Benefits of telecommuting for engineers and other high-tech professionals.

For millions of engineers and other high-tech professionals, telecommuting (TC) offers attractive benefits. There is a growing recognition that TC provides an economical and effective technique, with benefits for the environment, the company, and individuals. In 1989, a statute requiring companies with over 100 employees at one site to present their plans for cutting commuter traffic went into effect in four southern California counties. Similar laws exist in Arizona, Hawaii, Texas, and Washington, and can be anticipated nationwide.

A recent study by the consulting firm of Arthur D. Little estimated that if telecommuting could replace 10 to 20 percent of U.S. road trips, it could save as much as $23 billion (in 1988 dollars) per year in energy, transportation, and environmental costs. The United States General Services Administration (GSA) has opened a pilot telecommuting center program that will allow federal employees to work at outlying TC centers instead of commuting into the Washington, DC, metropolitan area. GSA officials indicate that up to 1,000 employees from 15 or more federal agencies can be expected to participate in the TC program by 1995, with significant savings in commute time, gasoline, and air pollution. Potential environmental benefits of TC are suggested by one of Hawaii's pilot programs, which opened a suburban shared workspace for 17 employees of nine organizations. Working in the neighborhood workspace full-time five days a week, except for a round-trip commute to their main offices once or twice a month, allowed the telecommuters to travel 9,000 fewer miles per person per year.

Benefits to the company

Creating jobs in off-site rural areas, rather than having engineers and companies move to cities in search of work and workspace, has recently become the policy of several innovative companies like Citibank in South Dakota. TC is being encouraged in both England and Japan because of the extreme costs of real estate in overcrowded cities. Other nations that are investing in TC programs include Great Britain, Finland, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, and Sweden.

The creation of offshore satellite workcenters in parts of the world where labor is cheap is another trend motivated by high real estate and labor costs. Barbados, which has declared itself the offshore information capital of the world, now processes American Airlines' entire ticketing operation at a cost significantly lower than that of renting office space in New York City. China and India have satellite data entry offices. Chinese operators earn about $2 a week, and highly-educated Indian programmers and analysts are paid about 40 percent of British salaries. Similar programs are underway in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Sri Lanka, Mexico, Hungary, and Ireland, where large low-cost labor pools are available. In Malaysia, Swissair has established a software house with four other companies to develop systems for the international airline market and for large organizations, such as banks, that must continually change and upgrade their systems. This was done in response to a worldwide shortage of transaction processing facility programmers.

High costs for benefits, taxes and insurance have caused a number of U.S. and European companies to consider TC programs. By classifying their telecommuting engineers and other professionals as independent contractors, rather than as company employees, organizations can save about 30 to 40 percent of labor costs normally spent on benefits, taxes, and insurance. Telecommuting has been used to advance the accomplishment of affirmative action goals, since it facilitates employment for disabled workers and can aid women in going back to work following maternity leave.

Benefits to individuals

Telecommuting programs for engineers and high-tech personnel improve the quality of life at work and the quality of life away from work by enhancing the telecommuter's concentration, flexibility, and control over time. Telecommuters report more time with the family, more leisure time, lower transportation and clothing costs, and lower stress levels.

Managers of telecommuters reported that employees take work home to avoid being interrupted in the office. Most of the 100 employees in a State of Arizona TC pilot program found that they could concentrate better at home and could get more work done; the two employees who dropped out of the program, however, found that they could concentrate better at work.

Mid-level managers who tele-commute and/or supervise telecommuters report benefits associated with scheduling flexibility in a recent U.S. survey. The use of flexible work schedules has produced many of the same positive outcomes as TC: productivity gains, lower rates of absenteeism, and enhanced ability to attract and retain quality employees.

The magnitude of productivity gains due to effective use of TC is reported to range from 10 to 200 percent; the average change in productivity appears to be an improvement of approximately 30 percent. A telecommuting project undertaken by AT&T and the State of Arizona reported 80 percent of participating supervisors felt that TC had increased employee productivity. In a similar pilot project by the Washington State Energy Office in Puget Sound, almost three-fourths of telecommuters, including managers, felt that their overall performance had improved.

