New technology means many of your staff can work from anywhere, at any time, but does that mean they should?
There are plenty of cheerleaders for telecommuting workers. Gurus herald it as the way to redress the modern work/life imbalance. Senior management see it as a way of meeting the demands of 24Ãâ€"7 customers and markets. The tech industry loves it as a way of selling new technologies. But what do home workers and their managers think of the new online ways of working? Banks may not have thought through the full implications of equipping staff with mobile technology or allowing them to log in from home.
The drawbacks for telecommuters
For example, research from the Economist Intelligence Unit and IBM has found that nearly half of mobile workers feel they lack access to what might be called corporate social capital, that is "coffee machine conversations" and the informal networks at the office. In other words, it may just not suit some.
"This informal collaboration is vital to get ahead and to form relationships with colleagues," explains Eric Lesser, IBM Human Capital Management Leader. "In addition, workers can feel alienated and underappreciated when working away from the office because of a lack of appropriate managerial support, technologies, skills, and performance measurements necessary to work effectively and productively."
The problems compound for those telecommuters lacking confidence. They feel they have to be more available than they would be in the office, resulting in "email addiction", the compulsive checking of messages in the evenings and on weekends. Other telecommuters feel that they work harder than their in-office counterparts.
Nationwide's telecommuting challenge
These were questions that confronted Nationwide, the UK's largest building society. Home and mobile working was adopted as an important way of extending staff work patterns. However, internal surveys showed that it was not an automatic panacea.
The surveys showed that some managers were too controlling of people working at home by monitoring connection periods to corporate systems. Conversely, home workers felt that they had to be seen to be viewed as productive and therefore sent emails at times outside the conventional nine-to-five working day. Technologies such as the BlackBerry compounded the problem: its any time, any place, anywhere facility put remote team members under considerable pressure.
Adopt strong policies and business processes to manage telecommuting workers
Nationwide's response was to develop its own unique policies and procedures for dealing with home workers. Staff can request to work from home, but they must be assessed in terms of their suitability and the appropriateness of the role itself. Nationwide's process includes identifying personal and business benefits, the management of relationships with the rest of the team, and how the manager will monitor their work. There is also a special contract for employees working from home, which includes policies for issues such as the move back into the office should a job change demand it.
If your business is thinking about allowing employees to telecommute, there are a range of issues to consider, such as data protection and risk, health and safety (working environment and equipment), security, and dealing with confidential waste. This is not just a question of policy, but of investment too. For instance, Nationwide has developed health and safety assessments for home workers and ensures that the right equipment is provided for them, as well as the proper working environment -- something a recent study indicates most companies are not doing.
The matter does not stop there. Several additional management skills were identified as being important. Managers are now trained to deal with staff routinely away from the office. They learn how to exhibit greater flexibility, tolerance, and open-mindedness about working patterns. Managers must realise that flexible working means being able to trust the worker to complete tasks at a time that suits them -- as long as there are adequate measures to assess their output.
All in all, although Nationwide has embraced the idea of flexible working to meet the needs of its customers, the expectations of its employees, and the demands of the business, it has also had to put in place clear processes by which home workers can be assessed. Clear guidelines that address both the business and soft issues faced by telecommuters will go a long way toward making at-home workers productive and safeguarding the company's success.
