Comments on: No telecommuting, please! We’re signaling

By: Rocky Roy

Rocky Roy — Sat, 02 Jun 2012 13:24:47 +0000

I think this article has merit. Perhaps as the next generation of workers, who will be accustomed to having continuous video chat / monitoring feeds always on in the background, a virtual sense of engagement will be created and increase interest in telecommuting.

By: Chris

Chris — Sat, 02 Jun 2012 01:17:07 +0000

Much of the reason for my desire to telecommute is driven by an “atomistic rejection of the office environment”. The last few companies I’ve worked at have had an open-plan office (“one big room”), ostensibly to promote collaboration, but with an off-task interruption every few minutes (impromptu meetings at nearby desks, phone calls to other workers), I’ve learned that I can only get focused, quality work done at home.

If my job actually required or benefitted from moment-to-moment collaboration, the open-plan space would be fine, and I’m sure there are roles that benefit from such collaboration, but from experience I’ve come to see open-plan offices as work environment cost reduction masked as a “new way of working”.

To the specific point of this article, it does seem that workers are judged more favorably by the number of face-time hours worked than by results or productivity.

By: Chris

Chris — Sat, 02 Jun 2012 01:15:08 +0000

By: Essex Companies

Essex Companies — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 14:49:35 +0000

We are a staffing and recruitment firm and approx. 3 years ago we gave our employees the opportunity to work remotely but they still come into the office 1-2 days per week. This mix works great for us in terms of productivity, maintaining the presence of team and cost reduction. I would agree with Trevor in that the relatively slow uptake of telecommuting for work is simply growing pains, primarily experienced by those managers who perhaps are fearful of change or losing control. Managers with their eye to the future will see that it’s simply a shift in the way one manages and it’s much more performance driven. Both manager and telework employee require certain skills to make it work best. See the link for examples: http://www.essexjobs.com/newsletter2/index.php/part-3-telework-successful-telework-depends-on-the-skills-of-manager-and-employee/201157/

By: Trevor Jones

Trevor Jones — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 14:15:28 +0000

I 100% believe this. Pace Seth Godin, this is also incredibly old-fashioned; related to managing drones and not successful people in the knowledge economy. This is a symptom of the transition we’re working through between the industrial and knowledge ages.
Trevor Jones
Ottawa