Philip Wen’s Virtual Residence

On Telecommute and Telework

Cloudworking is finally here.  

For a lot of business roles that are being done in an office today, a lot of them no longer require a dedicated workstation or even a cubicle.  Oftentimes, a laptop and internet connection is all one needs to access whatever information your business function requires you to add, transform, modify or delete.

So what does this mean?  As the enabling technology is still considered fairly nascent (less than a decade old.  The momentum did not start gaining strength until the turn of the millenium), there are still many big corporations that are trying to figure out how this whole thing should work– how to work this into corporate policies, what is considered appropriate, etc.  And as broadband becomes more ubiquitous and cloud computing gradually acquire further momentum, it is only a matter of time before one’s physical location become a moot point in the limitations of productivity.

So why fight it?  There are many reasons.  ALA provides some perspectives in their recent discussion here.  Companies sometimes do provide you with that cubicle for those of us who need to share the home space with many others.  There are also reasons such as the physical face time with coworkers, or even security concerns.

Many of us have dealt with zealots that defend both sides of this coin.  Let me briefly explore some of these concerns that are still preventing many traditional companies from adopting an official “Productivity Everywhere” policy.

1. Employees are less productive when they are out of the office.

A: This is perhaps the strongest argument against Telework.  I disagree of course.   Productivity all depends on what job needs to get done and whether or not the employee(s) have the inclination or the motivation to get things done.  If business management needs to worry about shirking, then there obviously is a bigger problem than employees being out of the office.  Inducing productivity should not rest solely on physical monitoring (it has been proven again and again, that physical monitoring cannot ensure higher productivity.  Without incentive to get things done, employees without motivation will still always do the mimimum required to escape consequences of failing the physical monitoring test).  The business’ incentive model and further employee education on the principal/agency relationship may need to be further investigated.  

With a proper incentive model, self governance should become the predominant driver in ensuring productivity.  Eye-in-the-sky model will always be more costly to run, not to mention less effective.

2. The office has better equipment to allow for better productivity.

A:  This may have been true when computers, printers, and fax machines were relatively expensive to acquire.  These resources are then acquired at the office and the environment set up so that everyone can have shared access to these resources.  Of course, as time progressed and technology became increasingly affordable, this has become less of an argument.  Not many of us can remember back to when computing resources were so expensive that workers had to sneaker-net paper around, and computers were only operated by dedicated operators.  Since at least 10 years ago, a standard cubicle with a personal computer it in has replaced file cabinets and typewriters as standard issues for a typical office worker.  It took some time but has now become the norm.  

Nowadays, a complete PC with a multi-function printer can be acquired for usually less than what employers pay out for a week of the employee’s wage.  Network access to required files are no longer tied to a specific file cabinet in the back row of the office.- they now sit in a file share.  All the company needs to do is ensure that the said employee has secure access to the company resources within its network, and the employee should now be just as well equipped to do productive work from anywhere as s/he is able to accomplish in the office.

3. Security is the primary concern– what if the employees are stealing data when they are outside of our confined walls?

A: Just because employees are inside the confined walls of your office does not mean that your data is safe.  Unless you have a comprehensive security plan in place and you have locked down and are monitoring every single point of data access, it is just as easy to steal data from inside the office as it is from the outside.  Are you frisking your employees for USB flash drives or cameras everytime they step in and out of the office?

 

What other potential concerns do you think employers have over teleworking/telecommute?  Voice it in the comments section below (or use our forums to start a discussion).

1 Comment to On Telecommute and Telework

1. 

   I am convinced that the problem is an organisational one, managers are just not equipped with the tools to manage a remote work force, companies need to invest in the training of their managers

   Neil Matthews
   http://www.telecommutingcourse.com
neilmatthews on November 5th, 2008

Leave a comment

You must be logged in to post a comment.