Telework media 6

Given the organizational benefits and dozens of studies showing telework is highly valued by employees, you'd think most managers would jump at it. Think again. Millions of Canadians with teleworkable jobs or parts of jobs are not permitted to telework. The Gartner Group attributes this to "fear of losing supervisory control."

One of the best ways to get a "yes" from the boss is with a well-written proposal. Laurie Harley, IBM Canada's Director of Diversity and Workplace Programs (20% of IBM's staff are mobile and teleworking) suggests approaching your employer with a business-case approach: " 'Here's how I can do my job offsite'; 'Here's what it will mean to my work and to my organization'; 'Here's what I need from my boss'; 'Here's what I can do to help'; and 'Here's how I will work with the team.' "

Aside from research available at websites like InnoVisions Canada's (www.ivc.ca), consider this:

Someone once said telework 'sneaks silently in the back door' because one or more managers had the vision, flexibility and courage to try it.
Some managers still equate 'close supervision' with 'good supervision.' Despite solid evidence of increased productivity, they fear teleworkers will goof off.
Show how your work can be conducted offsite, and how you can work without continual face-to-face contact.
Not everyone is suited to telework, so prove that you are. Good candidates tend to know their jobs and are good performers, self-motivated, well organized and self-disciplined.
Demonstrate you have a suitable home office environment. You may stand a better chance if you already own the required equipment.
Ask your boss to approve telework a day or two a week as a trial period.
Find successful situations elsewhere to show that telework can work.
Show how you can be reached (phone, fax, email etc.) or offer to call in at specified times. Offer to come in to the office during emergencies.
Few teams require continual face-to-face interaction. Some work can be done alone. Teams can sometimes work together without physically being together, by fax, phone, email, net meeting, etc.
Give your boss some documented examples of how telework reduces costs (increased productivity, motivation, morale, recruitment and retention capabilities, reduced accommodation costs, stress and absenteeism).
Telework is not a perk or a right, but a managerial work option. Choosing who gets to telework can be based on such factors as operational feasibility; personal and job suitability; first-come, first-serve etc. It's called management!

High Tech Career Journal (Brass Ring)- April '99
Time for the IT Industry to get with the (telework) program
by Andy Shaw

Given their druthers, most Canadians would rather work at least part of the time at home. And nearly two-thirds of us who aren't working at home yet expect to be doing so some time in the future. Already, by official count, more than one million Canadians work from home at least one day a week, although the unofficial numbers may be much higher.

This huge momentum towards telework emerges from the most comprehensive study conducted to date of underlying Canadian attitudes and behaviors toward IT and its impact on our workplaces and households. Released last fall, the Canadians and Telework study also suggests, indirectly, that it's time for employers to wake up and smell the coffee - because now it's not just brewing in the corporate kitchen.

The study, carried out by Ekos Research Associates and the Public Interest Advocacy Research Centre in Ottawa, revealed that one in three of us would give up a 10% raise for the privilege of working at home part of the time. The study revealed that 77% of us believe technology makes working at home possible. So we're at the point now in Canada that 55% of all employees want to telework. And get this, employers out there, the study says some 43% of us would quit old Acme Screw and Infotech if another company offered us an equivalent job but allowed us to telework.

"These are the kind of findings which are hard for employers not to notice," says Frank Graves, president of Ekos, in somewhat of an understatement. "They might make many of them pay closer attention to telework and see it as a strategic advantage to recruit or hold on to key employees."

To be sure, some Canadian HiTech employers have keener noses about telework than others. Larger companies in particular have a strong sense of where this new coffee is brewing. As you will read elsewhere in this issue, the likes of IBM Canada Ltd. and Northern Telecom Ltd., for example, are allowing some employees greater flexibility in choosing how to split their work between corporate and home offices. At the time the Canadians and Telework study was released, for instance, Nortel had 3,700 employees teleworking, many of them full-time at home.

But, it seems, the majority of IT companies are akin to the cobbler who can't keep the kids in shoes.

