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Technologies that emerged over the last decade have helped to make
distance less of a factor for workers. E-mail, the Internet, networked
workplaces, instant messaging & collaboration & knowledge
management tools make real-time communications and sharing of work
with distant co-workers possible. Already many large firms have
client servicing, graphics, advertising, market planning and analysis
and other information-intensive activities done by telecommuting
workers equipped with advanced technology and high speed data/Internet
connections.
Knowledge Economy
The shift from the industrial era to the knowledge era is also
changing the way business is done. Knowledge workers have replaced
large & expensive machinery & factories as the most important
assets of organizations. Businesses revolve about the knowledge
that differentiates them in the marketplace. Telecommuting has become
a measure of the transition of an economy towards the knowledge
era. The knowledge economy strives to bring greater social inclusion
& resource use efficiency by including women, older workers
& the disabled. Since the number of elderly & disabled is
slated to form the major chunk of the population, telecommuting
will find a greater ally in this social reason much more powerful
than the present drivers like employee perks, cost saving initiatives,
etc & almost as powerful as the need to contain vehicular pollution.
Disaster Management
The military strategy of dispersing soldiers, ammunition &
documents is much relevant to organizations in terms of their people,
hardware and data. Emergencies are both unpredictable and inevitable.
One way to prepare is to include telework in the commpany's disaster
management strategy.
The 1989 California earthquake cut off over a million workers from
their businesses. Telework permitted almost 700,000 to continue
to work from home or other locations near home, minimizing business
disruption, and in many cases, helping businesses survive. Even
with much of the power shut off, telephones continued to operate.
Telework was so effective that the government and business sectors
formed a partnership to promote telework to provide emergency preparedness.
Heightened interest in telecommuting began after the September 11
attacks, when companies realized the importance of having telecommuting
as part of their disaster management policy & employees begun
opting/demanding for telecommuting options in large numbers.
Slow Internet & data connection is still the major problem faced
by telecommuters, but the number of broadband Internet providers
to households is increasing fast & companies are identifying
jobs that require only a paper, pencil, and telephone & encouraging
those employees to telecommute. According to the Gartner Group,
there will be 137 million teleworkers worldwide by 2003. Although
still a very small proportion of the working population, the surprisingly
high cost savings & increase in productivity in large organizations
like American Express, AT&T, Ford Motor Company, Delta Airlines,
IBM (US), JD Edwards, UNISYS, etc. is luring many other companies
to try it out for themselves. Some telecommuting successes are included
below -
AT&T
AT&T has experimented a lot with telecommuting. According to
its findings, a critical mass of remote workers in an organization
is necessary for management and communication channels to shift
to the network-based equivalents. The data indicates that the per-person
benefits of telework - productivity, job satisfaction, retention,
etc. - increase with the number of teleworkers in an organization.
AT&T advises to have as large a pilot group as possible when
evaluating telecommuting.
The quote "seeing is not managing" is attributed to have
originated during AT&T's telecommuting initiatives. 70% of its
managers have telecommuted some time or other. The management sends
out a positive message by practicing what they preach. Employees
are motivated to try out telecommuting, which reduces office expenses
(mostly real estate), improves productivity & lowers employee
turnover.
Sun
Telecommuting at Sun has come a long way since 1995, when 440 Sun
employees started working from home using Sun hardware & Pacific
Bell's ISDN connections. Recent figures indicate that about 30 percent
of Sun's employees telecommute; travel or work from a telework center.
Telecommuting is supported through individual arrangements between
employees and their managers, cutting down on bureaucracy. Employees
have access to drop-in centers and flexible offices where employees
can reserve seats or accommodate themselves on a first come first
serve basis. Sun aims to have a vacancy rate of 0% (number of employees
out of office due to unexplained reasons) by the year 2003. Sun
has implemented iWork, which according to Sun "is a system
of workplaces, work practices, and technologies designed to support
an increasingly mobile workforce, a truly innovative program that
supports the dynamic way our employees now work".
IBM
Based in Armonk, New York, IBM has 300,000 employees worldwide.
Globally, 80,000 IBM employees (26.6%) telecommute at least 1 or
2 days a week. IBM has a clear vision of how telecommuting can work
for them, and is convinced that telecommuting will continue to grow
in the company.
At the end of 1994, IBM opened the door for its entire US sales
force of 10,000 employees to telecommute. Within 2 years of commencing
its telecommuting operations, it had negated the need for 2 million
square feet of office space.
The average IBM employee's personal productivity increased between
10 and 20% after telecommuting was implemented. This is noteworthy
given that a productivity increase of only 0.1% was enough to make
the telecommuting program cost-effective. Customers also voiced
their approval for telecommuting as it allows them to see IBM salespeople
more often and receive better service.
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