Advantages and Challenges of Working Here There Anywhere

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There are four breaks from the traditional 9-to-5 routine of employeeswho share

a work location and see eaeh other on a daily basis. Each of these offerschallenges for com panies and their managers but also opportunities. We can

also expect telework to look very different in the next few years.

Telework:

The Advantages and Challengesof Working Here, There,Anywhere, and Anytime

NANCY B. KURLAND DIANE E. BAILEY

Twenty-five years ago. Jack Nilles coinedthe term "telecommuting" while stuck in

traffic in Los Angeles. It is no t su rprising thenthat initial interest in telecommuting wasdriven by concerns about traffic congestionand pollution in densely populated areassuch as southe rn California. In the 1980s, ascompanies focused increasingly on cuttingcosts, they pointed to telecom mu ting as ameans to reduce the expense of maintaining

office space . More recen tly, orga niza tionshave begun to view telecommuting as a toolto attract and retain top personnel in fieldswith short labor supplies. Over the years, thesubstitution of computer-based technologyfor physical travel has led to a number ofalternative work forms beyond home-basedtelecommuting, including satellite centers,neighborhood work centers, and mobileworking. Together, these forms constitute"teleworking." What they have in common isa transition from in-person supervision to

remote managing, from face-to-face commu-nication to telecommunications-mediated

communication, from on-site working to off-site or multiple-site working, and, in the caseof groups, from side-by-side collaboration tovirtual teamwork.

Estimates of the number of telecomm utersin the U.S. vary, but m ost figures range betweenthree and nine n:iillion people (three to eight per-cent of the workforce). These figures includepeople who work from home at least severaldays per m onth of their normal work schedule.

Many forecasters predict these numbers willcontinue to rise, but forecasts for the U.S. in theyear 20U0 vary considerab ly: from 15 millionworkers to 44 million workers or 57% of theworkforce. Further evidence of telecommuting'sgrowing popularity is found in the creation in1993 of a national trade organization, the Inter-national Telecommuting Advisory Council(ITAC), dedicated to promoting telework andtelecommuting. Recently, ITAC published thepremier issue of Telecommute, a monthly m aga-zine devoted to "today's flexible workplace."

One troubling element of this trend innew w ork forms is that m any com panies are



Nancy B. Kurland is assistant professor of

management and organization in the Mar-

shall School of Business, University of

Southern California, where she teaches

courses in organizational behavior and busi-

ness ethics. Her research focuses on

telecommuting, gossip (informal communi-

cation), the social impact of technology, and

ethics and incentives. She has published in

Academy of Management Review. Business

Ethics Quarterly, Business & Society. Busi-

ness an d Society Review, Human Reiations,

Journai of Applied Psychology, The informa-tion Society, Journai of Business Ethics, and

Organization Science. She is an active

telecommuter.

E-mail: [email protected]

allowing employees to telework w ithout ade-quately informing employees and managers

about the benefits and challenges. In thisarticle, we differentiate am ong the previouslyme ntioned alternative work forms of tele-working, describe advantages and challengesof each form, and provide recom mend ationsto addre ss these challenges. We base ourinsights on previous research, as well as onconversations Kurland had w ith 54 traditionalon-site and remote supervisors and the tele-workers and non-teleworkers they managein two high technology firms.

DEFINING TYPES OF TELEWORK

To begin the discussion, we define the fourtypes of telework: home-based telecommut-ing, satellite offices, neigh borho od work cen-ters, and mobile working.

Home-based telecommuting refers to employ-

ees who work at home on a regular basis,though not necessarily (and, in fact, rarely)every day. For example, employees at Hewlett-Packard can opt to telecommute several hoursto several days each week. (We do not consideras telecommuters the home-based workerswho are self-employed or wh o otherwise haveno connection to a central workplace.) A per-son can be said to be a telecommuter if hertelecomm unications link to the office is as sim-ple as a telephone; however, telecommutersoften use other comm unications media such aselectronic mail, personal computer links tooffice servers, and fax machines. Either the

firm or the employee purchases the home-based equipment, Hewlett-Packard coversmost expenses for employees when theytelecomm ute, including installing ISDN linesin em ployees' hom es. In 1993, 100 AmericanExpress travel agents in 15 locations telecom-muted. The company connected theseemployees' homes to American Express'phone and data lines for a modest one-timeexpense of $1300 each, including hardware.

In satellite offices, employees work both out-side the home and away from the conventionalworkplace in a location convenient to theemployees and/or customers. A satellite office



houses only employees from a single firm; it isin some sense a branch office w hose purpose is

to alleviate employees' cotnmute. The satelliteoffice is equipped with office furniture andequipment provided by the firm; in addition,adrrunistrative help may be available there. FujiXerox has a satellite office near Shin-YurigaokaStation on the Odakuy Line in a suburb ofTokyo. It has PCs, teleconferencing, and otherequipment so employees can work there w ith-out having to go to the headquarters office inthe city. The people who work there belong todifferent departments within the firm so nowhole unit is present at the satellite center.

