flexible solutions to meet their needs.
A survey of human resource managers by the outsourcing services firm, Yoh, indicates that telecommuting is becoming an increasingly important aspect of organizations’ ability to recruit and retain top talent. Among the trends identified:
• 25 percent of managers allow working from home, 13 percent allow working from a satellite office, and 44 percent have other arrangements that support telecommuting. Only 19 percent say they have no telecommuting procedure.
• Most managers say they expect telecommuting to grow over the next two years. Only 35 percent said it was unlikely that telecommuting would increase.
• In addition to offering flexibility to desirable workers, telecommuting is growing due to available technologies such as wireless broadband, PDAs, and PCs capable of remote enterprise access.
2. Telecommuting versus Managing Off-site Staff
But while “telecommuting” is a term that has become increasingly familiar and a practice increasingly adopted by companies large and small, the ability to manage off-site staff is really the issue. The first edition of this book focused specifically on telecommuting; this second edition will take a broader look at the issue of managing off-site staff. The principles and practices are really the same — the terminology is just somewhat different. This shift in focus, however, broadens the value of the information in this book. Literally any manager responsible for supervising people who are located “somewhere else” can benefit from the strategies and tactics presented here.
The term “telecommuting” continues to scare many managers. The prospect of being responsible for people who are off-site is often threatening — yet also often entirely misunderstood. Consider, for example, the banking industry, which has multiple branch locations where employees may physically be located, yet they work for a manager who may be located in the corporate office. In my own experience, while working as director of corporate communications for a major, integrated health care facility in the Midwest, I was physically located in a house that had been converted to offices which housed the corporate communications department. The house was near the main facility, but quite removed from the VP I reported to. We maintained contact via phone and email and would occasionally encounter each other at meetings but, the vast majority of time, we were not physically present in the same environment. The truth of the matter was that I could literally have been located anywhere and still performed the requirements of my job to a large degree.
The point here is that telecommuting should not be a concept that is feared. It is an option available to companies today that can add flexibility and value to both employees and managers. In this revised edition we will initially explore the concept of telecommuting and its current status, but will then take a broader approach to the issue of managing off-site staff.
3. Flexible Options, Morale, and Engagement
Providing flexible options for employees remains important for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the impact on morale and “engagement.”
The advantages of offering flexibility in work arrangements are attracting more corporate attention, suggests a recent study by the Institute for Corporate Productivity (I4CP). The study found that a full 84 percent of companies overall believe that flexible work arrangements in their organization boosts employee morale. That figure is up from 76 percent in a similar 2008 study conducted by I4CP. Correspondingly, the 2009 study showed that 78 percent of polled companies say flexwork options bolster retention rates, up from 64 percent the previous year.
According to the most recent study results, “flextime” (flexible start/end times) is the most-used flexwork option, with 76 percent of companies overall selecting it as their top option. Working from home was the second-most favored, at 59 percent overall (that figure jumps to 70 percent in companies with more than 10,000 employees), followed by part-time work, pointed to by 56 percent of organizations.
Those most likely to request flexible work arrangements include employees in professional roles (topping the list at 85 percent), followed by those in administrative roles (60 percent). In general, younger employees — 29 percent (41 percent in large companies) — are more likely to request the benefit, and more females (35 percent) than males (6 percent) tend to make such requests.
The most common rationales cited for offering flexible work arrangements by 60 percent of the overall respondents (and 69 percent of large companies) were that the employees, “job doesn’t require presence in the office,” followed by 60 percent who said long commutes were a reason, and 47 percent of respondents cited offering flexible arrangements for employees returning from maternity leave.
Keeping tabs on flexible work arrangements is also a priority. Sixty-nine percent of polled companies use established deadlines to measure productivity in a flexible work situation, while 66 percent keep an eye on project completion and 39 percent rely on periodic status reports.
With today’s added focus on flexwork options, however, come additional concerns. When asked how flexible work options might be a detriment to the organization, almost two-thirds (64 percent) of the 2009 study respondents said that flexwork arrangements tend to frustrate workers who cannot utilize the benefit, compared to 36 percent a year ago, and 42 percent of 2009 respondents reported that the option is frustrating to managers, while just 20 percent felt so in 2008.
Also, the current economic situation appears to have limited bearing on flexwork programs. Sixty percent of all companies polled said the economy has had no effect on their programs, and 19 percent related they have increased flexible work options. Just 8 percent have reduced options in their companies.
4. Changing Employee Needs
The needs of employees have changed dramatically over the past 30 years. Fueled in part by a rapid increase in the number of women entering the workforce, more and more employees are expecting — and demanding — a balance between the expectations of work and the demands of personal life. No longer can managers tell employees to leave their personal lives at home. Today’s managers recognize that what happens at home has a dramatic impact on performance at work — and vice versa.
According to the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) in their “2008 Employee Job Satisfaction” survey report, 44 percent of employees cited the flexibility to balance work/life issues as a very important aspect of job satisfaction.
The SHRM study further indicated that many companies offer nontraditional scheduling options to employees to help them balance their work and personal lives. Fifty-nine percent of HR professionals indicated their organizations offered flextime, which allowed employees to select their work hours within limits established by the employer. In addition to flextime, 57 percent of human resource professionals indicated that their organizations offered some form of telecommuting: 47 percent of respondents reported that their organizations offered telecommuting on an ad-hoc basis, 35 percent on a part-time basis, and 21 percent on a full-time basis. Thirty-seven percent of HR professionals said their organizations offered compressed workweeks, where full-time employees are allowed to work longer days for part of a week or pay period in exchange for shorter days or a day off during that week or pay period. Eighteen percent of HR professionals reported that their organizations offered job sharing, in which two employees share the responsibilities, accountability and compensation of one full-time job. These types of flexible scheduling benefits allow organizations to recruit and retain motivated workers who may not be able or willing to work a traditional nine-to-five schedule.
Contributing to the change in expectations among employees is the aging of the baby