Explanations for gains in productivity were suggested by some of the findings of pilot programs. They found that telecommuters worked at times of day when they were most productive; telecommuters were more likely than office workers to finish projects ahead of schedule; telecommuters often worked for longer periods of time without interruptions; telecommuting improved communication within the work group; telecommuters were more available for consultation with clients and their supervisors at home by phone than when they were in the office; and some telecommuting employees were more creative since they could concentrate better at home.

Telecommuters often report benefiting from TC because it facilitates combining work with another valued goal. In some cases, managers agree to allow someone to work off-site rather than risk losing a valued employee who is about to leave due to a spouse's job transfer, for early retirement, to travel, or to enroll in a graduate degree program. Employees have requested TC to take time out to have a child, spend more time with the family, or work while recuperating from an injury or illness. It is important to these individuals to be able to work convenient hours. Job location and reduced commuting time are important secondary benefits of TC. Also, people with allergies, or those with persistent unacceptable habits like smoking, may request TC since they can control their home environments but not the typical office environments.

Both male and female telecommuters in the U.S. report that spending more time with their families is a reason for telecommuting. However, few telecommuters take care of children while they work, and child care is not a motive reported for wanting telecommuting. American telecommuters value the flexibility to attend to their children's medical needs, school visits, and other appointments during normal work hours and then to complete their work later. Telecommuting facilitates a balance between work and family commitments. In addition, telecommuting has the potential for facilitating the support of vulnerable groups in the high-tech work force, such as working women with children and people with handicaps.

In summary, telecommuting offers many benefits to individual workers, including less stress, greater productivity, and more flexibility to balance work with other commitments. Next, we consider what the organization must do to begin to realize the benefits of telecommuting.

Organizing successful TC programs

Before telecommuting can be undertaken successfully, the organization must possess the needed technology, must identify appropriate tasks and employees, and must possess or set up structural supports for telecommuters and their supervisors.

TC professionals require support from the organization. Support for engineers and other highly skilled employees typically will include periodic training to update their knowledge, regular coordination meetings, reasonable pay, and benefits. The specific organizational requirements for TC are presented in Table 1 and discussed below.

Technology - The computer and communication technology that is needed for successful TC is already available for organizations throughout most of the industrialized world. For example, more than 85 percent of the largest US firms were totally or heavily computerized by 1988, according to Christensen. Considering the expected benefits of TC, Toffler predicted in 1980 that most companies would encourage widespread telecommuting within 10 years. However, few companies that could use TC today have chosen to do so.

Although TC is technologically feasible now, there are technological improvements and cost reductions that can extend and facilitate the work of telecommuting engineers. Recommended improvements include: establishment of telecenters (corporate workspaces) that can be used by telecommuters, office employees, and clients as workplaces, resource centers, and meeting places; new visual capabilities to provide full motion, high quality video images and graphics capability; and software that allows supervisors to telephone employees and electronically "look over their shoulders" to see what is on the computer screen, so that current projects can be fully discussed.

Around-the-clock mainframe access by off-site engineers is another needed feature for many engineers. Typically, the peak demand for a company's mainframe computer is from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on weekdays. Any workload that can be shifted outside of normal working hours represents a significant gain on a major capital investment. TC can be used to increase an organization's flexibility in scheduling service for the computer, in fixing programming problems, and in developing new applications on weekends and nights, if round-the-clock access is granted to telecommuting software engineers.

Tasks - Many types of engineering tasks are well-suited for telecommuting arrangements. Toffler's estimate that 50 percent of white collar workers could telecommute has been echoed by the U.S. Government Office of Technology Assessment and other researchers. A separation of jobs into those based on a physical reality (e.g., hardware maintenance, on-site project management, manufacturing engineering, product test, engineering management, construction) and those based on cyberspace (e.g., software engineering, technical writing, simulation, technical design) helps to clarify the types of tasks performed effectively by telecommuting. Those based on cyberspace would be good candidates for telecommuting.