A neighhorhood work center i s es sen t i a l ly

identical to a satellite office with one major dif-ference: the neighborhood work center housesmore than on e compan y's employees. In otherwords, several companies may share the leaseon an office building and maintain separateoffice areas within the building for employeesof each company.Office suites may be fur-nished by the site owner or by each rentingfirm. Satellite and neighborhood work centersare alternatives to home-based telecommuting;

the employee avoids a long commute to theconventional workplace but remains in anoffice rather than a hom e setting. For example.Southern California has numerous telecentersin which employees from different companiescan rent space monthly. These centers sportconveniences such as private office spaces,cubicles, fax m achines, data hook ups, telecon-ferencing, and videoconferencing technology.

In contrast to telecommuters who workfrom one designated location outside the

main office and who communicate with theoffice using electronic communication, mobile

workers are frequently on the road , using com-munications technology to work from home,from a car, from a plane, or from a hotel—communicating with the office as necessaryfrom each location. Mobile workers thus areaccustomed to working in an assortment oflocales. In an airport waiting lounge, oneauthor recently overheard a woman ask amobile w orker, working on his laptop, w herehis office was, "Actually," he responded,

"you're sitting in it." Most companies haveemployees who are intimately familiar with

Diane E. Bailey was awarded her B.S. in

industrial engineering and operations

research (lEOR) in 1988 from the University

of California, Berkeley, She received her

master's degree in 1990 in operations

research and her Ph.D. in lEOR in 1994,

both from Berkeley. She currently is assis-

tant professor of industrial engineering and

engineering management at Stanford Uni-

versity, She was assistant professor of

industrial and systems engineering at the

University of Southern California from 1994-

1998. Bailey's dissertation on the relationbetween work team structure and perfor-

mance in semiconductor m anufacturing won

the 1995 Institute of Industrial Engineering

Doctoral Dissertation Award. Her research

on the effectiveness of work teams has

appeared in both engineering and business

iournals.

E-mail: debailey@stanford,edu



TABLE 1; ORGANIZATIONAL ADVANTAGES AND

O F T E L E W O R K I N G

Advantages

Home-BasedTelecommuting •Greater productivity

•Low er absenteeism•Better morale

•Greater openness•Fewer interruptions at office

•ReiiuL'ed ov erhead

•Wid er talent pool•Lower turnover

•Regulation compiiancc

Satellite Office •Gre ater productivity

•Better morale•Wide r talent pool

•Lower turnover•Custom er proximity

•Regulation compliance•Corpo rate culture intact

NeighborhoodWork Center •Greater productivity

•Better morale•Wide r talent pool•Lower turnover

•Custom er proximity•Regulation compliance

Mobile Work •Gre ater productivity

•Low er absenteeism•Custom er proximity

CHALLENGES

Challenges

•Performance monitoring

•Performance measurement•Manag erial control

•M en tori nf;•Jealous colleagues•Synergy

•Informal interaction•Organization culture

•Virtual culture


•Performance tnea&ureraent•Managerial control


•Performance measurement•Managerial control•Mentoring

•Jealous colleagues•Synergy


•Performance measurement•Managerial control

•Synergy•Informal interaction•Organization culture

•Virtual culture

•Organizationloyaltv•Interpersonal skills

•Availability

•Schedule maintenance•Wo rk coordination•Internal customers

•Communication•Guidelines (e.g. expenses)•Technology

•Jealous colleagues

•Virtual culture•Internal customers

•Informal interaction•Organization culture•Virtual culture

•Organization loyalty

•Schedule maintenance•Wo rk coordination

•Internal customers

•Organiza tion loyalty•Availability

•Schedule maintenance•Wo rk coordination

•Communication•Guidelines (e.g. expenses)

•Technology

mobile work, like marketing managers, sales-persons, investment bankers, investigativereporters, and any other personnel who need

to be on the move to get their jobs done.Telework, in any form, has ramificationsbeyond simply changing the way or place inwhich an individual employ ee performswork: It can extend to remote managing andvirtual teams.

Remote managmg occurs wh en mana gersare physically separated from their directreports because the manager and/or theemployee teleworks, and thus manages theseemployees remotely. For example, a manager inIrvine, California at Fujitsu B usiness Systems

supervises two employees, one based in Bostonand the other in Dallas. Both employees

telecommute full-time from home and the man-ager telecommutes part-time. Remote manag-ing is characterized by this inability of a m an-

ager to observe her employees' work processes.Virtual teams consist of team members who

are geographically dispersed and who cometogether by way of telecommunications technol-ogy (e.g., video conferencing). Each team mem-ber may be located in a traditional office setting,but the offices are not proximate to one another.Additionally, virtual team members may tele-work, such as a telecommuter wh o is a memberof a multiple-site team. A project manager atHew lett-Packard sits in No rthern California,while his team members abide in Southern Cali-

fornia, Florida, and Brussels.

Thus, telework may have additional



TABLE 2 : INDIVIDUAL

OF

Advantages

Home-BasedTelecommuting •Less time commuting

•Cost savings•Less stress•Mo need for relocation

•More autonomy•Sch edu le tiexibility

ADVANTAGES AND CHALLENGES

TELEWORKING

Challenges

•Social isolation

•Professional isolation•Organization culture

•Reduced office influence•Work/family balance

•Informal interaction

•Comfortable work environment

•Fewe r distractions•Absence of office politics

•Work'family balance•Workplace fairness

•More job satisfaction

Satellite Office •Le ss time comm uting•Cost savings

•Less stress•No need for relocation•Work/family balance

•More job satisfaction

NeighborhoodWoili; Center •Les s time comm uting

•Cos t savings

•Less stress•N o need for relocation

•More autonomy

•Absence of office politics•Work/familybalance•More job satisfaction

Mobile Work •Mo re autonomy•Schedule flexibility•Absence of office politics

•iVofessiona! isolation

•Reduced office influence

•Social isolation


•Social isolation



•Conducive home

environment•Focusing on work

•Longer hours•Access to resources

•Technical savvy

•Access to resources


•Access to resources

•Longer hours

•Access to resources•Technical savvy

advantages and challenges that emerge w henconsideration extends beyond the isolatedteleworker—both up {to managers) and across(to teammates) the traditional organization.

