Here's a fun one to end your day on. Employees who frequently telecommute may damage or kill their chances to advance within a particular career. Over 60% of 1,320 global executives surveyed by executive search firm Korn/Ferry International said they believe that telecommuters are less likely to advance in their careers in comparison to employees working in traditional office settings. Company executives want face time with their employees, the study said. Oddly enough despite this assertion, 48% of respondents indicated that they would consider a job which involved telecommuting on a regular basis and the vast majority 78% stated that telecommuters are either equally or more productive than those who work in offices. When asked which type of flexible working arrangement they found most attractive, 46% of respondents most preferred the option of working flexible hours, Korn/Ferry said.
The study's results fly in the face though of a growing movement . Since 1990, 1990, the number of teleworkers has grown to over 45 million from about 4 million says the Telework Coalition. Even President Bush and other top administrators have championed telework as a vital part of business-continuity plans. Gas prices, traffic congestion and housing costs are also factors driving telecommuting.
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It's all true about not advancing if you telecommute
Managers at paternalistic companies like the one I work for are locked into an illusion that they have great control of what employees are doing and will lose that if the employees are not in the office. They think they are getting more work out of employees in the office, but the opposite may well be true when employees jammed together in crummy cubicles are being distracted by coworkers, drawn into useless meetings and socializing.
Paternalistic companies losing most creative staff
You are right. The better companies that I have worked for are performance driven. However, when you are forced to work in a cramped office, a huge amount of your time is taken up by distractions that can dramatically impact your productivity. Like listening to other officemates chat with their friends on the phone, doing favors for other co-workers who are too lazy to do things for themselves, etc. Not to mention hours spent driving or wrestling with public transportation.
>Managers at paternalistic companies like the one I work for are locked into an illusion that they have great control of what employees are doing and will lose that if the employees are not in the office.
Perhaps its insecurity that they themselves are not an essential part of the company's product and so, in lieu of that, they want to take credit for others work, which is hard when they aren't there?
>They think they are getting more work out of employees in the office, but the opposite may well be true when employees jammed together in crummy cubicles are being distracted by coworkers, drawn into useless meetings and socializing.
meetings can be either useful or useless. One of the best companies I ever worked at had weekly meetings in which everyone, both on and off site participated in (the telecommuters were present by means of a conference call)
This worked out well.
You don't want to work for anyone....
...for whom "face time" is THAT important.
*Results* count. Not much else.
BWilde.
The right work ethics
I've been telecommuning for 9 years with my current employer and must say that I am much more productive working at home than I have ever been working in the tradional office setting. I have a VoIP phone to conduct conference calls, a dial up line to support remote clients that cannot afford us a VPN connection and, of course, broaband cable Internet access. I am a tech and have 2 servers, a laptop and 3 desktops running in my home office.
It does take the right personality traits to be able to do this though. If you have no self discipline, do not consider yourself as a telecommuter candidate.
Telecommuting as a Trade-Off
It's true that telecommuting may not be great for linear advancement, since office networking is often key to getting "ahead" or nosing around for new and more exciting projects. But if advancement means a person has to go in to the office more often and hang out in long meetings that often go nowhere, then I'm not sure they are losing out in this arrangement. It's a trade-off many would be glad to make! And if and when a person wants to get back into the fray, there is usually a way to make that happen.
It all depends on what you want...
I wouldn't trade my job right now, which allows me to telecommute at least 3 days a week, for anything. I'm less stressed and my kids love it. I am father of two and my career advancement, if it is being hampered at all, can wait until after they graduate-if I feel up to it!
Telecommuting for 10 years & loving it - no negative inpacts !
Yes, there is a social isolation that comes with telecommuting but there are ways around it like finding a local coworker to meet for lunch. Yes most telecommuters would agree that their productivity is far higher working at home. Like another post-er to this article, the key is your personal work ethic (some prefer to dress as if they were heading into the office to maintain the mindset). Attitudes about telecommuting are truly a function of the corporate environment. In a global company like the one I work for, where conf calls are with people from multiple time zones and multiple continents, your success is heavily dependent upon your ability to be "visible" in your successes (weekly status emails to your boss, duh!). It is the same when you work in the office but now even more important to tout your successes electronically for key players to see. Conversations around the watercooler are replaced with impromptu chats on both the phone and via IM. DUH! it is called "networking" with a whole new spin. Success is possible as a telecommuter if you learn how to work WITHOUT counting on the visual clues in the conversation... i.e. on conf call, go around the call and target participants to provide input (especially those with a vested interest and those who are too silent). "Think outside the cube!" As long as I get the job done, am available when I should be, and perform professionally & intelligently (again, visibly and not distracted) at or above my level, there is no cause to question my office location.
Telecommuting long hours
While many rave about the flexibility of Telecommuting, I find that I work much longer hours, don't take time to eat, run to the bathroom while muting a conference call, start the day with 7:00 AM Conference Calls, and end the night doing all the work that I was not able to complete during a day filled with back-to-back conference calls, emails, and IM's. Fortunately, I get to leave home most evenings to take my teenager daughter to dance. At least I get to interact with "dance parents", but I just go home and work some more. I sure miss taking a lunch hour with co-workers. My poor husband is a Telecommuter Widower!
Why do you think thats caused by your telecommuting?
I don't see how your working long hours is caused by telecommuting. Too much to do in a day is too much. Tele-conference, email, IM - all communication that would have happened in the office also, just face to face. If you let your job pile on the work so you have to do more than 8 hours a day - they'd do it to you in the office as well. Except now they don't have to see you working extra hours! You need to take control of your situation instead of letting it control you.
(Time for me to eat lunch while watching tv, take my dog for a short walk, then get back to working barefoot with the music cranked doing work that I love in the comfort of my home on *my* terms.)
If you don't take time to
If you don't take time to eat or crap in private, you're not assertive enough to tell your manager that you're not going to put in more than a reasonable day's time.