Alvi and McIntyre suggest that TC would enhance productivity in jobs requiting creativity and analysis, and where the need to constantly interact with others is not critical. A commission on telework in the Netherlands recommended that TC be used for jobs to the extent that they consist of information processing, result in a measurable output, and do not depend on continual physical contact. These experts recommend TC for engineering and similar types of jobs. Table 2 presents some of the types of engineering tasks that are recommended for successful telecommuting.

Training - Training for telecommuters is usually technical training to update their professional skills. It can have the additional benefit of facilitating communication between telecommuters and the peers who are trained with them. Best results have been achieved in programs where both TC employees and their managers are skilled and experienced at their jobs. Supervisors of TC employees need training in techniques of results-based management, job analysis, work specification, and performance appraisal, as well as in communication skills.

Management by results - It is important for supervisors and employees to agree on what work is expected, how it should look, and when it should be delivered. Thereafter, managers of TC employees pay attention to products, to productivity, and to quality rather than to time spent performing work-related tasks. Many agree that when these same management principles are applied to on-site professionals, their productivity will also increase, along with their job satisfaction.

Communication - Successful TC programs set up formalized patterns of communication that both facilitate telecommuters' work and also compensate for the time away from the office. For example, managers at J.C. Penney visit their telemarketing employees at home twice a month, keep in daily touch by phone and E-mail, and meet with TC employees in the office regularly. In another organization that relies heavily on telecommuters, thirty percent of project budgets are charged specifically to communication costs.

Technical support and facilities - A successful TC program requires providing and maintaining TC equipment and providing insurance coverage for the equipment, data, and occupational safety of TC employees. Some employers have felt that having employees work at home expose. d company data to greater security risks, so procedures have been established to guarantee the security of data that could be accessed from home computer terminals. Adequate technical support includes the recommendations in Table 3.

Wages and benefits - Telecommuters should be compensated at the same level as their counterparts in the organization who work only at the office. Some companies have used their TC programs as a way to lower labor costs by drastically cutting the benefits and wages of telecommuters. However, claims of worker exploitation have prompted lawsuits and the unionization of some TC workers. Courts and the United States IRS have determined that compensation discrimination based on where the employee works is not permissible.

Allocation of time - The proportion of time spent working away from the main office, at home or in a telecenter, has varied in successful TC programs from two to five days per week. A recent survey of female computer professionals in Singapore, found 73 percent of the 459 respondents favored TC. They preferred working at home one to three days per week, and at the office the other days. A few companies have mandatory core times, generally for service employees, during which the telecommuter is to be available by phone or E-mail to customers or supervisors. Frequently, days in the office are used to keep TC employees in touch with their peers, supervisors, and the day-to-day affairs of the company, and to prevent feelings of isolation. However, a growing trend is to establish neighborhood telecenters, eliminating the feelings of isolation, while still saving on transportation, overhead, and real estate costs. A telecenter is a neighborhood office equipped with computers, data links, fax machines, copy machines, and other equipment needed to form a satellite office for a portion of the workforce.

Organizational Structure - Despite the overwhelmingly positive impacts of TC, many managers still will not try it. The primary reason managers give for this is that they fear losing control of telecommuters; they do not trust employees they cannot see. This fear might be attributed in part to risk-aversion, given lack of information about TC. In some companies, managers who had dismissed TC changed their opinions after something external to the company (e.g., state anti-commuter laws, the 1989 earthquake in the San Francisco area) had unexpectedly made telecommuting a necessity for the company.

For the most part, dismissing TC untried because of concerns with losing managerial control is a structural, rather than an individual, phenomenon. Companies with little work autonomy, that use time-based methods of work supervision, and whose decision-making processes are centralized and hierarchical may find it difficult to implement TC without changing these aspects of organizational structure. It is, first of all, almost impossible to monitor the home. TC presupposes supervisors managing employees by results, communicating expected outcomes clearly, and controlling products and quality rather than time spent.

Currently, most telecommuters work for companies with fewer than 100 employees. TC programs are growing the fastest among organizations that are very small (fewer than ten employees) or that have more than 100 employees. The common attributes of these organizations are that they are flexible, results-oriented, and have, for their size, few layers of management that must approve a TC program before it can be set up.

