Media Reports featuring IVC / CTA

International Personnel Management Association
July '98 Newsletter
Telecommuting - Jobs and Telework
Recruitment and retention -- how telework can help

For many employers, one of the biggest challenges is the recruitment of quality employees and their retention.  A good example is the high tech industry where existing pools of qualified and available high tech workers cannot meet the demand. Computer science graduates and other qualified high tech workers have the pick of jobs in what is literally an employee's market.

What can an organization do to attract and keep good workers? There are no magic solutions, but because telework is becoming so attractive to employees, it is de facto becoming a good recruitment tool. Plus it brings other business benefits mentioned elsewhere in this site.

Telework permits organizations access to workers anywhere in the world. Once hired, depending on the job, workers may only need to visit the employer's premises occasionally.

As a work option - and it is just that - telework is not for everyone, every job, or every day. But it can work for many, and large numbers of jobs, or parts of jobs, are 'teleworkable'. Most telework is done part time, from one to three days per week. Even if telework strongly appeals to only 10% to 15% of your new hires, that represents a significant tool in your ability to attract and retain the best.

The January '98 issue of Wired Magazine reported that telework can address the year 2000 programmer shortage.  It said that about 700,000 extra programmers are needed by U.S. business to handle the "millenium bug" where software code must be updated to handle a four-digit year.  It also said that because retired programmers (great numbers of which know the code) don't want to move in order to do the work, companies needing emergency coders should allow them to telecommute.  They could easily sending and receiving assignments over the internet from anywhere in the world. (source: TeleTrends - ITAC's Newsletter).

As an attractive option, telework can also help to retain key employees who otherwise might leave the organization - thus helping to avoid the costs and time of recruiting and retraining replacements. For example, an employee who moves geographically due to a job change by another family member may still be available through telework.

In other cases, employees on maternity leave can continue to do some of their work, and require less retraining when they return to work full time. Telework can also be a good option to attract and retain qualified staff who have disabilities; or who are single parents who need to be at home for the children; or who have responsibility for elderly or sick relatives.

Employees value telework Telework keeps many employees happy and stress-free. Companies that  have adopted telework programs demonstrate they are modern, flexible, caring, family-friendly, and recognize that employees need to balance work and personal time. If your company does not have a telework program, competitors from anywhere on the planet may end up with some of your potential recruits. And it doesn't stop there... they may end up with some of your most valuable employees.

Supporting information and statistics While telework usually applies to people who are already employed, many organizations are discovering how telework can attract expertise and inexpensive labour from outside their region, or even outside their country. They realize that with telework, employees can be recruited from anywhere and rarely have to come to their premises. Telework also helps to reduce the incidence of costly turnover, which in turn minimizes disruption and helps avoid expensive training costs.

Telework resources include: Smart Valley Telecommuting Survey, October 97 -- Software engineers, graphics and other computer workers say the ability to telework affects which company they work for. If two companies offered them a job and only one allowed telework, 91% said it would influence their choice. (surveyees include Symantec; PacBell; 3Com; Apple Computer; Ascend Communications; AT&T; Digital Impact, Inc.; Lucent Technologies; Silicon Graphics; Sun Microsystems; DreamWorks Animation; Herman Miller; Hewlett-Packard; Hughes Space & Communications; Informix Software; Tandem Computers etc.).

Catalyst Research workplace survey -- 78% of full-timers & 98% of part-timers agree that flexible work programs encourage employees to stay on. (Dec 6/97 Ottawa Citizen; pg. L10).

William Olsten -- 1998 "Managing Workplace Technology" survey -- Telework has emerged as a new recruiting tool in a tight labor market.  A full 1/3 of North American companies surveyed use telework to attract qualified employees. Almost 45% said they  implement telework programs to increase productivity. 74% of senior executives expect to increase their use of telework.

Canada's Conference Board-- The 1998 report says that Canada loses many potential high tech recruits to U.S. companies that offer innovative work environments that appeal to young and mobile workers. It encourages Canadian organizations to manage for retention and become 'employers of choice' by offering flexible work environments that promote work/life balance.

