The ability to work at home or at teleworking centers is one of the most important results of improved network bandwidths to residences. Currently, home workers can link to their offices via phones, modems, and fax machines. Improved network connectivity allows them to connect digitally, computer to computer, and pull down virtually any datafile or working document. Work groups can share documents, files and messages, interconnect to LANs or other networks, and conduct video meetings and conferences. They can function and communicate as if they were actually sharing an office. For example, a consultant in Silicon Valley uses up to 12 ISDN channels for regular CAD/CAM design collaborations with engineers in Japan using two-way desktop video, voice connections, and a shared whiteboard where all participants can annotate the computer document. How prevalent is telecommuting in any form today? There is no single widely accepted definition of exactly what telecommuting is (and even our definition is not precise enough to enable easy quantification), and there are difficulties in counting telecommuters because not all telecommuters do so all the time. Some surveys do not differentiate between people that work at home in home-based businesses and those that telecommute from their homes. In addition, the sampling methods of some surveys are different enough to make comparison and averaging impossible. As a result of these limitations the estimates in the table below vary . However, the numbers from some different surveys are quoted below, taken from The Environmental and Social Impacts of Telecommuting and Teleactivities, by J. Marcus.
Year and Source: | Estimated Values: |
---|---|
1992 Link Resources (Telecommuting) and Mokhtarian, 1993 | 6.6 million telecommuters in 4.9 million households 77% white collar 59% conventional employees, 41% contract-based 19% work 35 hours or more per week at home 18.3 hours at home per week average 81% work for businesses with less than 100 employees |
1987 (Fathy, 1991) | 200,000-250,000 telecommuters |
1985 (Forbes, 1985) | 100,000 telecommuters |
1984 (Kelly, 1986) | 4-5 million telecommuters, including part-time telecommuters |
While it is certainly true that the numbers reported in the table above are quite different in the different surveys, it is the case that the number of telecommuters is significant, and increasing.
How often do telecommuters telecommute? A survey conducted in Florida of several hundred telecommuters found the following results:
37% 1 day per week
39% 2 days per week
13% 3 days per week
8% 4 days per week
3% 5 days per week
Technological Factors
In the last few years computer and communications technology has
evolved to the point of allowing information and communications
capabilities to be moved from the office to the home, as explained in
Section XXX. This includes advances in computer equipment, software,
as well as networking technologies and high-speed Internet access to
homes. Some of the key technological factors that directly affect
telecommuting include:
Thus, overall productivity is improved because the more desirable and attractive working conditions result in higher levels of employee motivation.
Various state legislatures have started taking active steps to
encourage telecommuting to try and take advantage of uits various
benefits. For example, the Florida Legislature has addressed
telecommuting and defined it relative to state workers in Section
110.171(3) of the Florida
Statues:
"...a work arrangement whereby selected state employees are allowed to
perform the normal duties and responsibilities of their positions,
through the use of computers or telecommunications, at home or another
place apart from the employees' usual place of work."
Many of the personnel and legal issues raised by telecommuting need to
be resolved. These include new laws to cover electronic workplace
issues, covering electronic searches, workplace privacy, monitoring,
network safety, ergonomics, employment discrimination, worker's
compensation, and overtime. More information about these issues can
be found in June Langhoff's book, The
Telecommuter's Advisor."
The most substantial savings were in reduced real estate costs. By
allowing employees to telecommute, AT&T was able to close an entire
office complex.
In addition to hard cost savings, there were substantial productivity
gains. AT&T, based on employee interviews, estimates a conservative
gain of two and a half hours per employee per week in time worked.
Also, employees state almost without exception that they were able to
be more productive during the hours they worked, due primarily to
fewer interruptions.
There were, of course, start-up costs associated with setting up
employees to work at home. Office alterations averaged $3,000 per
employee and computer/phone installations averaged $4,000 per
employee. These costs were depreciated over five years and $1,250 per
employee per year was added for phone, fax, copy and postage
bills.
For many telecommuters, the expected
homelife benefits were overromanticized, and the career costs
underestimated, due to the points made above. In the following section, we
discuss the determinants of success, where we present possible
solutions to these impediments.
These improved management techniques will result in improved
productivity overall, because of clearly established targets for
telecommuting employees. Thus, telecommuters act as incentives
for managers to set crisp performance goals for their projects, and this
in turn improves performance. However, this is a two-edged sword --
managers unwilling to change their management style will result in a
failure of an organization's telecommuting program.
However, despite these advantages and technology capabilities,
telecommuting is not a done deal. Managerial and executive support, and
changing management styles are crucial to the success of telecommuting
programs in any organization.
Regulatory and Legal Factors
The Numbers
Over the last several years, AT&T has developed Alternative
Officing, a comprehensive program that currently allows 30,000
employees nationally to telecommute on a regular basis from home. This
project is particularly interesting because it includes a rigorous
cost/benefit analysis of their North Central New Jersey site. AT&T
conducted a five year study of 600 telecommuters and concluded the
following:
Annual Real Estate Savings: $6,333,124.
Annual gain due to increased productivity: $5,112,841.
Annual gain due to increased efficiency: $3,127,617.
Annual costs: $3,205,507.
AT&T Cost Savings & Productivity Gains
Real Estate Savings    $6,333,124
Productivity Gains Hour    $5,112,841
Productivity Gains Efficiency    $3,127,617
Total    $14,573,582
Less Costs (3,205,507)
Net Annual Gain $11,368,075
The Case Against Telecommuting
Technological Factors
Insufficient sense of physical presence and dearth of high-bandwidth
symmetric networking technologies. This reduces the
effectiveness of symmetric video-conferencing from homes involving
telecommuting participants and decreases their sense of presence
in the meeting or session.
Management and Industrial Organization
Human and Societal Factors
Determinants of Success
In this section, we present some thoughts on the determinants of
success of telecommuting and how the impediments may be overcome.
Summary
We found that there are strong economic incentives for the adoption of
collaborative technologies in the telecommuting sector. The benefits
of telecommuting include increased productivity, reduced real estate
and facility costs, labor pool expansion, and flexible working hours
coupled with improved employee quality of life.