Don't think telecommuting is a vacation from the office

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If you could telecommute, just imagine how great life would be... You wake at 9:00 a.m. and stroll to the kitchen in your jammies and slippers to start the coffeepot. You feed breakfast to your three year old and then you both watch TV for an hour or so. Around 11:00 you decide to get some work done. You call your company to check in and then you do some work on your computer for a few hours and then decide to throw in a load of laundry before lunch...

Not quite. In fact, it's fantasies like this that keep employers from trying this new way of working. The truth is, telecommuting can be a more productive way of working and be a smart solution for businesses, but it isn't for everyone.

In 1996, 7 million people telecommuted, that is, worked for an employer out of their homes. It's estimated that that number has jumped to over 9 million in 1998. Companies are warming to the idea, as they struggle to keep key personnel and to recruit for hard to fill positions. For instance, Olsten Corporation, a staffing services company, surveyed 305 firms and found that 62 percent of those responding allowed employees to telecommute, compared to only 27 percent in 1993.

What you often don't hear, however, is that these work-at-home arrangements don't always work. In the book, Transition to Telecommuting, author Christena Nippert-Eng claims that as many as half of all telecommuters end up asking their bosses if they can come back to the office.

Nippert-Eng, as well as telecommuters I interviewed on the subject, claim that they were surprised by the realities of working at home. Because people tend to focus on all the positive aspects of working at home-such as, no commute, being in control of your own time, avoiding office politics-they are surprised that it isn't always what it's cracked up to be. However, for many people it is the ideal solution.

If you and your company are considering a telecommuting arrangement, here are some things to think about:

·        Have you worked at your company long enough to have learned the corporate culture and what is expected of you? (Some companies actually set a minimum of 5 years of on-site employment before they'll consider letting someone telecommute.)

·        Have you proven to yourself and to your employer that you are a great performer who needs no external motivation or supervision to get your job done?

·        Can you take your work home with you and do it without much face-to-face interaction with others? (Most telecommuters still come in to the office for key meetings, or only telecommute a few days a week.)

·        Can you do most of your communications over the phone, fax and modem line?

·        Are your job duties clear?

·        Are there objective ways for your manager to evaluate your results? Is there a good way for you to get feedback?

·        Will working at home cause your co-workers to be inconvenienced? Will it cause other problems with co-workers or customers?

Now for some personal questions. (As you might expect, some of the people I interviewed didn't know how they'd react to telecommuting until they were actually experiencing it.):

·        Do you work well in isolation?

·        Are you unconcerned about being bumped off the fast track, losing out on interesting projects or a promotion if you are off-site?

·        Are you self-disciplined enough to know when to stop? (Several people who decided to go back to the office environment commented that their work began to interfere with their personal lives, because they let their work expand into every hour of the day and night.)

·        Do you have a room in the house that you can devote to an office, complete with a door that closes?

·        Are you self-disciplined enough? Or are you a procrastinator who will be distracted by every plant that needs watering or load of laundry that needs to be done?

·        If you have young children, are you willing to put them in a day care situation while you work? (Many people think they can save on day care costs but they find that working at home with a child is very difficult.)

·        Do you have a strong manager who trusts you and is a good communicator?

·        If you live with someone else who works at home, will this create problems?

Telecommuting can be a perfect solution for both the employee and the employer, but how successful it is depends on how well it's structured and how well suited you are to this new working arrangement.

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