Telecommuting – The Tell All

Telecommuting started as a bit of an experiment on my part. At the genesis of my company, technology for communicating globally was beginning to appear from the shadows of the backrooms of a bunch of computer geeks. Skype, for instance, had remedied some of the problems had with delays and such, and was proving itself an effective tool for, say, boardroom discussions. And you know how the adage goes – it was there, so I decided to use it.

It seems a lot of folks were testing the waters in this regard. Now, a mechanism for communication that was definitely too pie in the sky for some of my colleagues and competitors, has become a serious workplace option. (Interestingly, and just as a sidepoint, Skype was purchased by eBay for a record sum and the talk around town is that Google is trying to aquire the same from eBay.)

I wanted to have a little chat about my experiences with this form of workplace culture. I reckon it’s something we all need to be considering when we’re looking at how we want our businesses to run –and what we want their values to be – in the coming years.

T o begin with, and this ain’t something to be squawked at, my wife is stoked to have me around. And I’m pretty sure that the partners of all my consultants will back her on this point. We have three little kids who she previously raised pretty much on her own. She’s a great mother, but sucked as a chef. Now I get to be at home when the kids arrive in from school, she can leave one of them with me if she needs to duck to the doctor or something – and I get to cook the family meals, something we’re all thankful for. And I don’t want to bore you with the minutiae of my domestic arrangements, but this is an important point. If we’re all happy at home, I’m free from the distraction of domestic anarchy, and can concentrate on my commercial aims.

And if you’re not riding my wave yet, check out the divorce rates, check out the amount of sadness, consider the amount of personal agony and grief caused by these figures and if you’ve got any amount of empathy, you’ll have trouble concentrating on the next point I wanna make because you’ll have an image in mind of the last bloody poor sod who’s life was all mussed up by their personal unhappiness.

Inner city property prices are now beyond the reach of average folks, meaning that most have to move out a little in order to purchase property. This leads me to my next, more pragmatic point. By telecommuting, time spent on the road travelling to and from the office is reduced exponentially. And we’re all time poor, we all could do with an extra few hours in the day. By freeing up employees in this way, they are afforded some space to be happier parents, take on some extra study in order to make them better at what they do, or just some simple downtime away from the computer screen and mobile phone.

Here’s a point that some of you might disagree with but it’s my main bugbear with the way business culture runs, so I’m whacking it in the pros column. What’s with meetings? I hate ‘em. For the most part, their uninspired, uninspiring and a tool used by middle management to demonstrate that they’re working towards results when they are really just pumping another room full of hot air. Any more of it, and a little alteration in its chemical consistency, and all of those locked into meetings eight hours each day will start talking like Donald Duck on helium. Remember George from Seinfeld? He gets himself a job but has no tasks to do at work, so spends his time ranting in the hallways. Reminds me of the dudes who schedule meetings and force others into their time-wasting charade.

And it’s not just that I personally don’t play well with others, so don’t go pinning that one on me. But when I have a meeting, I wanna get something really concrete from it. I want solid information and firm game-plans. Not flimsy promises and a bunch of inane ‘brainstorming’.

Now for the cons. And there are a few, so don’t go giving notice on the lease in your office yet. Firstly, working from home just doesn’t suit every personality. Some people find the lure of the lawns to be mowed and the weeds to be pulled, or the call of Foxtel far more distracting than any five minute chat by the water cooler. It’s therefore the role of employers and individuals themselves to determine the best ratio for work-at-home and work-from the office.

Also, some colleagues who I’ve chatted to about this reckon there’s a level of maturity required before an employee can be trusted with the responsibility of getting the job done from home without being highly monitored. Whilst this maturity doesn’t necessarily always come with age, it often does. It can also come with an increase in personal responsibility. For instance, the woman who has had to juggle kid commitments with commuting physically into an office each day is going to see the opportunity to work at home as a privilege.

There’s also the social aspect of the workplace that, I suppose, is important. But here I’m gonna get into trouble by questioning to what extent. We went all touchy feely in the 90’s about team building and all that. And whilst I will concede that we’re not robots, we do need to understand the folks we work with in order to get along with them, I would question how much Friday night drinks or the odd casual Friday allows this to occur. It’s a little contrived for my liking. I’m interested in my employees and colleagues as people, and I’d like to know about their lives apart from work, but I want to acquire this knowledge as I go, not because I’m forced into a room with them, a bowl of chips and a couple of beers sandwiched between us.

Point is, I’m going out in favor of telecommunication. It affords a great life, a kind of knitting together of work and home that feels natural and comfortable. Not to mention the sudden decline in my golf handicap…but I’ll leave that for another blog. I don’t want to brag.