Telecommuting: This is not your father’s workplace

There’s a shift occurring in what defines a workplace and it’s clashing with traditional ways of working.  Most workplaces are still several years out from widespread adoption of flexibility in the workplace.  The speed of the shift will be driven by how fast we can change the mindset of the traditionalists.

Telecommuting, or telework, is not all-or-nothing.  Telecommuting can be as infrequent as needing to work from home on occasion while waiting for the refrigerator repair person, or mostly full-time like me, or anywhere in between.  While many companies accept the occasional work from home, far fewer embrace the full time teleworker.  Why?  Too many myths about telework, and not realizing that it doesn’t work for everyone.

The truth about telecommuters

Most of the articles about the pitfalls and perils of telework are not written by people who telecommute.  How can you tell?  Easy.  They provoke fear and doubt about whether telework can actually work.  They talk about how teleworkers could get distracted by bright, shiny objects at home.  They don’t show a clear understanding of how global and virtual the world of work is becoming.  And they don’t recognize the mutual benefits to employees and companies.

The truth is, telework works.  Here’s what highly effective teleworkers do:

• We don’t lose time commuting.  More often than not, we give that saved time back to the company by working instead of commuting.
• We don’t have any more distractions than the office – the distractions are just different. 
• We’re skilled at eliminating distractions.  The best teleworkers have separate, dedicated workspace where we can shutout interruptions and anything that could be distracting.  We have child care so we’re not trying to work and take care of kids.
• We have the technology and we know how to use it.  Conference call lines, headsets, phones, laptops, VPN, and webcams for those companies that rely on face-to-face rather than voice-to-voice.
• We get to know our colleagues, just differently.  We share pictures and small talk just like everyone else.
• Our problem isn’t motivating ourselves to work, it’s allowing ourselves to step away from work.  With your work always close-by, it takes effort to call it a day.
• We don’t spend our days watching TV, talking to friends on the phone and doing household chores (just one look at my piles of laundry will prove it!)  We often eat at our desk.  We’re not sitting around in our PJs, but we wear whatever puts us in the right frame of mind (for me, it’s jeans every day I’m in my home office, or business attire when I’m at the office or anywhere representing my company).  By not stressing about how to dress for success, we can focus on getting good results.

Telecommuting is a skill and a competitive advantage.  With the world of work become more global all the time, it’s a critical skill to know how to work effectively with people who aren’t in the same physical place as you.

The folks over at Inc. magazine have just announced they’ll be experimenting with telecommuting for a month.  That may be too short to become skilled at it, but it’s a good effort and it’ll be interesting to follow and see how it goes for them.

What’s your experience with telecommuting?  Has it worked for you?

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Tagged as: Inc., telecommuting, telework, virtual