I D E NT I FY IN G A D V A N T A G E S A N D

CHAL LENG ES OE TELEWORK

These alternative work forms bring both bene-fits and challenges to organizations, individuals,and society. Many of the advantages and chal-lenges we discuss (see Tables 1 through 3)assume that the teleworker is away from theoffice a sigruficant percentage of working time.

The impact of each advantage and challengemay diniinish for individuals who telework a

small fraction of their working time.

HOME-BASED TELECOMMUTING

Organizational level. From the organization'sperspective, home-based telecommuting pro-vides an opportunity to improve workplaceproductivity. Because telecommuting employ-ees experience greater schedule flexibility,they can work when they prefer, and therebyimprove their productivity.

Also, popular press accounts of successfultelecommuting programs often report thattelecommuters take fewer sick days, are absent

less, have higher job satisfaction, and havehigher w ork performance ratings. These factors



her here... [I]f we do not have this flexibility,I think that we might lose her to some other

depa rtmen t here or to another organization."Finally, telecommuting programs enable

firms to comply with regulations such as theClean Air Act and the Americans with Dis-abilities Act. The City of San Diego boasts anextensive telecommuting program that itimplemented in response to the federal andstate mandates to clean up the air. Telecom-muting gets people off the freeways and pro-vides opportunities to people who stay athom e or who might otherwise h ave difficultytraveling to a workplace. The organizationaladvantages of telecommuting thus cover awide spectrum, including behavioral out-comes, produc tivity, and legal issues.

On the other hand, several challengesmay hamper an organization's willingness tointegrate telecommuting into the traditionaloffice environment. A major challenge formanagers is their inability to physicallyobserve their employees' performance. Theyquestion, "How do you measure productivity,build trust, and manage people who are

physically ou t of sight?" If a manager ca n't seeher subordina tes in action, then she can't notewhe re the employee is struggling and wherehe is strong, and may no t be able to providereliable and constructive performance feed-back. Some managers can just focus on out-come, rather than process, assuming thatthese outcomes are easy to measure and mon-itor. Salespeople, for exam ple, are prime con-tenders for telecommuting, and may be onereason both IBM and Merrill Lynch arestaunch supporters of telecommuting. But formany other types of employees, monitoringand measuring their performance remainproblematic and a source of concern. Onemanager in our research complained, "At thispoint, I don't have any measure at all, nonewhatsoever, and that's one of the pieces ofthis that bothers me about the telecommuter;there needs to be a better way to measure pro-ductivity."

Further, telecommuting can negativelyaffect the social network in the workplace,and thereby pose other challenges for man-agers. For example, telecomm uting m ay neg-

atively impact those who remain in the work-place (i.e., non-telecom muters) by (1) disrupt-

ing teamwork, (2) fragmenting the local socialnetwork [of those left behind], and (3) creat-ing possible resentment among employeesNOT chosen to telecomm ute. For exam ple, inone case, a telecommuter complained thatbecause h e lived next to a golf co urse, his col-leagues teased that when he worked at home,he had gone "tele-golfing."

Oth er entities m ay also face challenges indealing with telecommuting. Unions, forexample, fear that telecommuting mayadversely affect worker solidarity becausetelecommuters are more physically dispersedand less able to organize collectively.

Additionally, managers may find it diffi-cult to create team synergy and to overcomethe absence of informal, interactive learn-ing—learning that takes place by the watercooler, over lunch, or in the hallways. On thechallenge to synergy, one manager com-mented, "Productivity gains are measuredwhen you put people into an office environ-ment and a lot of synergy's created...When

you telecommute...there's a lack of energythat I notice in the office..." On the cha llengeto informal, interactive learning, anothermanager commented: "It's much more diffi-cult to communicate with [the telecommuter].[Mjost communication here tends to be infor-mal comm unication, not m eefings, not mem os,or things like that. We find that he is probablythe least in touch with the general things thatare going on in the division in terms of produc tideas, concepts. I mean h e can m ake it for a for-mal presentation but those don't happen very

often compared to work getfing do ne as peoplejust run into folks, have lunch with folks, andthat kind of thing."

This manager affirmed that participatingin formal, scheduled meefings is not enough.Wh en em ployees wo rk off-site, they miss thelearning that occurs, informally, sponta-neously— learning that canno t be scheduled,and is sometimes known as "in place careerdevelopment."

Other issues concern developing and

transm itting organization culture. First, orga-nization s may find it difficult to transm it their



cultures to individuals who often are physi-cally remote. How can organizations comm u-

nicate and instill values to and in theseemployees? How can organizafions developand express norms? Will telecommuters beless loyal to a company than non-telecom-muters? Will telecommuters fail to developinterpersonal skills, some of them firm-spe-cific, that help people communicate andcooperate in the workplace?