In summary, appropriate technology and feasible tasks are necessary conditions for telecommuting, and such technology and tasks are widespread. Experience with TC shows that successful programs are well-planned and have some necessary elements in common. These include training for TC employees and their supervisors, managing the work by results, providing necessary technical support, and providing reasonable wages and benefits. The number of hours spent at home vs. in the office appears to vary. Structural variables appear to be the major determinants of which organizations have successful telecommuting programs. Next, it is important to consider what types of individuals are likely to function well as telecommuters.

Selecting appropriate employees - The data on successful TC programs supports the conclusion that not every engineer can be a telecommuter. The first identifying characteristic of a potential telecommuter is that she or he wants to do it. Most of the telecommuters in pilot TC programs have been volunteers, who enrolled with the understanding that they could go back to full-time office work if they so decided. Many companies' telecommuting programs began when a valued employee negotiated an agreement to work at home part-time. Attracting and retaining especially talented people from a geographically expanded labor pool is one of the primary reasons managers say they authorize telecommuting.

A second characteristic of successful telecommuters is that they are technically skilled and have substantial professional experience. Since telecommuters often perform jobs that would be done for them by others in the office, such as testing the quality of their work, estimating the time to complete a job, bookkeeping and secretarial tasks, a variety and depth of skills would be necessary for TC success. Telecommuting also requires good communication and organizing skills. Telecommuters must make the most of limited face-to-face contact with their supervisors and co-workers. They must also document their work. Scheduling and preparation are part of TC success. These areas are not always strong in new-hire engineers, but are most often developed with experience on the job.

Finally, telecommuters tend to look for different kinds of satisfaction from their work. Telecommuters generally are self directed and prefer to work with less social interaction than many in-office workers. For example, telecommuting engineers would be more interested in the challenge and intrinsic interest of problem solving and design, whereas the office engineers would derive most of their satisfaction from interactions with teams, from managing others, or from having status in the office hierarchy.

Recent surveys of telecommuters report that their biggest reason for working at home is that they can get more work done. Why telecommuters get more work done is not clear. It may be that successful telecommuters are individuals with "night owl" circadian rhythms. Bailyn's study comparing computer programmers who telecommute with programmers who work in the office of the same British firm, found that telecommuters (but not office workers) said that their most productive hours were outside nine to five weekdays. The average telecommuter is professionally successful, wants more from life than traditional corporate mobility, and may have atypical optimum work hours.

Conclusions

Telecommuting offers benefits to society, the organization and individuals who choose this type of work arrangement. Some of the potential benefits of telecommuting are clearly emerging: less air pollution, less crowding in cities, lower demand for fossil fuels, and less wear on highways and transportation systems. Potentially, TC can help revitalize rural communities and decentralize the concentration of populations around metro areas.

TC is associated with reported cost savings for organizations and individuals who participate in the programs. Beneficial Corp., for example, saved $7 million the first year of their new telecommuting program on an expenditure of $6.3 million. Goodrich identified lower overhead costs as the primary contributor to cost savings. Other studies found that costs are reduced because: having a TC program makes it easier for the organization to attract and retain top-quality employees, TC lowers the costs of using and maintaining a mainframe computer, and TC results in lower levels of absenteeism and sick leave. Other positive outcomes of TC programs are improved morale and greater loyalty to the organization.

The most frequently-cited (almost the only) negative response to TC was a feeling among some employees of missing daily social and professional interaction. Some people feared or predicted that TC employees would become isolated from the organization and would be overlooked for promotions. However, telecommuters do not necessarily have to work at home. Satellite telecenters provide social interaction among the telecommuters who work there, and help to help prevent feelings of isolation.

Telecommuting is currently supported and encouraged by state and national governments for its positive effects on the environment, the organization, and individuals involved. For individuals, TC results in the flexibility to attend to family and other non-work commitments; reduced stress; increased control over work, time, and living spaces; and a greater sense of loyalty to the organization. For engineers, it is a work option with many attractive benefits.

