November 10, 2011
Examining Telecommuting the Scientific Way
Many of us long to leave the cubicle farm, even for a day or two each week (courtesy of flickr user ste3ve)
If you’re trying to convince your boss to let you telecommute, you quickly run into a data problem. That is, there isn’t a lot of it. Oh, there are plenty of studies, but many of them are theoretical or anecdotal. What’s really needed is an experiment, with large numbers and a control group, like what is done when researchers test new medicines.
Well, we’ve lucked out, as someone has actually run that experiment, as Slate noted this week. A group of researchers at Stanford University partnered with a large (>12,000 employees) travel agency in China that was founded by a former Stanford Ph.D. student. The company’s chairman was curious about whether instituting a telecommuting policy would work for his employees and what kind of effect it would have. So they used employees in the company’s call center–the people who handled phone inquiries and booked trips–to test the questions (the results haven’t been peer reviewed yet, but they can be seen in this presentation [PDF]).
A call went out for volunteers, and 508 of the 996 employees in the group spoke up. Of those, 255 qualified for the study; they had the right space at home and enough experience at the company to be trusted on their own. The company then held a lottery, and employees with even-number birthdays were allowed to telecommute four out of five shifts a week, and those with odd-number birthdays worked solely out of the office. Like a medical trial, this setup gave the researchers an experimental (telecommuting) group and a control (office) group, which could easily be compared.
What the researchers found should hearten those of us who’d like to telecommute, even once in a while. After a few weeks of the experiment, it was clear that the telecommuters were performing better than their counterparts in the office. They took more calls (it was quieter and there were fewer distractions at home) and worked more hours (they lost less time to late arrivals and sick breaks) and more days (fewer sick days). This translated into greater profits for the company because more calls equaled more sales. The telecommuters were also less likely to quit their jobs, which meant less turnover for the company.
The company considered the experiment so successful that they implemented a wider telecommuting policy. But Slate reports that not everyone in the experiment chose to continue telecommuting; they valued the daily interactions with their workmates more than they disliked their commutes or other downsides of going into the office every day.
Clearly telecommuting is not for everyone. Another factor to consider might be how much a person’s family life interferes with their job, and vice versa. A new study in the Journal of Business and Psychology, for example, found that people who experience a lot of conflict between their family and work priorities suffered more exhaustion when they telecommuted, whether they stuck to traditional work hours or had more flexible schedules. In other words, people who had problems separating the work and personal parts of their lives found it just increased their stress levels when they combined the two at home.
But perhaps I should point out that work-family conflicts aren’t a problem for me, so I’d be delighted to telecommute.
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Telecommuting is not for everyone, I agree on that statement as we are social beings with a constant need to interact. Still, I think that with the latest tools we have today, one can have the closest thing to team huddles and brainstorming sessions via web conferencing technology. I think that the future is bright for telecommuting as it’s not only a win-win solution for everyone, but for the planet as well. Surely, telecommuting is a greener alternative.
For data on the American telecommuting scene hae a look at the research work conducted recently by Tom Harnish and kate Lisster of The Telecommuting Research Network as well as the work going on in Federal Government that is driven by the White House.
ChrisR
Twitter ; @wisework
I agree that telecommuting isn’t for everyone, but this study proves that it absolutely works to increase productivity! I am a full-time telecommuter and love my work arrangement. My husband, on the other hand, goes a little stir-crazy when given the chance to telecommute, and much prefers working in the office when he can.
For anyone considering telecommuting, here are some questions to ask yourself to determine if it’s right for you: http://www.flexjobs.com/blog/post/quiz-is-a-telecommuting-job-right-for-you/
There is much more to the benefits of telecommuting than helping the company’s bottom-line. If the majority of those who could telecommute in America did, you would within a year, with existing technology, drastically and immediately:
Cut dependency on foreign oil
Reverse climate change
Eliminate gridlock
Reduce pollution
Save public health costs due to communicable diseases
If it’s all about the bottom-line for business to get on board, then government should be providing incentives while they lead the way with telecommuting for public workers.
All good points. I’ve been telecommuting for the past 10 years and I’m currently authoring a book on Teleworking. One of the greatest obstacles I see to teleworking is the human element. Managers need to change how they see teleworkers; a paradigm-shift of great proportions is required. Until this happens, teleworking will continue to be a small group.
I guess that telecommute is good idea in 21st century. In US, most people drive a car when they make a commute. Telecommute elminates air pollution, gridlock, less depend consume oils, & so many. I think so many companies in US, should consider telecommute. Also, gov’t give them tax cut about it.