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442 TELECOMMUTING ANDTELEWORKEfficiency of Work
People who make more use of information technology
in their work are more productive, and by its very na-
ture telecommuting requires more use of IT. Telecom-
muters in formalized programs usually receive extra
training in using technologies and managing their work.
In many formal programs, managers of telecommuters
also receive additional training. Employees that are se-
lected or allowed to telecommute typically have more
experience and a track record of performance. There-
fore, telecommuters should be more productive. These
gains are not necessarily a result of telecommuting, how-
ever, and might be obtainable by providing comparable
technology and training for other workers who remain
on-site.
Another efficiency issue relates to the telecommuter’s
distance from the workplace. The modern office is an in-
stitution that has been evolving for more than 100 years. It
provides efficient access to support personnel, high-speed
office equipment, office supplies, and also to the paper
files that are still present in many organizations. Telecom-
muters need to put in more time in planning to make sure
all the necessary resources are available when away from
work. They may need to devote extra time or money to
obtaining some of these resources if they become neces-
sary while telecommuting. Therefore for some aspects of
their work, telecommuters may be less efficient than their
counterparts back in the office.Adjustments
Productivity gains need to be reduced by tangible ex-
penses for equipment, technology support, training,
telecommunications and other services, for example, that
are greater than that received by nontelecommuters. In
addition, the productivity calculations need to include
intangible costs such as the following:Extra managerial supervision
Extra support from other employees (e.g., faxing mate-
rials)
Work transferred to other employees when telecom-
muters are unavailable
Decreases in the effectiveness of meetings due to
scheduling problems or less effective communication by
remote participantsHourly rates can be applied to these items to generate
cost estimates. These intangibles may also create prob-
lems with morale and communications within an orga-
nization, however (Prusak & Cohen, 2001). The impacts
of such adverse organizational impacts could exceed the
actual labor costs to support telecommuters.
The business press abounds with anecdotal accounts
of about increased productivity resulting from telecom-
muting. Published research studies are relatively rare,
and many of these have not been of high quality. Like
the study by Nilles (1994) these studies typically rely on
subjective estimates of productivity. Westfall (1997) iden-
tified 15 possible factors that have not been adequately
taken into account in much of the research on telecom-
muting productivity, including the subjective factors of“Hawthorne” effects and employees’ inability to objec-
tively evaluate their own work.
In this context, it should be noted that questions about
the adequacy of the supporting evidence for productivity
gains are not a secret among telecommuting researchers.
Such concerns have been around for a number of years.
For example, Kraut (1989, p. 20) stated that “It is not yet
possible in most studies, however, to untangle the effects
of novelty, self selection and longer work hours from the
effects of work location.” A more current review (Bailey &
Kurland, 2002) reviewed more than 80 published studies
and found that “little clear evidence exists that telework
increases job satisfaction and productivity, as it is often
asserted to do.”
To put the productivity issue in context, consider
that the continuing emphasis on increasing productivity
throughout the United States and world economies has
been a major driving force for investments in informa-
tion technology. If telecommuting were able to generate
noticeable productivity gains that flowed down to the bot-
tom line, it would be reasonable to expect that companies
with high proportions of knowledge workers would mas-
sively adopt telecommuting and continue to use it on a
large scale. The fact that this has not happened is a telling
indicator that telecommuting does not deliver, at least at
the level of the whole organization, the productivity gains
touted by consultants.
As an example of the hype on this topic, also con-
sider the following anecdote. The author attended a sem-
inar on telecommuting just after a major earthquake
disrupted the freeway system in Southern California in- One vendor mentioned that, in addition to provid-
ing relief from the horrendous traffic congestion at the
time, telecommuting also offered “tremendous productiv-
ity gains.” When asked why the details of these gains were
not being published so that these benefits could become
more widely known, the vendor said that organizations
were using it as a “secret weapon.”
TELECOMMUTING USAGE TRENDS
Toffler (1980) predicted that 10 to 20% of the population
might be working in an “electronic cottage” mode by the
year 2000. Although he did not define how much time
people would have to work at home to fall into this cat-
egory, his comparisons to the work environment before
the industrial revolution suggests that more than half of
the working hours for such workers would be at home.
It is obvious that, based on any reasonable interpretation
of the term, this prophecy has not come to pass (inciden-
tally Toffler included little or no material on this subject
in subsequent books).
Toffler was by no means the only person who offered
optimistic predictions of growth in telecommuting. A cur-
sory search of literature published during the 1990s finds
numerous citations of forecasts of high rates of growth in
telecommuting, and subsequent surveys predicting con-
tinued growth from higher usage levels. These forecasts
were developed by commercial firms, however, not pub-
lished in sources that were publicly available at reason-
able costs and not subject to academic review of the data
or methodologies. Analyses of the limited data published