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Is telecommuting feeling the economic squeeze?

Jessica Stillman — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 14:01:29 +0000

For exactly all of its obvious benefits to productivity, the environment and even the bottom line, telecommuting has experienced explosive growth. There may be plenty of chatter about the practice and even government cheerleading for companies to get on the bandwagon, but outside certain specific professional niches and geographical regions, working via the Internet is hardly the day-to-day norm for most.

Nor is the uptake of telecommuting speeding up, according to recent research. In fact, the rate of growth is slowing down, claims a recent post on the blog Workshifting:

The latest research from the Telework Research Network indicates that while telework is growing, it’s not increasing at the pace we might have expected. According to 2009 U.S. Census data, 61 percent more employees considered home their primary place of work versus 2005. But that number translates to only 2.3 percent of the total workforce.

When compared with a recent report from WorldatWork, which indicates that the overall number of teleworkers declined between 2008 and 2010, a trend emerges. The frequency of telework has increased, meaning fewer workshifters are doing more flexible work.

What’s behind this decrease in the number of teleworkers? Workshifting suggests a number of possibilities, including:

Not everyone wants to telecommute
Companies struggling to quantify the costs and benefits
Inadequate tools and resources available to support the lifestyle
Businesses still unsure how to manage people they can’t see

All of these are certainly hurdles to increased telecommuting, but a separate recent study suggests the slowdown in the increase in remote work may have a simpler explanation: the terrible economy.

That seems to be true in the UK at least, where communications company O2 has recently published a report looking at the future of work and flexible working. The poll of 2,000 workers found that two out of five feel pressured to be in the office because of the gloomy economy. O2 has dubbed the fear of prejudice against remote work “presenteeism” and says the condition is on the rise among Brits.

“With so many organizations facing economic uncertainty, our research suggests large numbers of businesses are missing out on the productivity gains, improved employee and customer engagement and efficient processes that such flexible working practices can deliver,” said David Plumb, O2′s general manager for enterprise.

At Net:Work in December, we’ll discuss the future of the mobile workforce and how managers can better manage remote workers. Get your tickets today.

Image courtesy of Flickr user Images_of_Money

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Would you take a pay cut to web work?

Jessica Stillman — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 12:03:27 +0000

Obviously, the answer to the question posed in the headline is, ideally, no — we’d all like to keep our salary steady when we gain the independence of virtual work. But the reality is far from every company has jumped on the virtual work bandwagon, making the ability to work from wherever you please a valuable commodity. So if you had to take a pay cut to get it, how much would the flexibility be worth to you?

Everyone’s situation is different when it comes to transport, childcare and miscellaneous work-related costs, but nonetheless The Christian Science Monitor has taken a stab at answering this question in a recent article. The piece opens with the story of a Kansas woman who took a 60 percent pay cut to web work full-time, but actually broke even thanks to savings in the cost of childcare and commuting. Is this in any way typical?

Losing more than half your pay check is extreme, but surveys show that many people claim they’d take less money for more flexibility – one poll from Dice Holdings found 35 percent of IT pros would accept a pay cut to telecommute, while Staples just revealed 74 percent of workers would sacrifice 2.5 percent and 20 percent would lose 10 percent of their pay to telecommute.

So workers are willing to pay for the privilege of web work, but putting aside the lifestyle benefits, does it make sense on a pure dollars and cents basis? According to the Christian Science Monitor, this is how the numbers stack up:

Employees working at home for half a workweek (versus every workday) save an average $362 per person per year on gasoline costs, according to an analysis by Telework Research Network. Among other possible savings: an average $7.37 a day on meals and $2.41 a day on professional clothes, calculates TRN…. Overall, workers can save as much as $6,800 a year by being home-based for half of every workweek.

Check out the article for many more details and more personal perspectives on the trade offs involved.

Would you (or your employees) be willing take a $6,800 pay cut for half a week of location independence?

Image courtesy of Flickr user klynslis.

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Web work: Only for the elite?

Jessica Stillman — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 12:04:18 +0000

Not everyone can work via the web, that’s obvious. If you’re a cardiologist or corrections officer, or if your job requires sophisticated machinery, then simply booting up your laptop in the local coffee shop isn’t going to be an option. But are there other more subtle limitations to who can work at a distance?

A recent study from The Telework Research Network sheds some light on this question. The study focuses specifically on employees who work from home rather than the self-employed and sifts through data from government sources like the Census Bureau and the Bureau of Labor Statistics, as well as industry information from the likes of WorldatWork, to determine who is working remotely and who isn’t.

Besides finding a huge pool of 30.4 million potential telecommuters who could work flexibly and desire to do so but are not offered the chance, the study also revealed that a large number of web workers have a very specific profile. They’re older, well paid, educated professionals. The study found:

The typical telecommuter is a 49-year-old, college-educated, salaried, non-union employee in a management or professional role, earning $58,000 a year at a company with more than 100 employees.
Over 75 percent of employees who work from home earn over $65,000 per year, putting them in the upper 80 percentile relative to all employees.
More than 70 percent of the WAH [work at home] population holds management, professional, sales, and office jobs (compared with 61 percent of the total workforce).

Why is web work so skewed towards this particular demographic? The authors suggest thee possibilities. First, older workers may require more flexibility due to greater family obligations. Having worked longer, they may also have had more opportunity to build the trust necessary to convince their employer to permit flexible arrangements. Finally, it may be that they are at a comfortable enough stage in theirs career that they no longer fear remote work having a negative effect on their advancement.

The first possibility is down to individuals’ particular situations and, whether it turns out to be true or not that older workers benefit most from web work, the principle of allowing employees to work remotely based on need makes sense. But the other two explanations suggest that many managers only hand out web work privileges to senior people with the clout to demand flexibility and ignore any potential stigma attached to telecommuting.

Is this a sensible way to ensure only those who can handle the responsibility of web work receive it, or an unfortunate prejudice that keeps junior staff from enjoying the productivity and loyalty gains web work can provide?

Photo courtesy Flickr user Larry Johnson

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