A second concern is the issue of creating a

virtual culture: How does an organizationmake telecommuting acceptable among

telecommuters and non-telecommuters,among subordinates and managers, andamong employees and customers? For exam-ple, some non-telecommuters may believe thatteleworkers are not working when they arenot regularly seen in the traditional office, aswith the so-called tele-golfing employee men-tioned above. Others may be reluctant tophone telecommuters for fear of interruptingthem at their homes. Clearly, cultural concerns,both of conveying a corporate culture to theindividual telecommuter and of expanding the

corporate culture to include virtual etiquetteand understanding, pose tremendous chal-lenges to the organizafion. Merrill Lynch mayhave one solution. It has over 130 employeesworking from home an average of three daysper week. In its formalized program, MerrillLynch provides training and equ ipment alongwith the same software that exists in its office.It has also created a "telecommuting simula-tion lab" where prospective telecommuters arerequired to train for two weeks prior to work-ing from home. However, to fully develop a

virtual culture, Merrill Lynch will need toexpand its labs to include interactions withoffice-based colleagues.

Other challenges relate to coordinatingand organizing work. One challenge has to dowith the telecommuter's availability. Whentelecommuters take advantage of flexibility inscheduling their work, they may be unavailableto work peers and clients who maintain tradi-tional office hours. Another challenge relates tohow organizations distribute tasks between

telecommuters and office workers. Wlio shouldhandle what? How should hand-offs be carried

out? Should work-related items (e.g., files, con-tacts, physical objects) be transferred from

office to hom e and back? Sfill other difficulfiesspring from arranging linkages betweentelecommuters and internal customers if thelatter are unaware that the telecommuterswork at home. Lastly, despite advances in com-munications technology, communicating witha remote employee teleworker can still posechallenges, such as conveying non-verbal m es-sages. As such, there is a greater need to estab-lish confingency plans in the event that thetelecommuter cannot be reached by, or cannotreach, an office counterpart.

Finally, telecommuting challenges organi-zations to establish clear telecommuting policyguidelines. Some telecommuters are concernedwith how to handle expenses. For example, ifthe firm has supplied the printer, can thetelecommuter also use it for personal pu rposes?If so, how should subsequent costs (e.g., tonerand paper) be expensed? Others worry abouttheir telecommuting colleagues' technologicalcompetence. One telecommuter complainedthat he works with other telecommuters who

cannot send e-mail, who cannot use basic soft-ware such as PowerPoint®, and who areunable to transfer files electronically. He loseshis own time (and patience) when forced tohelp them. Although not as frequent a concern,determ ining employees' eligibility for workers'compensation is also difficult, largely becauseno one is around to witness accidents in thehome. Establishing guidelines and require-ments for telecommuting may be an easierchallenge to overcome. The state of Oregonprovides a very detailed, easy-to-foliow work-book to help a company devise its own guide-lines, as do other sources available through theInternet.

Individual level. From the individual's per-specfive, telecommuting offers a number ofadvan tages. The most obvious benefit is that iteliminates (for full-time telecommuters) orreduces (for parfial-week telecommuters) com-mu te fime. Reduced comm ute fime saves gasand car maintenance, as well as lessens traffic-related stress. Moreover, for workers whoselong commutes may cause them to considerrelocating (either to a new firm or to a new



neighborhood), telecommuting saves them theexpense and upheaval of such major change.

Telecommuting further provides employeeswith more autonomy and control over theirwork lives via schedule fiexibility and an invis-ibility from managers and co-workers. Theycan work in comfortable and familiar environ-ments with fewer distractions. Since few peo-ple see them, they have no need to dress up,and thus they save money on dry cleaning anddress clothes. Mo reover, their at-home situa-tion allows them to avoid office politics. Formany employees, telecommuting provides an

even greater advantage:It

permitsa

more effec-five balance of work demands with responsi-bilities at home—a major reason Hewlett-Packard strongly supports telecommuting.Telecommufing also allows for workplace fair-ness by enhancing employm ent opportunitiesfor disabled individuals. Hence, becausetelecommufing can improve individuals' over-all work-life quality, telecommuters may bemore satisfied with their jobs.

By comparison, probably the most com-monly expressed challenge of telecommutingis overcoming the isolation caused by the sep-aration of the telecommuter from the socialnetwork in the traditional work space. UrsulaHuws referred to this isolation as a "trappedhousewife syndrom e." While isolation canlead to social frustration that arises from a lackof interaction with work peers, it can also leadto feelings of professional isolafion. Telecom-muters may fear that w hen they're out of sight,they're out of mind for promotions and otherrewards. Because telecommuting encourages

autonomy rather than solidarity, still othertelecommuters report that their commitmentor loyalty to the organization diminishesbecause they're not "around" the traditionalworkplace often enou gh. Isolation may inhibitan individual's ability to learn the corpora-fion's culture and may also serve to reduce thetelecomm uter's influence within the firm.

