So how was your morning commute?

If you work at home, you can stop grinning.

For those who fought traffic or groused about filling up the gas tank, you'll empathize with a Salary.com report that telecommuting "has been one of the hottest compensation trends over the last few years."

Get this: At IBM, more than 40 percent of its workforce doesn't come into the office every day. It's a good bet there's a savings involved for workers, not to mention what probably is a certain amount of flextime which makes the business of living easier.

But separating workers from the office has a cost. It requires a different way of thinking about workplace relationships. Although there's an electronic tether, bosses aren't right there to look over the shoulders of telecommuting employees. And, unless there's sophisticated conferencing technology, many time-consuming meetings are a thing of the past.

Some people can handle the change. Others can't. A professor at Northeastern University's College of Business Administration is studying the effect of moving from the traditional command-and-control model of onsite job attendance to the different relationships created with telecommuters.

His conclusion: "Mutual trust is key to this work situation," says professor Jay Mulki.

He's also seeing a benefit to the transition time between work and office created by a commute. When you work at home, he's seeing a tendency to have trouble separating work life from home life. There's also the possible downside of missing co-worker camaraderie.

Telecommuting is a good option, but maybe it needs to be a flexible option. Home? Or office? The ideal may be the ability to switch between the two as expedient.

Comments

[Stacey B]

Working from home is fantastic, although it is good to get back to the office every once in a while.

[James]

There are clearly times when it's necessary to be in the office for face-to-face meetings, etc., but in an age of electronic connectivity and $3.50/gal. gas, more employers should give thought to offering telecommuting when feasible. The cost of allowing telecommuting one day a week would be little or nothing, and in many instances, it would create happier, more productive employees.

[Some guy]

As an added bonus to employers, technology has made it easier to micromanage from a distance, too.

[BRT]

Telecommuting is an excellent idea for some roles, but not all, and some situations, but not all.

In many ways, it seems to function much like working in a company with multiple offices. In that situation, employees learn to communicate and collaborate without the normal social interactions that can smooth the way. But such a situation can never be as effective as face-to-face contact.

It's easy for some to avoid giving answers, or producing results, when you can't just walk into their workstation and pin them down. Similary, many good ideas grow out of impromptu conversations that can occur in the hallways, or as a meeting breaks up.

And one should not underestimate the value of social interaction - I've lost count of how often I've seen two departments constantly at loggerheads, until someone gets everyone together just to get to know each other. Suddenly the two groups see each other as people, not as some faceless "them". Just chatting about the kids, or the Chiefs, or whatever, can help co-workers avoid conflict down the road and be more cooperative.

I think telecommuting will work best for those who perform most of their work alone, or in cooperation with teams with whom they already have little face to face involvement, e.g., customer service, accounting, or programming. It also works best when an employee's performance can be most easily measured by objective criteria - number of disputes successfully resolved, computer code produced, data keyed, etc.

BTW, I have on occasion worked from home, and having that option when needed is a win-win for both my employer and myself. Whether due to weather concerns, or because a conference call was scheduled late, having that flexibility has cost my employer nothing, but made a real difference for me. I'm not sure I could work from home all the time and be as productive as I am now, but as a limited option, it has worked well.

[kmb]

To really save gas - employers should go to a 4-day workweek. Do they really need to see every face 5 days a week?