Are you more productive in the office or at home?
For many years I worked in an office environment. Driving into the office each day, you have to make the decision of fighting traffic or arriving super-early to avoid traffic, and in some cases you don’t get a choice. You work a full day, interacting with colleagues while you continue to whittle down your workload and keep up with email, then head home. Living in the DC area, traffic really does cut into your personal life since it takes about an hour to drive 15 miles depending on when you leave and where you live. Many of you reading this are probably nodding and saying ‘well, that’s nothing. It takes me 2 hours!’
Quite a few companies have discovered and fully support the telecommuting concept, which allows those with long travel times to stay home occasionally with the intent to be more productive. I remember having a conversation with one of my colleagues who had to get permission to telecommute twice a week. What she revealed is the telecommuting actually made her more productive, since she wanted to prove she was working and always being readily available. Her biggest fear was potentially not being on a call or missing a key email which would prove she couldn’t handle being remote. When she was in the office, we would catch up with the typical ‘water cooler’ talk but that was too much effort to do when she was remote. So I started thinking telecommuting was something that every company should consider! If you can get a 10 hr day out of an 8 hr person by simply removing the commute time, why wouldn’t you?
Of course, you are probably answering that question out loud already. Not everyone is cut of our telecommuting. I’ve found over the course of my work relationship and colleagues that it takes a certain mentality and disciplines to telecommute. You have to still treat the day as a work day and not be distracted by home phone calls (unless they are work related), the laundry, your favorite shows on Tivo waiting to be watched, and so forth. However, I do find it hard to deny that you can make a decent lunch at home without running out to the local fast food chain!
There definitely has to be a cultural awareness of what is takes to work remotely. With our global world, there is a lot of technology out there now to keep connected. Almost every month I see posts on forums like PSVillage.com or LinkedIn groups asking ‘how do you keep your team connected’ or ‘what are the best collaboration tools on the market’. One of the main keys I see in the success of telecommuting is communication. Not just email or meetings, but feeling you can ping someone dynamically like sitting next to them in a cubicle just to ask a question. Instant Messaging tools, internet phone and file sharing programs like Skype, and, of course, your company intranet or wikis are all common items I used myself.
Technology solves part of the problem of companies to keep their teams connected while allowing and supporting telecommuting to achieve higher productivity levels among their team. Not everyone can telecommute, though. And the reason may not be technology. Not everyone can work on their own in their home. I have found that some personalities are not suited to telecommuting and those are the people who are best in a social environment, face to face. Have I ever taken a personality test to determine what is the best telecommuter profile? No, but just think about those colleagues you work with that stop by your desk or cubicle throughout the day to say hi or tell a joke, and you may be onto something….I’m just sayin’.