For further reading

Alvi, S. & McIntyre, D., "The open-collar worker," Canadian Business Review, Spring, 1993.

Bailyn, L., "Toward the perfect workplace?," Communications of the ACM, 32(4), 1989.

Bates, V. L., "Working at home," IEEE Communications Magazine, August, 1992.

Christensen, K. "Managing invisible employees: How to meet the telecommuting challenge," Employment Relations Today, Summer 1992.

Cote-O'Hara, J., Sending them home to work: Telecommuting, Business Quarterly, Spring 1993.

Geake, E., "Managers struggle to adapt to teleworking," New Scientist, June 6, 1993.

Genasci, L. AT&T turning workers into telecommuters, Arizona Republic, September 15, 1994.

Goodrich, J. N. Telecommuting in America. Business Horizons, July/August, 1993.

GSA tests telecommuting concept, Building Design and Construction, Feb., 1994.

Hotch, R. "Managing from a distance," Nation's business, 1993.

Jensen, J. A., "Telecommuting: Revolution of the revolution," Credit World, July-Aug 1993.

Joice, W. H., Home based employment - A consideration for Public, Personnel Management, Public Personnel Management, 1991.

Kindel, S. The virtual office, Financial World, 1993.

Misutka, F. "The workplace takes wing," Canadian Business, 1992.

Olszewski, P. & Mokhtarian, P., "Telecommuting frequency and impacts for State of California employees," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 1994.

Pruitt, S., & Barrett, T., Corporate virtual workspace. In M. Benedikt (Ed.), Cyberspace: First Steps, Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1991.

Quaid, M., "Telecommuting: An alternative route to work," Home Energy, May-June, 1993.

Qvortrup, L., "The Nordic telecottages: community teleservice centres for rural regions," Telecommunications Policy, March 1989.

"Reinventing the workplace: Interagency telecommuting centers," The Public Manager, Fall 1993.

Robertson, B. "Telecommuting via ISDN: Out of sight not out of range," Network Computing, July 1993.

Shellenbarger, S., "Some thrive, but many wilt working at home," Wall Street Journal, December 14, 1993.

Telecenters: The middle road, Training, 1992.

Toffler, A., The Third Wave, New York: Morrow, 1980.

Tomaskovic-Devey, D. & Risman, B., Telecommuting innovation and organization: A contingency theory of labor process change, Social Sciences Ouarterly, June 1993.

Van Sell, M. & Jacobs, S. M., "Telecommuting and quality of life: A review of the literature and a model for research," Telematics and Informatics, 1994.

Warner, D. M., "We do not hire smokers: May employers discriminate against smokers?," Employee Responsibilities and Rights Journal, 1994.

Weiss, J.M., Telecommuting boosts employee output, HRMagazine, February, 1994.

RELATED ARTICLE: TABLE 1

Organizational Requirements for Successful TC Programs

* Technology - especially computers

* Appropriate tasks

* Training programs for managers and telecommuters

* Management by results

* Communication systems

* Technical support systems and facilities

* Appropriate wages and benefits allocation of time between office and home or telecenter

* Organizational structure

* Selecting appropriate employees

RELATED ARTICLE: TABLE 2

Engineering and Support Tasks Recommended for Telecommuting

* Computerized project tracking

* Computer programming

* Data entry

* Design, especially computer-aided design 

* Project planning and control

* Software engineering

* Technical drawing

* Technical writing and editing

RELATED ARTICLE: TABLE 3

Telecommuting Technical Support Recommendations

Personal computer, either IBM or Apple compatible. Portable computer, optional. Modem, essential for communications. Voice mail, or answering machine, for 24-hour messages. Specialized telephone services, such as conference calling. Electronic mail (E-mail) for computer networking. Fax machine and/or fax card in the computer. Printer, preferably a high-quality one. Video teleconferencing, if cost is justified by need for face-to-face interaction.

Jane Humble is a business consultant and associate professor of industrial management at Arizona State University. Sheila M. Jacobs is assistant professor of management information systems at Oakland University. Mary Van Sell is associate professor of management at Oakland University.