InnoVisions Canada -- As is the case with most organizations that specialize in telework, InnoVisions Canada continually receive requests from high tech workers seeking jobs with telework-friendly companies, or vice-versa. For example: "I am an experienced programmer looking for work I can perform from home"; "Please provide me information on firms that offer telework?"; "How do I find computer programming jobs which would allow me to work from home"; "Here in Columbia, we have experienced programmers who are willing to telework for high tech firms in your country".

US Government -- Telework can be an effective labour marketing tool to target new labor pools such as severely disabled individuals, individuals with other personal constraints, and individuals who live far away.

Home Office Computing Magazine -- Its major survey of Fortune 1000 companies and executives, retention was cited as the no. 1 advantage of telework. 73% said that one of the main drivers of telework growth would be the desire to retain top employee. Other advantages included improved morale, productivity, work quality and work planning.

Canada's Treasury Board Secretariat --Secretariat telework expanded the "pool" of potential workers, including those with: a need to care for children or elders; disabilities; and commuting difficulties; and retired employees who still wish to work.

US Department of Commuter Transportation -- Telecommuting programs enable firms to recruit from a wider audience, tapping into new labour pools, such as the physically impaired, the elderly and the geographically-remote employees. Faced with long and stressful commutes to and from work every day, employees may look for employment either closer to home, or with employers who offer the telework option.

Government of Oregon -- Telecommuting enables Oregon employers to better tap the talents and skills of Oregonians with disabilities who might otherwise be shut out of the 8 to 5, office-bound job market.

U S West During this time of worker shortages, rising infrastructure costs and demand for increased internal and external service levels, providing a viable telework program is becoming increasingly important for organizations that want to attract and retain top talent (says U S West vice president & general manager John Kelley).

IPMA Center for Personnel Research Series -- Telecommuting packet.  The packet is part of the Research Series offered by IPMA's Center for Personnel Research. Information to order the packets is available online at http://www.ipma-hr.org, by emailing to cpr@ipma-hr.org, or by calling the Fax Finder Information Line at (800) 549-3291 and requesting document 5000.

(Bob Fortier may be reached by email at bobf@ivc.ca, phone at (613) 225-5588 or fax at (613) 225-0161.  For more information, visit the InnoVisions Canada website at http://www.ivc.ca)

The Kitchener Waterloo Record
July 7 Business Section

Kitchener telecommuter can create a workplace wherever there's a phone. When a Toronto-based human resources official from Ernst & Young called Mary Joy Aitken of Kitchener last October to ask if she might be interested in a job as a business analyst, she replied that she wasn't interested in moving to Toronto. But then the caller asked if Aitken would be interested if she could ``telecommute'' several days each week. That opened up an entirely new vista of opportunity. ``I said, `Oh, well . . . sure, if there could be an arrangement.'  "As it turned out, an arrangement was easy to work out. So today, Aitken still lives in Kitchener, but is a full-time employee of Ernst & Young's knowledge centre in Toronto.

She works in three places - at the Toronto offices (a drive of one hour and 40 minutes); at the accounting firm's Kitchener offices (a three-minute drive); and sometimes at the living room table in the comfort of her own home. Aitken is one of thousands of Canadian workers taking advantage of the flexibility and alternative working arrangements that advanced technology offers. Telecommuting, or telework, essentially means that employees have mobile offices that can be set up virtually wherever there's a phone line.

"Without telecommuting, this job would not have been an option for me,'' says Aitken, who credits the Internet and computer technology for making it possible. `Absolutely, there is a revolution going on. I'm guessing that I could not have had this kind of flexibility a few years ago.''

According to Statistics Canada, about one million Canadian employees in 1995 were doing at least part of their work from home. A survey by Ekos Research Associates Inc. this year found that although only one in 10 Canadians reported that they ``conduct work primarily from their home,'' close to half of working people surveyed (48 per cent) said they work from home some of the time.   There is a strong interest in working at home. Ekos found that about 63 per cent of employed Canadians believe they will be doing more work from home in the future. And about 55 per cent said they found that idea appealing or very appealing.

