Brent Toderash writes about the temptation to lie or misrepresent yourself to your customers/clients when working from home. Because of the fear of being looked down upon because of one’s workplace (ie: home), people will refer to their one-person operations as “we” instead of “I”, will not be up front with people that they are not working in a “real” office, and will even go so far as to play a soundtrack in the background playing fake office sounds so as to give the person on the other line the impression that they are working in a “real” office.

I agree with Brent on this one - lying to one’s customers, coworkers or clients is never acceptable. However, I would qualify that as long as working from a home office does not affect your work in a negative way, there is no reason to bring this up with someone right away. As long as it will not be a distraction (ie: no crying babies in the background), treat your home office as if it were a “real” office. There is no need for misrepresentation or fake soundtracks - and there is also no need to be openly defensive about your choice of workplace. Act professionally towards those with whom you work and treat your workplace as you would any other - no one can ask any more from you.

I will be the first to admit it - some offices can be very fun (and therefore less likely to have people running for the telecommuting hills). A case in point:

Lip Dub - Flagpole Sitta by Harvey Danger from amandalynferri on Vimeo

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.

Lisa Floreancig reports on NAMIC Online about a Minnesota Insurance company (Midwest Family Mutual Insurance) that has gone completely virtual.

In 2002, Boyd set the company on a business path that included no paper and all but five employees working from home… Today, Midwest is completely paperless, allowing not a shred to move out of its central location… Once the paperless strategy was successfully implemented, the next logical step was to move nearly all of Midwest’s 61 employees out of the building and into a home-office environment.

The first thing that impresses me is that they had the foresight to go paperless and officeless all the way back in 2002. MFMI implemented an impressive system (which seems to be documented in this case study) for distributing all documents electronically to different employees as needed (and this in the insurance industry, which is not exactly paper-light). From there they transitioned to a completely office-less environment, implementing technology to route telephone calls to employees over the web.  In addition to saving on office costs, their CEO reports that their employee productivity has actually gone up:

 Boyd attributes the signs of early success to fewer workday interruptions, resulting in greater productivity. “We don’t realize how many interruptions there are in a tight office environment until you get to work from home. We don’t realize how much quieter it is. We still have the opportunity to send each other emails or pick up the phone and collaborate on underwriting files. We still have meetings. We just don’t see each other face to face.”

As to the the future of telecommuting:

I don’t understand why we are not seeing more of this in this country. We are log jammed and snarled in traffic. I hear a lot about energy conservation,” Boyd says. “We are not commuting, but change is tough. And you are dealing with a certain amount of ego of some CEOs who need to be in an office. We don’t need to be in a big office to stroke our egos. Why have all this money tied up in bricks and mortar?”

In a recent article published in Business Week (The Importance of Being There, reg. required), Jack and Suzy Welch write about one aspect of telecommuting that can be very detrimental for the development and success of one’s overall career:

But what you can’t do very well from home is lead. To lead, it’s no good blowing into town for important meetings and showing up at retreats. You have to muddle in the muck in between. People have to see how calm you stay in a PR crisis, how decent you are to new employees who don’t have the hang of things, how much you sweat during a tough deal, and how hard you work on a deadline without bitching and moaning. Or how you don’t do any or all of the above.

Which brings us back to face time. Companies rarely promote people into leadership roles who haven’t been consistently seen and measured. It’s a familiarity thing, and it’s a trust thing. We’re not saying that the people who get promoted are stars during every “crucible” moment at the office, but at least they’re present and accounted for. And their presence says: Work is my top priority. I’m committed to this company. I want to lead. And I can.

As they correctly point out, nowadays one can accomplish nearly every task related to one’s job (especially when closer to entry-level and farther away from management) away from the office. In some ways, one can even work better away from the hustle and bustle. But if you are interested in becoming a “leader” (as Welch was at GE), you will never be able to succeed if you are not there every day, being active and in-person.

Obviously, if management is your number-one career goal, then telecommuting can only be a short-term solution for you. However, for many types of jobs (especially those that are very techno-centered) and for people who are happy with what they are doing and do not have ambitions of leadership and management, telecommuting may very well turn out to be a much longer-term solution than described by the Welch’s in their article (Robert Mitchell makes a similar point in his blog post on the subject).