During the nineties, the number of Americans doing ‘telework’ or ‘telecommuting’ grew from four to twenty million. The number of ‘teleworkers’ seems set to increase even further. The trend continues to grow as bandwidth increases!
Teleworkers work from home or other remote locations, communicate electronically with their workplace and generally lodge their work electronically.
Teleworking has a number benefits for employers and employees but it also has some pitfalls.
One advantage is reduced cost to the employer, who can run a smaller office. This can be good for small businesses operating on tight margins. A Telework America survey showed that 45 percent of teleworkers were employed by companies with 25 employees or less.
There are some costs to telework, however. For example, teleworkers often start out using their home computer but companies may eventually provide upgraded hardware, as office needs may outstrip the capacity of the home PC. Home equipment also needs to be compatible with office equipment, and bandwidth limitations on the home phone line can also cause problems if work involves transferring large files.
IT security issues need to be addressed. Some companies use security technology to protect themselves against hackers or other data thieves. Sensitive information can be easier to access outside the company intranet.
Security technology includes virtual private networks (VPNs), firewalls, virus scanning and callback software that can trace lost or stolen laptops.
Telecommuting may increase worker productivity. Some surveys show productivity increases of between 10 and 20 percent.
It’s often said that home workers are better able to concentrate, as there are fewer distractions. That’s assuming there are no small children running about the home, presumably.
Workers may also be mentally fresher when they don’t have to make a long commute. And flexible work schedules may benefit the employer; it may be useful to have some workers available outside normal office hours.
Offering a teleworking option may also be a way for employers to hang onto valued employees.
But not everyone is suited to working from home. Teleworkers must have good time management skills. The employer needs to choose their teleworkers from among staff that have a track record of being proactive, independent and managing their work schedule well.
There can be disadvantages to telework, at least in the beginning. Workers commonly worry that they are not in the boss’s view and this may harm their job prospects. They miss office camaraderie. They may feel lonely and out-of-touch.
Yet a three-year study of 200 US and Australian teleworkers showed that over 70 percent of the subjects wanted to continue to work away from the office indefinitely.
Dr Neville Myers from the Queensland University of Technology carried out the study.
Personality was a key factor in successful teleworking.
‘If they were volunteer telecommuters and they had high motivation and high need for autonomy then telecommuting was a very positive experience – providing the organizational support was there’ he told Inside QUT.
‘My study pinpointed the strong interaction between personal motivation and organizational support – neither one can exist without the other.’
‘The need for control, self-regulatory behavior and setting reasonable goals are all major determinants for successful telecommuting.’
‘If your organization won’t give adequate technical support or believes you are not career-motivated because you are telecommuting, then obviously there will be problems.’
There are also possible legal risks to teleworking. For example, employers need to be aware of their Occupational Health and Safety obligations towards employees working at home.
And employees need to be on the lookout for unscrupulous employers who could use telecommuting as a way to erode their worker entitlements.
Copyright 2001, RAN ONE Inc. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission from www.ranone.com.