IBM studying impact of telecommuting

According to Salary.com, telecommuting has been one of the hottest compensation trends over the last few years. At IBM, more than 40% of their workers don’t come into the office every day. It is for this reason that IBM is evaluating the pros and cons of telecommuting through a study by Jay Mulki, a marketing professor at Northeastern University’s College of Business Administration.

According to Prof. Mulki, telecommuting presents two major challenges: a feeling of isolation and achieving a work-life balance.

“Isolation happens when telecommuters can't get the support they need,” Prof. Mulki said. “When face-to-face communication isn't possible, workers need a substitute -- and voice mail isn't it,” he said.
“The other aspect is a feeling that work isn't being recognized. Employees appreciate managers who ‘toot their horn,’” Prof. Mulki said. “And those who successfully manage telecommuters differ from traditional office managers,” Prof. Mulki added.
"Managers are not the traditional command-and-control managers; they're more like coaches," he said. "They say, 'Tell me what you need, and I'll go get it,' or they run obstacles for their employee."

“Mutual trust is key to this work situation,” Prof. Mulki said. “Employees resent managers who give the impression of monitoring them. And when it comes to work-life balance, working from home can be good -- or bad. On the employer side, when you're at home, you're always available," Prof. Mulki denoted. "On the employee side, you wanted to be there to pick up your kid, or whatever the case may be."

“When you're commuting to an office, the drive is a transition time,” he said. "When you're working at home, if you're not careful, you're never disengaged. You're always involved," Prof. Mulki said.

You can find Prof. Mulki’s bio here: http://cba.neu.edu/faculty/directory_detail.cfm?e=205 I have included the text of the executive summary of Prof. Mulki’s research below.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The purpose of this research study is to examine the challenges that remote employees face and the use of personal and organizational coping strategies. This report represents the findings from the first exploratory phase of the study based on 34 semi-structured interviews with remote employees and managers. Twenty-eight of the remote informants are Company A employees. The following highlights the key findings related to two significant challenges: 1) workplace isolation and 2) work-life balance issues.

High Experiences of Workplace Isolation

Deliberate actions by employees and managers are critical to minimizing the effect of workplace isolation. In particular, the informants identified a lack of informal communication, face-to-face communication, and visibility to management as the key challenges associated with workplace isolation. Employees reported the use of technology to increase informal communication as a means to reduce feelings of isolation, to build camaraderie, and as a partial substitute for face-to-face communication. In addition, employees suggested increasing opportunities for face-to-face interactions as well utilizing their own personal social networks to help address isolation perceptions. Findings suggest that workplace isolation may be more of a concern with new members of the team. Newcomers should be matched with a mentor and/or a traditional office employee to assist them in being more effective in the remote environment. Our results suggest that managers should provide support, mentoring, training (conferences, teleconferences, workshops, etc.) and work on developing community activities to help remote employees to address isolation issues. It was specifically recommended that the manager should meet face-to-face with each remote employees at least once every year.

Challenge in Managing Work-Life Balance

This study demonstrates that remote employees find it more difficult to disengage from work and tend to work longer hours. This tendency to overwork results from the lack of boundaries between work and home life and the nature of remote work (i.e., increased communication/conference calls and working with team members/customers in different time zones.) We suggest that remote employees should set routines to establish a work structure enabling them to disengage from work. Remote employees should also communicate to managers and team members when they are not available. We also recommend that remote employees should create physical boundaries between work and home life. Managers should help remote employees limit overwork by setting priorities on tasks. Finally, we recommend that both managers and the organization set clear remote work norms (i.e., not working on holidays, child care).

In conclusion, our qualitative findings enrich our organizational understanding of the best coping practices to address the challenges of virtual work from both employee and manager perspectives. An empirical study with survey responses from a larger pool of respondents will help us validate the findings and to enhance the knowledge base.