Survey says more companies offering teleworking, but which ones and who's doing it?

Cyndy Aleo-Carreira — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 13:15:31 -0700

Just in time for Labor Day, WorldatWork is releasing part of their 2008-2009 WorldatWork Salary Budget Survey. The section released highlights of the survey's results for employee benefit packages, with the biggest news being a nearly 40% increase in the number of employers offering telework as a benefit.

What's missing from the survey data, however, is which companies are allowing telework for their employees, or how much time employees are allowed to put in from home. Our sister publication Computerworld notes that in 2006, Hewlett-Packard ended a telework benefit for hundreds of employees, and in 2008, Intel began requiring over half its IT teleworkers to be in the office at least four days per week. Both companies claimed that employee productivity decreased when they were not in the office.

Of course, even being offered the benefit doesn't mean employees are taking advantage of it. Liz Wolgemuth at U.S. News & World Report wonders how many employees offered the telework benefit actually take advantage of it, fearing that being out of the office will negatively impact their jobs.

Teleworking does seem more common in technology-oriented companies, where both employees and managers are familiar with the tools that can be used in keeping lines of communication open between office and teleworkers. It also requires dedication on the part of both employer as well as employee to make it work.

Carla Thompson of Guidewire Group and DEMO has been working out of her home since 2001. In her current position, she is the company's only out-of-state employee, and the only one teleworking full time. Jennifer Longstaff recently left a full-time teleworking position with a San Jose-based Fortune 500 tech company, while her husband still works out of their home. I asked them about their views of telework:

Cyndy: Is/was teleworking offered to everyone at your company?

Carla: Everyone seems to travel so much that it's almost as if they are telecommuting anyway. Most, however, are in the office when they are in town, although some work from home on occasion when they aren't traveling.

Jennifer: No. Telecommuting was considered a perk, available as a benefit to a limited number of employees. The benefit itself was advertised, but not guaranteed. So the company had a telecommuting policy but in order to actually be a full-time telecommuter, you had to meet criteria, be approved by management (your immediate management as well as on up the chain), create an extensive proposal as for how you would manage your time, do your deliverables, attend meetings, etc.

A lot of people worked out part-time telecommuting situations. Some people worked four days from the office then from home once a week, for example. Even those who were full-time telecommuters, working remotely, were usually required to spend some amount of time locally face-to-face in the office. In our case (both mine and my husband's) we volunteered to fly ourselves to the local office to work there for a week, once per quarter.

In general, people who were younger and/or who hadn't had much time with the company weren't offered telecommuting. They were required to work at the office, usually for at least 2 years, before even being considered for telecommuting at a remote location. And even then, if they were working on a project where lots of interaction was needed with co-workers, or if they weren't top performers (or weren't trusted to self-manage their time), they were usually denied telecommuting.

Then on the other hand, the most-valued employees were often given very lucrative telecommuting setups where the company paid for their travel to/from the home office, reimbursed them for use of their home office, reimbursed them for the cost of routers, Internet service (DSL, cable, or even ISDN direct lines).

Do/Did you find it difficult teleworking full-time?

Carla: You definitely miss out on all the casual conversations that happen in an office about little things going on and potential clients; things like that. Chris [Shipley] and our CEO have to make a concerted effort to contact me about new information, etc. so some of that camaraderie is missing. However, with all the Web 2.0 technology like Twitter and Skype, it's easier to maintain.

I've been teleworking since 2001, and you definitely have to be a certain type of personality to make it work. It's great, but it can be a little lonely, and you are never away from work.

It has so much flexibility on the other end, especially for working moms, which makes it ideal. I can pick up my children from school/daycare and work around their activities.

Jennifer: It wasn't difficult to do the work; once I got set up with a couple of computers and screens all over my desk, two phone lines, a fast printer and direct-to-the-office DSL modem, it was about the same as being there in terms of work-related productivity. In many ways I was more productive because I didn't get distracted by the hallway conversations. In some ways I was more out of the loop, of course. If I had been doing more high-profile projects, or projects involving more people, it would have been very difficult. I think by taking a telecommuting assignment, I sort of limited my ability for advancement, as the high-profile projects involved too much daily interaction. But I was looking to scale back on projects at the time of the assignment anyway, so that was no big deal.

The difficult part was getting away from work. When I worked at the office, even though I would often stay there until 9 or 10 pm, when I came home I was home. But when my office was in my home, I never could get away from it, working late at night and sometimes all night, very often.

Would you take another job that involved teleworking?

Carla: I wouldn't take anything other than that at this point. I said that before I even joined Guidewire.

Jennifer: Yes, but I would try to do more planning as far as how many projects I would accept, and be more realistic about deadlines and how much time it was really going to take. This is just an aspect of my own personality, not of telecommuting at all.

Would you take a job now that didn't offer telecommuting as an option?

Carla: No, and I said that before I even signed on with Guidewire. I'd consider a co-working environment to combat some of the loneliness, but I don't think I could ever work in an office again. I've grown too used to making my own work schedule.

Jennifer: If it was local, and I could get to the office via bicycle or public transportation, yes absolutely. I am in fact looking for that sort of job.

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