Another challenge commonly voicedabout telecommuting relates to its perceivedrole as a panacea for employees, especially

women, who face family obligations.Telecommuters may have difficulty establish-ing a hom e env ironmen t that is conducive to

work. Children and spouses alike may notrespect the sanctity and privacy of a home

office. Ch ildren, especially, may have a toughtime learning not to interrupt their workingparent. Indeed, telecommuting may hinderemployees' productivity if they are expectedto simultaneously raise children who mayneed constant attention, "trapping" womenin the dual roles of caretaker and employeewhile working at home. Conversely, withwork located right in the home, and thus somuch more accessible, telecommuters mayfind themselves working longer hours, fur-

ther straining family relationships.Another issue in work and family balance

centers on the function of the commute.Employees may need the transition timebetween home and work to refocus themselvesfrom hom e challenges to work challenges andvice versa. In other w ords, the daily com mutemay serve as a "warm -up" period in the m orn-ing and a "cool-down" in the evening. Thus,telecommuting, by placing workers in thehome and eliminafing the commute to work,serves to blur distinctions between family life

and work life. Quite possibly, this blurring is adisadvantage for the individual.

Two other challenges should be noted.Telecommuters must overcome the challengeof maintaining access to resources at w ork, asfailure to do so could lead to performancelosses. Telecommuters may need to be moretechnically savvy than their office peers, sincesupport services are not accessible on-site.

Societal level. Telecommuting providessocietal benefits as well. It can decrease traffic

congestion on strained highways and reduceautomobile-related air pollution—althoughits impact m ay be negligible if only a few peo-ple telecommute. By working at home,telecommuters discourage community crimethat might otherwise occur in bedroom com-munities. Further, because telecommutershave more flexible schedu les and gain time bynot comm uting to work, they can spend moretime building com mun ity fies.

However, telecommuting does pose chal-

lenges to society. Society as a who le n eeds tocome to terms w ith telecommuting; it needs todevelop a culture of telework. One issue that



this culture must resolve is zoning regulationsthat forbid business parcel delivery within resi-

dential neighborhoods. Another is the assump-tion (by friends, relatives, neighbors, etc.) thatanyone at home during the day is free to chat,to watch a child, or to run an errand . A greater,but we suspect much less likely, concern thathas been put forward is that, by transformingwork from a sensual activity to an abstract, com-puter-mediated one, telecommuting may causea gradual degradation of a person's ability tointeract with other people in a personal, inti-mate, and human manner. Over time, and unth

enough people involved, this degradationcould change the nature of social intercourse indisturbing and undesirable ways.

SATELLITE OFFICES ANDN E I G H B O R H O O DWORK CENTERS

Telework, via satellite offices or neighbor-hood work centers, shares many of the orga-nizational, individual, and societal benefitsand challenges associated with home-basedtelecommu ting. For example, consistent withtelecommuting advantages, satellite officeand neighborhood work center employeeswill spen d less time com muting, will be betterable to balance work demands with faniilydemands, and can be located closer to exter-nal customers. A shared disadvantage is thatbeing off-site invites managerial concernsabout measuring employee productivity.

Nevertheless, several differences exist. On

the plus side, employees who work in satelliteoffices may experience less professional andsocial isolation than do home-based telecom-muters. Because the satellite office houses onlyemployees of a single firm, m uch of the corpo-rate culture may be replicated in the satellitesite. Informal interactions are more likely; thus ,mentoring and informal learning may againtake place, reducing professional isolation.Likewise, in contrast to home-based workers,satellite office and neighborhood work centeremployees should feel less socially isolatedbecause other people are present in their workenvironments. However, neighborhood work

center employees may continue to feel profes-sionally isolated. Because the neighborhoodcenter services a community rather than anorganization, it most likely will not house suf-ficient numbers of employees from any singlefirm to provide a firm-specific learning envi-ronmen t. Hence, impediments to produchvity,such as those rela ted to a lack of informal inter-action and remoteness in relation to internalcustomers, may persist in neighborhoo d workcenters.

MOBILE WORKING

The implications of mobile working stand incontrast to those of home-based telecommut-ing, satellite offices, and neighborhood workcenters. Whereas telecommuting brings theemployee home, mobile work sends theemployee away. Extant technology enablesemployees to work anywhere and anytime.Employees are further freed from physicaloffice constraints. Organizations benefit asemployees w ork mo re closely with customersand other stakeholders, which is one reasonthat Fujitsu Business Communicationsencourages its account executives to telecom-mu te m obilely.

However, advantages associated withtelecommuting for the individual prove to beabsent in the mobile work environment.Mobile workers find it more difficult to bal-ance work demands with home demands.They are often away from hom e for days a ndweeks, and may spend a considerable

amount of time in hotels—all of which maychip away at the mobile worker's morale.Two mobile workers discussed the disadvan-tages of this work form:

"[When I was m obile, I was] always aw ayfrom my family. Lots of travel. I put on 20,000miles on my car [in less than one year]. Justtrying to comm unicate w ith.. .many peo ple isvery difficult. Just the fact that I was alwaystraveling I think was frustrating...being awayfrom my family, [and always] in hotels."

"Well, I don't know that I personallyderive any benefit. I gain freeway time. I gainless face time with indiv idua ls. My travel time



goes up. I have the ability to access informa-tion an yw here I'm at. Personally the only way

that it affects me is that I have to spend moretime driving and 1 have less time to see peopleface to face."

Mobile working has few societal benefitsexcept that it promotes frequent interactionamong people outside the organization. Itthus enables mobile workers to build andrefine their interpersonal skills and in turn tocontribute to a milieu of healthy, huma n socialinteraction. However, a more likely result forsociety is that mobile workers merely add to

air pollution and traffic congestion.