But other studies indicate that Canadian companies have actually been rather slow to adopt telecommuting. University of Waterloo Prof. Jane Webster said a group of her students looked at a number of companies that went into telework pilot projects last year and found ``there was a lot more talk than there was action.''

Attitudes of supervisors, who are used to monitoring the work of employees by watching them, may create a psychological barrier, Webster said. Telework involves management that is based on the job done, rather than people physically being there and under supervision.

Another possibility, Webster suggested, is that employees, while keen to work at home, are reluctant to give up the social interaction of the office environment.  They're more comfortable having all of their work resources and information - as well as personal family pictures -- collected on a single desk space at the office. ``They may also be concerned that by not being visible in the office as much, they may not be as uppermost in the supervisors' minds when things like promotions come up,'' she said.

Aitken's job involves gathering and interpreting background business data and other material used by key industry players, mainly in the field of technology and communications. Much of the material she works with is transmitted over the Internet.  The one big difficulty she finds that downloading large computer files at home is still painfully slow using current phone lines. But bandwidth improvements anticipated over the next five years, ``will unleash tremendous opportunities,'' she believes.

Researchers studying the social impact of technology have observed that not all telework is as interesting or as flexible as seems possible at first glance. In fact, it can be extremely isolating, rigid, repetitive and low-paid. Heather Menzies, author of the book Whose Brave New World, described the experience of an isolated and low-paid worker at a major pizza chain who processes customer orders by computer from a one-bedroom apartment in Toronto. Isolation could become a problem for anyone working exclusively at home, Aitken agrees.  In her own case, she's still going into an office several times a week. She's also part of a ``team'' that includes financial and strategic analysts in Chicago and Cleveland.  But she has met them in person so when she is teleconferencing by phone, sometimes from her living room, she can put faces to the voices. ``They need to see a face and have an idea of who you are, but once that is established, they can be in touch with you on a cell phone virtually anywhere.''  Videoconferencing from her home isn't feasible yet, but it could be soon, she expects.

If telework takes off as some predict it will, the blurring of the lines between work and home may become more pronounced.   Aitken said her job demands are quite substantial. Near the end of a big project, she can easily find herself putting in 12- and 13-hour work days, and coming home to a living room table covered with work papers. And it can become a little too easy to check e-mail at night and carry work home all the time. Yet she likes the flexibility and freedom of not having a regimented 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. office job, Aitken says. Her bosses recognize the workload and don't mind when she is at home for a day or part of a day, sorting out what she has to do next. ``There is a level of professional trust that we are responsible and will do the job.''

Bob Fortier, president of the Canadian Telework Association, said in an interview that although telework may not be for everybody, ``one can't make categorical statements about who may or may not be able to do it.'' Workers with small children at home, for example, may find it difficult to stay focused on work tasks. But every home situation is different and suitable child care arrangements can make a difference, Fortier said.

There is more telework going on in an informal way than even company officials themselves realize, he added.  ``If you go into these companies and ask how many teleworkers they have, the response, usually, is, `not too many.' But if you ask employees and managers, you find there are quite a few who are doing it.'' The majority of employees involved in telework spend perhaps one or two days a week working from home, Fortier said.

But the number of people doing it is increasing exponentially, and as that happens, companies begin to formalize the arrangements.  Growing companies may want to encourage telework because it would save on office space costs, he said.  Fortier sees many more advantages than disadvantages in telework for companies, individual employees and society. And the biggest benefit is saving time, he said. ``If you are figuring on a commute of two hours each day to go to Toronto and back, that equals 12 full work weeks every year, just travelling back and forth.'' Environmentally, telework means less wear and tear on the roads and less pollution, he said.

Fortier predicts that as telework technology improves, there will be migrations out of large cities like Toronto and into smaller communities that are more affordable. ``It will be the reverse of the industrial revolution,'' Fortier said. ``I won't predict that it will happen in 10 years, but unless there is some sort of significant interruption in the pace of development of the information revolution, then I would say that we are headed in that direction.''