"It's ironic for an industry that is so suited to telework, and whose technology enables it, that more IT businesses aren't endorsing it," says Bob Fortier, president of InnoVisions Canada, a telework consulting firm, and also president of the Canadian Telework Association. "Most of my evidence is anecdotal, but I speak to and with a lot of HiTech firms and I get the sense a lot of them are missing the boat when it comes to telework. I do know from other studies that the ability to telework has become the number one consideration after compensation in choosing a job. It's become more important than even location. Yet a lot of companies are letting their best brains drain away because there's not even a telework check box on the list of their own surveys of what's important to their current and potential employees."

Fortier has identified four managerial types within companies who, at their own peril, build dams against what's looking like an irresistible telework wave.

"First you have those operational managers who say they just don't have the time to explore the possibilities of telework," says Fortier. "Then you have the Jurassic Park types with old workplace attitudes. They can't imagine anyone not working at the office. And then in companies that have gone to flat organizational models, you've got managers who may be aware of telework's potential and say they're going to study it, but who never do because they're always too busy fighting alligators in the swamp. What they don't see is that telework provides a way of draining the swamp. Finally, you've got managers who are uncertain about the skill sets required for telework. They're worried that there won't be enough face-to-face time with their employees.

But in IT companies in particular there's less and less face-to-face time. Because of the technology they use, people spend a lot of time in their own cubicles. They may rarely see the boss who is down the hall or in another building, anyway." All this is not to suggest that telework is the panacea for both boss and employee. Indeed, the Ekos study indicates employees still hold some serious reservations about teleworking.

"Our study showed that many people still felt a bit of fear about telework," says Malcolm Saravanamuttoo, a senior consultant at Ekos Research and the project manager for the study. "They fear that the people at the office are more likely to be seen, and because they are more visible, they're more likely to get a promotion."

Also, says Saravanamuttoo, there is some indication that people who work at home, contrary to the notions of skeptical managers, actually work harder and longer hours out of home offices. Other reports indicate the incidence of carpal tunnel syndrome is higher among teleworkers because they spend proportionately more time hunkered down in front of their computers and less time getting up and strolling over to the water cooler.

But whatever the downsides, Saravanamuttoo says the study indicates that the net reaction to telework on the part of teleworkers is, "overwhelmingly positive." He says there is a strong, positive view that teleworking brings better balance to our lives without seriously affecting our productivity as a worker. "Most people we surveyed said that teleworking had improved their working hours, their family life, and their finances," adds Saravanamuttoo.

Like the many individuals he studied, however, Saravanamuttoo himself has no formal arrangements with his employers at Ekos to work at home. "It's an informal thing here. I am a knowledge worker so all I need is my computer and my files most of the time. So I can do a lot of work no matter where I am. And nobody here is going to ask why I am working at home today. We get the support for that," he says.

"It's just that kind of informal arrangement that a lot of people have these days," says Fortier. "If you ask the company officially do they allow telework? they might say no. But if you went and spoke to individual managers, you'd probably find many had informal arrangements with their staff to let them work a day or two a week out of the office. That's why I'm convinced there are far more than one million Canadians who actually do telework, and I think the average is about two days a week."

It is just this kind of split a few days at the office and a few days at home that seems to be the ideal arrangement for most of us. You don't lose touch with office developments but you do stay in touch with family and personal life that telework affords. The Canadians and Telework study confirms that most teleworkers prefer this split.

"This is consistent with other studies and addresses the issues of staying in the loop, preventing isolation, loneliness, and being out of site and out of mind," concludes the Canadian Telework Association on its web page www.ivc.ca. "Working in both locations also helps acclimatize teleworkers, telemanagers and office-bound colleagues to the art of telework."

For slow-poke IT employers and head-in-the-sand managers, teleworking is a rising tide they ignore at the risk of not only losing their best and brightest, but also eventually sinking their businesses.

"It's a huge phenomenon and it's growing," says Fortier. "I think 10 years from now it will be a non-issue. We won't even be talking about it. We'll all just be doing it."