FURTHER RAMIFICATIONS:REMOTE MANAGING ANDVIRTUAL TEAMS

Remote Managing. When employees telework,managers necessarily manage them remotely.Most often, managers do so only part-time andfrom short distances, since employees usuallytelecommute or work on the road for only partof each week. During the remainder of theweek, these employees come to the mainoffice; managers can interact with them face-to-face. In such scenarios, managers haveample opportunity to observe, counsel, andmen tor subo rdinates. In addition, teleworkingemployees are able to associate with theirpeers both formally and informally. Throughthis collegial interaction, organizations can fos-ter shared values and norms between on-siteworkers and frequently remote employees.

The situation becomes complicated, how-ever, when teleworkers "hotel." Hoteling refersto the process bywhich com panies assign officespace to employees on an as-needed, tempo-rary basis. In a hoteling environment, employ-ees have no permanent office or desk; rather,they may be in a different space each time theygo to the office. For example, Cisco Systemsconverted to hoteling in its Freemont, Califor-nia office. At the time, the Freemont officeserved 33 employees (account managers, sys-tems engineers, and support staff). After con-verting to a hoteling environment, theseemployees shared four private phone booths.

six cubicles, one team cube, four carrels, and alab for the systems engineers. Such arrange-

men ts can cut costs tremendous ly. But compa-nies need to be wary that under a hotelingarrangement, teleworkers don't often find thateach hme they visit the main office, they arelocated at some distance from their workgroups, and thus they miss out on some of theinteractions these employees expect and needto participate in when at the office.

Remotely managing employees full-timeand from great distances is difficult and ofgreater concern. Although truly remote man-

aging has u ndeniable benefits (e.g., it enlargesthe pool from which to choose talented w ork-ers and may place the remote emp loyee closerto external customers), it constrains man-agers' ability to communicate across timezones and to mentor teleworkers. As oneremote mobile manager remarked:

"In our business and in a lot of other peo-ple's business, the coaching and counselingthat you do with people is really, really critical.And it's a constant process as a manager. Sothat's one of the challenges; How do youdevelop your people? How do you haveenough face-to-face [time], or enough time in aprofessional environment with them to be ableto see the things they need to improve on an dto be able then to spend that coaching andcounseling time with them? If you do every-thing remotely, at the end of the quarter, at theend of the half, how do you do somebody'sreview? How do you assess their perfor-mance? It's easy to identify their performancebased upon activity and, you know, the results.

But how about those personal development orskills development issues that you really needto focus on?"

Virtual teams. Virtual teams consist ofmembers who are separated organizationallyor geographically, sometimes by continents.The number of virtual teams is growing asmore people work across internal functionalboundaries and across external boundarieswith vendors, customers, complementaryenterprises, and direct competitors. More sothan other forms of telework, virtual teamsdep end on e-mail, video-conferencing, audio-conferencing, and the like to meet, coUabo-



FIGURE 1

Part-daylocaltelecommuting

: A CONT INUUM OF THE

satellite neighborhood

office work centers

Fewest number of management challenges

CHALLENGE OF

mobile

working

REMOTE MANAGING

worldwide

virtual teams

Greatest number of management challenges

rate, and share ideas. Virtual teams benefit

from their diverse memberships, cross-cul-

tural links, access to wider talent pools, and

broader ranges of customer service.However, virtual teams face a number of

challenges. One engineer we interviewed

spoke of problems he faces on a virtual team

spread out among two California locations

and a European one. The team must over-

come considerable cultural barriers. For exam-

ple, the Europeans on the team prefer formal

modes of communication, while the Ameri-

cans prefer more informal ones. Reliance on e-

mails and telephone calls (which must be

coordinated across time zones) complicated

processes of informal communication, which

frustrated the American side of the team.

Team members must also strive to create syn-

ergy and shared values; their attempts in these

domains is made more difficult by their

remote locations. This problem is likely to exist

even for teams whose teleworking members

are located in the same city, as lack of face-to-

face time severely hampers the development

of a team's sense of itself. All of these factors

may delay decision time in the team and, ulti-

mately, may negatively affect its performance.A continuum of remote managing. We sum-

marize the discussion of remote managing

and virtual teams by building a continuum

showing the degree of difficulty, in terms of

coordination, observation, and so on,

involved in various remote managing situa-

tions. In Figure 1, the employee's work

arrangement is located along the continuum;

we assume for purposes of argument that the

manager is located at the main office. Local,

part-hme telecommuting represents the least

challenging remote managing situation for

the manager based at the main office. Remote

managing becomes more challenging the fur-

ther the subordinate is from the office (in

terms of physical distance for satellite offices,

in terms of both distance and association forneighborhood work centers), with virtual

teams presenting the most difficult situation.

PREPARING FOR AND

MANAGING TELEWORK

ENVIRONMENTS

Managers can address many of the telework-

ing challenges described in this article

tbrough careful preparation and on-goinginvolvement. We provide recommendations

to aid tbis process.

Guidelines. Organizations need to pre-

pare themselves and their employees for tele-

work. Guidelines can prepare teleworkers and

managers by covering topics such as schedul-

ing, communication expectations, telecom-

muting eligibility, performance expectations,

expense policies, and how to maintain healthy

collegial relationships.

The State of California Telework Pro-

gram, a collaborative effort undertaken by theDepartment of Personnel Administration

(DPA) and the Department of General Ser-

vices (DGS), provides extensive information

regarding its policies and procedures online

at http://www.dpa.ca.gov/jobsnpay/teleivork/tele-

main.htm.

