InsideRecuiting has published an article giving lots of insight into how companies are relating to telecommuting:

Workers are affected negatively by long commutes

• New survey by the Urban Land Institute: 69% of the larger companies (those with 100-plus employees) believe a long commute time increases employee stress, but 55% reported a lack of affordable housing near their location
• 76% of workers between 18 and 34 would be at least somewhat likely to make a lateral employment move in exchange for a shorter commute (Harris Interactive)

Telecommuting trends

• 45% of the larger companies offer flextime to reduce commuting time, but just 21% offer telecommuting
• 29% of companies say they plan to use a telecommuting program and will allow workers to telecommute every day, and 16% will allow workers to telecommute one or two days a week. Another 17% said they would consider it, if enough employees requested the option (EE)
• Korn/Ferry survey of 1,320 executives indicated that 61% believe telecommuters are less likely to be promoted, compared to their on-site colleagues. Still, 48% said they would consider a telecommuting arrangement

Impact on Environment, Finance

• IBM (25% of 300,000 workers telecommute) estimates that they save $700 million annually because of telecommuting
• Cisco has cut travel by 20% a year due to videoconferencing (two million miles of travel saved, CO₂ emissions lowered by approximately 10%)
• Sun has flexible policies regarding telework, offers local “drop-in centers” which save employees 90 minutes of commuting time ($63 million and 29,000 tons of CO₂ emissions saved annually)

Read more: Honk If Your Company Loves Telecommuting

A recent article in the Wall Street Journal by Sue Shellenbarger talks about the other side of telecommuting - people who work remotely and end up disliking the experience:

It’s an ironic twist on corporate America’s march toward telecommuting: A small but significant number of foot soldiers dislike the trend…A large majority of workers like working from home because it offers flexibility and reduces commuting costs and hassles. (As a longtime telecommuter, I am among them.) But the very perk that so many people covet in their quest to balance work and personal life is anathema to others. Among office workers who could telecommute if they wanted — that is, who have jobs or employer policies that permit working from home — 14% want to stay in the office…

Though this number - 14% - is definitely in the minority, it is still a significant percentage of people who for various reasons would prefer to work in the office rather than remotely.

According to the article, one of the main factors in telecommuting that causes this dissatisfaction is lack of social contact with ones coworkers. When working remotely, one cannot meet one’s peers face-to-face on a daily basis. For those who find this contact to be an integral part of their workday, the lack of it is something that can be very detrimental.

The article also talks about the steps that some individuals and companies are taking to try to address this issue. Some people make sure that they have daily schedules, maintain contact with coworkers via phone and Instant Messenger, or make a point of going into the office at least once every few weeks. Some companies retrain employees and managers to prepare them for working and supervising remotely, while others IBM (who have 40% of their 330,000 employees working remotely) have invested in programs to help rebuild their workplace culture:

IBM set about rebuilding workplace culture. The company last year began pouring new resources into the “IBM Club,” an 80-year-old employee organization that had shrunk amid 1990s spending cuts, revitalizing it as a vehicle for employee sports leagues, parties and networking; membership has grown to 90,000. Managers started “speed mentoring,” gathering employees in small groups with a senior manager for advice, says Monica Chambers, a human-resource manager. IBM also expanded and improved satellite offices as a place to meet and use support services. (Moves like IBM’s are fostering a boom in leased satellite and temporary office space.) Morale ratings rose 28 percentage points over 18 months, with 78% saying they were happy in their jobs, Mr. Pelino says.

Whatever is done to address this, potential dissatisfaction (especially because of lack of social contact) is something that any would-be telecommuter employee or employer should be aware of, and should take proactive steps to address and fix.

Hunter Arnold states that telecommuting is not all that it is hyped up to be and that it will really lead to less productivity than if the same people had gone into an office instead of going home:

So many modern workers are “telecommuting” or “working from home” that these days that it seems like no one shows up to the office at all.  If working at home worked was as productive as coming to the office and helped me avoid traffic, I’d be the first one to jump on the band wagon. But the problem is, there isn’t much evidence  that “working from home” or “virtual officing” is even close to as effective as showing up at the office.

Why is this?

Despite my determination and drive, I’m the first to admit that if I’m working from my kitchen, I’m probably not as productive as I am in the office.  When I’m in the office, I’m more likely to be focused and committed. There’s no doorbell or TV or pantry to distract me.  More importantly, I’m surrounded by my contemporaries, who stimulate and challenge me to give my work my all.  So why is working at home so popular?  Because it’s a major excuse not to work at all.

I would like to respectfully disagree with this blanket assessment of productivity in home vs. office as well as the conclusions that are reached. There are definitely situations and industries where people are better off in the office. When person-to-person interaction is required, there is no substitute for being the same room as a coworker. And even in industries where telecommuting might make sense, if you are someone who requires being “surrounded by your contemporaries, who stimulate and challenge you to give your work your all” in order to be productive, then you definitely should not work from home.

