the business world, maybe the cost argument in possibly recessionary times will kick companies into gear. I’ll say this quietly, but I don’t need a raise if I save half on my fuel costs by driving into work half as often- the impact to my household budget is the same. And if the company also saves on both real estate and office energy costs, well, it’s another win-win.
I enjoyed the cost-benefits analysis and multiple links of this Canadian telework site:
- With telework, AT&T saved $3,000 per office for approximately $550 million by eliminating or consolidating office space people no longer need.
- About 25% of IBM’s 320,000 workers worldwide telecommute from home offices, saving $700 million in real estate costs.
This desire to show face time in the office is still very difficult to overcome, and too many working women and men feel apologetic for even asking for the flexibility that our own technology products support. Here’s hoping that we continue to chip away at the unspoken expectations, and embrace measuring our output at work, not our face-time and cubicle input.
4 responses so far ↓
Chessia // Feb 19, 2008 at 4:45 pm
I think the reason that a lot of people don’t think they can ask for telecommuting benefits (and NO I am not talking about taking conference calls while driving…that is NUTS!) is because they don’t consider themselves ‘techies’ or capable of handling the new technologies that afford us additional flexibility. For telecommuting to wrok, communication is KEY, and therefore great managerial skill is needed to accommodate that.
I am NOT a ‘techie’ but have no trouble working from home thanks to my managers insistence on communication with everyone in teh company. We have been working with a great service called ooVoo recently which is a free video messaging program that allows up to 6 person video conference calls with great quality. It also has IMing, texting, audio chat, and video email so all communication needs can be met in one super simple program. Its worth checking out. (http://www.oovoo.com)
Thanks for your post and I hope more people take it seriously so that we move into a world with more telecommuting (heck, at least for the environmental benefits)
Cali Ressler and Jody Thompson // Feb 24, 2008 at 4:35 am
Yes!! Let’s continue to chip away at old beliefs we have about the way work needs to happen. No one should ever have to beg to ‘be flexible’ at their workplace. We are all adults who can be trusted to get our work done whenever, wherever, and however we need to…as long as it gets done.
It’s time for a revolution against the status quo!
Cali Ressler and Jody Thompson
Creators of the Results-Only Work Environment (ROWE)
Authors of the forthcoming book “Why Work Sucks and How to Fix It”
Jennifer Dearing // Feb 24, 2008 at 11:32 am
Thank you all for your excellent comments! I haven’t used ooVoo before, but it looks like I need to get with the program. Tomorrow I have a meeting with the Work/Life coordinator for my employer about encouraging more telecommuting, and these are some great suggestions. With around 10,000 employees in the Dallas area alone, changing mindsets in just this one company continues to help improve our air quality. This can feel like such a slow fight, but it’s so necessary.
Cali Ressler and Jody Thompson // Feb 26, 2008 at 4:01 am
Jennifer -
Yes - keep fighting the fight! We were underlings in the bowels of Corporate America when we bucked the status quo and said “NO MORE!” There is so much that will benefit if we have the courage to change our mindsets and help change theirs.
Cali and Jody
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