Infrastructure. Managers need to guaran-

tee that prospective teleworkers have basic tech-

nical tools, such as e-mail access and responsive

communication bnks (e.g., ISDN lines) to ensure

successful off-site work. Further, managersshould help teleworkers address work-family

issues, including the design of conducive home



environments for work. For example, one man-ager we spoke with is himself a full-time, home-based telecommuter who manages full-time,home-based telecommuters. He personally vis-its his telecommuting employees' home workspaces early in the process, advising improve-men ts as necessary.

Availability. Many firms require tele-workers to maintain working schedules con-sistent with the office schedule (e.g., 8 to 5schedule, with lunch at noon) to facilitatecoordination with work peers. We caution,however, that such a practice may reduce

productivity gains associated with telework.Whether a company requires a fixed schedulewill obviously vary by the type of job; forexample, it may be more essential for cus-tomer service representatives than for designengineers. Managers may choose instead tonegotiate a certain number of hours duringwhich the teleworker will be available. Tele-workers may enhance their availability by car-rying a pager or by proactively contacting themain office by e-mail or phone.

Communication. Another element ofpreparation should address communicationneeds. To solve m any com munications prob-lems, off-site workers can let a centralizedcomm unications center know where they areworking. If the teleworking employee ser-vices internal customers, then these cus-tomers must be alerted to the employee'sremote days. Some customers may find con-tacting the employee at home an inconve-nience, while others will continue to demandface-to-face interaction. These specific con-

cerns can be ha ndled on a case-by-case basis.Training may need to focus on time zo ne

and cross-cultural communication barriers,especially for virtual team s. Often several timezones separate supe rvisors from their employ-ees, thus allowing only a few hours duringwhich their work schedules overlap. Issuesthat could otherwise be handled through face-to-face communication any time in a work daymay go unaddressed unless individuals makea conscious effort to set aside time. It is criticalthat both supervisors and emp loyees feel theycan share their concerns, and that they arecapable of communicating their concerns

cogently. Managers and employees may needto improve their ability to communicate effec-tively with electronic media.

Task scheduling. Part-time telecom-muters can learn to reserve certain work fortheir telecommute days—w ork that does notrequire access to on-site resources or that doesdemand hours of uninterrupted quiet time.

Meeting scheduling. Organizations peri-odically should bring on site non-collocatedindividuals whose w ork is interdepend ent toenable them to get to know one another.Establishing initial bases of trust and familiar-

ity through face-to-face interaction strength-ens subsequent virtual communication. Theprocess is particularly important for virtualteams. In addition, supervisors may wish toschedule regular meetings, "peacock ses-sions," either face-to-face or electronicallymediated, in which employees share theiraccomplishments and "strut their stuff." Suchmeetings counter the view that when work-ers are out of sight, they must not be working.

Trips to the main office. Organizations

may require employees to be on site at regularintervals to help enmesh them in the organi-zation's culture. Some other firms require tele-workers to work in the m ain office for a givenamount of hme prior to teleworking to allowthe company's culture to sink in. Subsequentoffice visits and interactive idea-sharingforums, visits, including time set aside bymanagers for employees to voice concerns,allow employees to develop social and profes-sional ties. These ties foster teleworkers' beliefsthat they actively participate in the processes

that govern them, and subsequently combatprofessional isolation. Also, frequent e-mail

may increase off-site em ployees' comm itmentto the organization, although it may reducesolidarity in existing social groups.

Performance measurement. Supervisorscan begin to manage teleworkers by outputsrather than inputs. However, for managerswho want to actively mentor their employeesor for employees whose work is not easilyquantifiable, a focus on outputs may be limit-

ing. Organizations can supplement an outputfocus with frequent communication. Com-puter technology further alleviates the prob-



lem of in-person observation for many othertypes of workers. Teleworkers can electroni-cally submit observable, quantifiable outputssuch as reports, files, graphs, and other work-specific data. For example, one manager wespoke with m onitors his telecommuters' per-formance daily using computerized statistics ofproduct orders, numb er of buys, and the like.

Non-teleworker buy-in. Managers shouldcultivate non-teleworker buy-in as part of thepreparation process. On-site employees mayfind that their workload increases and disrup -tions multiply if they become the resource for

questions while the teleworker works awayfrom the m ain office. Thus, managers mu st esti-mate the impact of teleworking on non-tele-workers and devise appropriate business pro-cedures to limit this impact as much as possible.Moreover, organizations should discourage theperspective that teleworkers do not work, orthat they do not work as hard as office employ-ees.

In sum, effective preparation and subse-que nt m anaging can foster a healthy and p ro-

ductive telewo rk culture. Clearly, curren t andexpected advances in telecommunicationstechnology will facilitate a growing numberof teleworkers. Thus, creating a positive cul-ture now for remote workers will reapnumerous future benefits for individuals,organizations, and society alike.