(And if as Hunter suggests, everyone who telecommuted worked from their kitchens, than I would have to agree with many of his assessments. A kitchen is not a place that is conducive to reducing distractions or providing an environment suitable for working productively. However, there are other places in the house where a person can work, and there are strategies and methods that one can use in order to create a place in your home that can serve as a proper work environment.)

However, if you are someone who wastes 4-5 hours a week in worthless meetings, 1-2 hours a week rifling through your desk, 5-10 hours a week in a car shuttling back and forth from the office; If you are someone who may only really accomplish 1.5 hours of solid work a day, and for you, one of the main sources of wasted time is your commute and the office environment (unfortunately, but not everyone is lucky enough to have a job and coworkers who consistently stimulate and challenge you to give work your all), and if you are in a job which permits it and you yourself are able to handle it, then by telecommuting, you will almost certainly be able to achieve higher levels of productivity and job satisfaction than if you were at the office.

The National Defense University (Wikipedia) has released a report for how organizations should respond in the case of a (flu) pandemic outbreak. In this report, under the section of “Making the Workplace Safe”, employee telecommuting is given as one of the things that an organization should prepare for in the case where large numbers of workers are unable to make it in (page vi).

The report also compares preparation for a flu pandemic to the preparation for the “Y2K Bug” that swept through the IT world a decade ago (page 13). Although much of the panic over Y2K was not really necessary, the investments that companies made to fix their computer systems also gave other benefits, as other upgrades, enhancements and bugs were taken care of at the same time. The case could be the same if a company chooses to prepare its infrastructure for telecommuting now, with worries about a flu pandemic as part of the impetus. We all hope that this infrastructure will never have to be used for this purpose. However, a business setting up its infrastructure to allow for telecommuting may also yield some other unexpected positive returns:

Once a company has prepared its workforce for telecommuting, however, the potential for increased productivity is considerable. A 2001 survey from the International Telework association and Council noted that almost three-fourths of managers polled reported slightly or greatly increased productivity from their employees who were working at home. About one-fifth of managers felt that productivity stayed about the same, and only about six percent felt that productivity declined. The impetus for spending money to remove old code was preparation for Y2K. Similarly, the impetus for preparing the workforce for telecommuting may be pandemic preparedness. In the end, the chicken with bird flu may eventually be the source of a golden egg for your organization, as the pandemic expenditures may well prove as beneficial to organizational efficiency as the Y2K expenses.

Though this is not the normal sales-pitch for telecommuting that we are used to hearing, the argument does have some merits (and in the eventuality that there ever would be a flu pandemic, those companies prepared to support their employees while working remotely will have a very large advantage over their competitors who do not have any such infrastructure in place). (Via ThreatsWatch)

John Wesley writes (Why the 9 to 5 Office Worker Will Become a Thing of the Past, found via War-N) about how the traditional work day (”9-5″) is very inefficient for many of today’s workers, and ends up with less productive, less satisfied employees.

A continuous 8 hour work day is a relic of the past. It makes sense for physical labor and manufacturing work, but with information workers it doesn’t account for the mental energy cycle…In the case of the modern information worker, nearly all tasks involve creative or strategic thinking…

I can’t speak for all workers, but I’ve observed that productivity levels generally peak twice a day — first thing in the morning and shortly after lunch. The most productive period is the beginning of the day. People are capable of creative tasks like writing and solving complex technical problems. After a couple hours of intense work, energy levels drop and workers downgrade to less demanding tasks like responding to email and tinkering with existing creations. Towards the end of the cycle, the mind is so cluttered and drained that workers resort to “work related activities” that appear productive but don’t contribute to the bottom line. The afternoon cycle is similar but the productivity peak isn’t as high. For different people the peaks and valleys will vary, but overall I’d estimate only 3-4 hours a day could be classified as highly productive. This number isn’t caused by slacking. You can’t force an information worker to be highly productive when the energy isn’t there.

While the 9-5 work day is a relic of manufacturing labor, it does also make sense if there is a need for people to all be present at one location at one time. (Though I do remember a partial solution at a company where I once interviewed: Everyone had to work 8 hours a day, and everyone had to be present on-site between the hours of 11am and 2pm. Thus there is a time when everyone can have meetings, and there are also accommodations in place for those who are early or late risers.)

Wesley suggests as a solution that the work day should be planned around times when the worker’s mental energies are at their peaks. This means that the 8 hours may not be consecutive, and will most probably be scattered in bursts throughout the day. As a computer programmer, I personally find this to be very true - I often find myself reading blogs (or playing DTD) during the middle of the day not as a way to avoid work, but rather as a way to regroup my mental energy after one task, in preparation for the next.

The solution that makes the most sense is a remote work arrangement because it reduces employer costs and allows employees to adjust their work schedule to their mental energy cycle. When a worker becomes mentally fatigued, they can go off the clock and engage in recharge activities that are personally productive like exercise or relaxation. When energy returns, the worker can start working again at a high level, effectively cutting out the low productivity period of the cycle. Employers don’t pay for unproductive time and employees get to work in a more natural pattern that adjusts to their personal lives.

