For years, we’ve been reading all about the future of working, a telecommuter’s paradise in which everyone will bask in the tele-presence of colleagues laboring a few miles or 16 time zones away.
Telecommuting, we are told, will save money – companies won’t need to build out as much office space. Telecommuting, we are told, will save the environment – just think of all those internal combustion engines, no longer internally combusting. Telecommuting, we are told, will save time, families, mental health…
Virtual, after all, is the new physical.
Yet it will come as no surprise to those who telecommute that “companies still reward presenteeism.” (I so love that word.)
In research published in MIT Sloan Management Review [Daniel Cable of the London Business School] shows that telecommuters are less likely to be promoted. In one experiment subjects were asked to judge scenarios in which the only difference was whether the employee was at his office desk or at home. Managers rated those at the office to be more dependable and industrious, regardless of the quality of their work. (Source: The Economist.)
My personal experience with telecommuting is limited to the regular Friday work-from-home I did during my last full-time corporate stint.
I had already embarked on my free-lance career when a former manager wooed me back into a “real job.”
I knew from the outset that this job was going to be a short-timer. My estimate – based on how well I knew my former manager, which was pretty darned well – was that he (and I) would last there about 18 months. I was off by two months – we made it to 16. Even short term, I didn’t really want the job, so I took it on the condition that I would not be in on Fridays. Our agreement was that I would attend meetings, if necessary, via phone, and that I would answer e-mails, but other than that…
So this really wasn’t telecommuting telecommuting. It was about working with and for someone who trusted me to get my job done. If I could get the job done Monday through Thursday, which I pretty much could be coming in earlier and leaving later than most folks, I was free to be me on Friday. For the most part, I worked Friday mornings and, unless I had a must-attend meeting or something I just had to get done, I ran errands on Friday afternoons. This was a wonderful arrangement, and saved me one day’s worth of a long and aggravating commute.
There was one sniping and snarky fellow on the executive team – interestingly, someone who himself telecommuted a couple of days a week – who took occasional potshots at me. (“Whatever she’s doing on Friday when she’s not here.”) But this was mostly to get at my manager, who was one of D’s enemies. (How much of a sniping/snarky a-hole was D? He once laid someone off while the man was in the NICU with his newborn son who was in and out of the woods. Afterwards, he told a colleague, “I really enjoyed that.”)
Amusingly, when our string ran out there, I was working at home on the day that I was let go.
The handwriting had long been on the wall, and we were all aware that our team was about to be blown up. We weren’t exactly certain of the time and day, but it was certainly looking like “soon.” The evening before I got ‘the call’, I was finishing up a presentation – late at work, by the way – asking myself, ‘What are you doing, you jerk? You won’t be around to deliver this preso. Pack it in.’
Anyway, I was laid off via phone, and ended up coming in to work to pick up my stuff on my normal non-commuting Friday.
Telecommuting had nothing to do with this particular lay-off. It was all about a major political battle (which, oddly enough, pitted the short guys in management vs. the tall guys; tall guys lost).
Yet I know from friends who telecommute that out of sight – even if it’s only a day or two a week – is often out of mind when it comes to getting promoted.
Face time matters, and somehow those who aren’t giving full face time are considered less devoted, less committed, less career-minded – even if none of this is true.
Visibility creates the illusion of value. Being the last to leave the office impresses bosses, even if you are actually larking around on Facebook. Oddly, this holds true at firms that explicitly encourage staff to work from home. Mr Cable studied attitudes at Californian tech firms. Many asked employees not to come to the office too often; yet bosses unconsciously penalised those who obeyed.
The point about presenteeism existing in places “that explicitly encourage staff to work from home” is interesting. It’s also interesting that even companies with technology that, in fact, promotes the ability to telecommute, may frown on those who take them up on the promise of that technology.
I know this from a former colleague who worked at a tech company that had products that helped those who worked remotely. A big part of their messaging was around the future of telecommuting, how important it was, how wonderful it was that they offered technology that helped folks telecommute…. Yet when my friend asked to telecommute once a week, which would have been an enormous benefit to her - she had a lousy commute and a toddler - she was told that her company really didn’t, well, you know, actually want anyone to really,well, you know, actually work from home.
Personally, I think that everyday telecommuting may not be the best idea, unless you’re working for a largely virtual company, or a company with an established practice of having remote workers. Face time, small talk, walking around time do matter. But I also think that, given the stresses of the modern workplace and general way of life, companies really should allow everyone who’s job can be done remotely to do that job remotely at least one day a week.
Down with presenteeism.
Telecommuting’s good for the environment. Good for mental health. Good for families. Good for folks who, once in a while, just want to hang in those PJ’s for a few hours longer.
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