THE FUTURE OE TELEWORK

Many forecasters pred ict a steady and consid-

erable increase in the number of teleworkersin the years to come. The increase, they claim,will be precipitated by treme ndou s ad vancesin telecommunications and multimedia tech-nology that will make communicationbetween a remote site and a main office evensmoother an d easier than it is today. The tech-nological advances will come at a hm e w henthe U.S. economy will experience continuedgrowth in service industries. When no physi-cal product is associated with work, as in theservice industries, teleworking becomes amore viable option. Even in some industrieswh ere there is a physical prod uct, its creahon

may not require hands-on attention in a cen-tral site. For example, the growth of the soft-ware industry provides a large pool of pro-gramm ers w ho qu ite easily can con tribute tothe creation of an application program fromthe comfort of a hom e office. Th us, we expectthat teleworking in the future—even in thenext few years—will look very different th anit does today.

One short-term change, already evidentin some locales, is that new homes will bedesigned with a home office as a standard fea-ture, and housing developments will include

ISDN lines as commonly as they do telephoneand sewer lines. Already in th e Silicon V alleyone sees new spaper advertisements for apart-ments with ISDN lines.

Some small firms may go completely vir-tual. For example, Janet Caswell describes how asmall accounting firm established all its employ-ees in h om e offices, gave up the lease on a m ainoffice, and placed the remaining office suppliesin storage, with p lans to go completely paperlessin the near future. Other firms will sport mainoffices that are less crowded than before.Already in universities, empty hallways are com-mon, as professors opt to work at ho me, usingcomp uters to commu nicate vvith stude nts an dcolleagues. Efforts in distance leaming (wherethe stud ents, the professor, o r both, are locatedaway from the traditional classroom) suggest apossible decline in an o n-camp us presence. Inthe corporate world, being in the main officesoon could be mir\imally effective in increasingone's visibility should telecommuting becomeincreasingly popular, as there may be no one

else there to do the seeing.Teleworking may fulfill the desire of

many workers to leave large urban areasbehind them. Currently, the Sierra Nevadamountains in California are becoming muchmore populated as workers take to the hills,comp uters in tow. The surge in po pulaho n inpreviously remote areas will grow dramati-cally, and in many cases there will be unfa-vorable, effects on the rural environment andon local economies. Meanwhile, back in the

cities, we might expect to see fewer largeoffice parks and ultimately less congestion.Teleworking may conceivably spark a long-



term spreading out of the U.S. populationthat will alter, among other things, tax basesand transportation needs.

Also, we are beg inning to see telecities orvillages in which "information technologies areused for mobility, economic growth , and otherlong-term public interests, as well as the short-term private interests usually satisfied by com-petitive marke ts." The Blue Line Televillage inCompton, California, is comprised of four dif-ferent levels of structure {from largest to small-e s t ) : central tele-district centers, sub-regionalcenters, televillage centers and neighborhood

communication centers. The telecity Blue Linearchitects wanted to spatially redesign urbanareas, making everything (all services, publicand private) available within w alking distanceor a short public shuttle ride from each hom e.The Blue Line Televillage includes a small tele-work center, a computer center, videoconfer-ence center, meeting rooms and informationkiosks. Many services are available there,including ATM m achines, distance educahonclasses, computer and internet classes, andpublic access computers. Future televillages

might also have connections to governmentoffices, reta ilers, and medical clinics.

The long-term ramificahons of telework-ing on a global scale m ay includ e a lessening o f

immigration to the U . S . and the diminishmentof U.S. engineering and business schools aspremier degree-granting institutions. Forexample, a s communication technology allowssoftware development to spread to India,fewer Indian engineers will seek higherdegrees— and ultimately employment—in the

U . S . Domestic high-technology firms will findit more difficult to attract talent, but they alsomay have less need for it. U.S. wo rkers mayface lower wages and fewer opportunities ifpositions in service industries, like those inmanufacturing industries before them, moveoverseas. The technology that will enable U.S.workers to wo rk at hom e, similarly, will allow

foreign workers to remain in their home cou n-try. The result m ay at once brin g both benefitsand hardships to U . S . workers.

Finally, telework might open up newmarket opportunities for innovative compa-nies. Already, com panies such as Cisco Sys-tems, Fujitsu Business Communications,KPMG Peat Marwick L L P , Flextime Corpora-tion, and Synergy Planning are marketingprodu cts and advice designed to address tele-workers' unique needs.

We have listed here a few of the expectedimpacts associated with a predicted rise in

teleworking. We add the caveat that the fore-casts of large numbers of future telecom-muters are simply that—forecasts. Quite pos-sibly, individual workers and managers maydetermine the challenges of telework out-weigh the advantag es, and th us decline to setup teleworking arrangements. Or, morelikely, individuals may telecommute on apart-time basis, thereby muting the impactcaused by a large teleworking population.Non etheless, in the face of this phen om eno n,small businesses, large corporations, local,

state, and federal government agencies, andthe public at large do well to begin to d eveloppublic policies to address the needs, chal-lenges, and ramifications associated with tele-work. Rural towns should plan for new devel-opm ent. For example, towns and ciHes shouldrevisit zon ing codes, managers sho uld designmethods for mentoring and evaluatingremote employees, and teleworkers shouldseek ways to ensure their employment whileallowing themselves to benefit from telework.

Although some outcomes are unavoidable,careful plann ing may serve to make the tran-sition to the new future world of work easierfor all.

l-l T o o r d e r re p r i n t s , c a l l 8 0 0 - 6 4 4 - 2 4 6 4 ( re f . n u m b e r

1 0 6 9 8 ) . F o r p h o t o c o p y p e r m i s s io n , s ee p a g e 2 .

Advantages and Challenges of Working Here There Anywhere

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