A good point is made at the end of the article that the biggest barrier to larger scale adoption to telecommuting is inertia and office politics. I would contend though that there will always be certain industries that are better suited towards telecommuting (and outsourcing), such as computer programming, and certain industries that will never fully transition to this (hospitals, psychologists, universities and schools, power plants, manufacturing, etc).

An article by Dave McGinn (The failed revolution) just published in the Financial Post of Canada (found via Northern Telework) talks about how overall, the telecommuting phenomenon is not living up to expectations:

THE PROMISE With the advent of the Internet and tools such as e-mail, the notion of getting up in the morning and actually travelling to some far-away office seemed totally unnecessary. Back in the ’90s, companies were buying that idea. “Telecommuting is hot among businesses small and large,” BusinessWeek magazine noted in April, 1999. Advocates were quick to point out telework’s many advantages: companies would save on reduced office space costs, employees would benefit by not having to waste time or money commuting to work and all parties would enjoy a more flexible, productive workplace.

THE REALITY While the Canadian Telework Association estimates that some 1.5 million Canadians now telecommute in one form or another, up from 600,000 a decade ago, working off-site still carries the stigma it did back in 1999: “There are many managers who think that if they let one person do it then they have to let everyone do it, or that telework doesn’t work for teamwork or that management is too difficult with people working off-site,” says Bob Fortier, CTA president. Even organizations that have instituted telework programs, including Bell Canada, Inco Ltd., Bank of Montreal and IBM, are aware of telecommuting’s bad reputation. “There is definitely still skepticism and a question of ‘are you really working?’” says Deenah Patel, manager of corporate diversity at IBM Canada.

It seems that the expectations were that telecommuting was a solution that could be applied to everyone in every situation. I think that this does not quite jive with reality. As more people become educated regarding the pros and cons of telecommuting, and in what situations, industries (and types of workers) it is best applied, look to see levels of disappointment lower.

HR Daily Advisor has posted an article by Jay Schleifer (Telecommuters: Why They’re Suing Their Employers) reporting that as telecommuting is becoming more popular (up 40% in a single year), instances of remote workers suing their employers are becoming more common.

The crux of the issue is control. Without direct on-site supervision, employers simply don’t have it over how many hours employees work, whether they’re following company policy, and even whether home offices are properly set up so that workers don’t lose client information or injure themselves using ergonomically unsound equipment.

The solution appears to be in thinking through and implementing a set of solid policies to resolve the issues above, at the start of any telecommuting relationship.

According to Schleifer, some of the different issues that should be fleshed out include:

• Wage and Hours - determine exactly when the employee should be working. How is this reported, how is overtime to be handled?
• Enforce work schedules - make sure that agreements about overtime (or the non-approval of overtime) are followed
• Travel Expenses and Equipment - who buys it, who is responsible for its maintenance, what will happen to it if the employee leaves the company, how much will be the company’s responsibility, how much the employee’s (ie: the company may by the computer, but what about headphones? desk? surge protector? phone bill?)
• Proprietary Information - how should this be controlled and safeguarded when stored primarily in the employees home
• ADA Compliance - If applicable, how will the company work with disabled employees who are working from home

Although the $65 million dollar lawsuits will tend to happen more with extremely large companies like IBM (who have much more ingrained bureaucracy), many of these issues are still extremely relevant for smaller companies who employee remote workers. While any good employer-employee relationship must be based on trust (and even more so for telecommuters), potentially disruptive issues like the ones described above are best handled at the outset rather than after the fact.

CIO Magazine has just published an article called Seven Things the CIO Should Know About Telecommuting (found via SlashDot) by Esther Schindler. The summary is:

1. Telecommuting saves money for the company - you will save on lower office expenses for the telecommuter, you can hire people in different locales for less money than you would have to pay locally.
2. Telecommuters can be more productive - Many people thrive in a quieter environment, away from the hustle and bustle. Face time can sometimes be inverse to productivity.
3. Telecommuting doesn’t work for everyone - You need to be self-motivated and be able to be away from the social outlets that an office can provide in order to be a successful telecommuter
4. Trust your people - Having workers out of the office is not possible unless you trust them to be able to work away from your scrutiny.
5. Hone management skills for telecommuting - Communication is key. You have to be able to adapt your management style to focus on the parts of the job that need emphasis for the remote worker.
6. Keep the telecommuter in the loop -Email, IM, phone - make sure that you stay connected with them, and they stay connected with you. They are still part of the team.
7. Tools and technology make the difference - Get them a good computer, help them outfit their home-office, set up a VPN, pay for their office-related expenses, buy them a second (or third!) computer.

In short, telecommuting is a viable way for employees to work efficiently and productively, providing that they are supported by their employer and supervisor. See the article for more information and thoughts on the subject.