Technological innovation around the globe has provided advanced business modes of communication. Current workplace trends promote telecommuting as a new paradigm shift that takes into consideration the difficult job market, the record high employee turnover, and the tight competition for talent, but also traffic congestion, reduction of carbon footprint and the skyrocketing of commercial real estate. By replacing the traditional workplace with associates working from home, remote areas, or on the road, telecommuting opens the door for a more well-organized communication system at workplace.
Telecommuting represents also a means of shaping future families and communities. Many women have embraced telecommuting because it allows them to have more time with their children, while working from home. As more and more companies downsize and prefer part-time employees, telecommuting seems as a great solution for both parents to work from home, get a paycheck and be productive, while taking care of their children. From a business perspective, the benefits of telecommuting include low employee absenteeism, improved operational flexibility, and high employee morale and job satisfaction. From a social perspective, the benefits of telecommuting include low transportation costs, improved family relations and increased independence.
Despite the trend toward telecommuting, there is a challenge related to productivity that needs further discussion. Many managers do not really recognize the work produced by telecommuters and as such performance reviews for these workers are not favorable. Besides, promotions for telecommuters are not as easy as for employees who work at the workplace because performance goals for telecommuters are different due to the lack of physical presence at workplace.
In fact, productivity gains may be traded off by increased costs derived from the use of equipment and telecommunications charges. Telecommuters generally sustain increased communication costs and require additional computer supplies, software and hardware equipment, and office equipment including copier, fax and scanning machine, telephones etc. Besides, in order to participate in meetings, they need to be equipped with audio and video conference equipment, which incurs additional costs.
Another consideration is that although many U.S. organizations consider telecommuting a major driver for increased productivity, they do not encourage it. And this happens because the productivity gains are not consistent and therefore, organizations cannot count of them as a measure of progress and profitability. If telecommuting consistently incurred 8%-10% productivity gains, organizations would hire high talented employees willing to work as telecommuters and would promote telecommuting heavily. Instead, telecommuting makes large steps, but not at the pace it should and it could do. This shows that it still has weak areas, mostly related to productivity, that do not allow for full delivery of benefits.
Source:-http://www.helium.com/items/1895179-why-telecommuting-doesnt-always-lead-to-productivity
