Why don't more IT companies encourage/use telecommuting??

[bigred]

Seriously. A lot of IT work could be done at home at LEAST as effectively at home as it is going to building X in a cube farm....and MAN could you save on overhead. I know it happens some, but it still seems to be a trickle at most. wt-o??

 

[Frinkiak7]

In the case of the company that I work for, I can see two big reasons. I'm in the ISP subsidiary of a BIG phone company. The upper management of our company are almost exclusively holdovers from back in the wireline days, before there were any kind of data services. To them, work consists of sitting at your desk and actively doing something at every minute of every day. They see server admins with nothing to do as being unproductive, rather than realizing that a server admin with nothing to do means that all of his servers are working properly. Therefore, that admin will be tasked with something else, or kept in mind when the next round of downsizing comes along. If an employee telecommutes, they have no way of monitoring that employee's "productivity".

Second, working offsite raises a lot of liability questions. If you're working in the company's building, they have control over the environment, and can limit or mitigate any safety issues. Working from the home or offsite means that you're still covered under the company's insurance and workman's comp policies, but that there is no oversight over your actions or environment.

 

[bigred]

Sounds like it could be s ummed up in 2 ways:

1. Stupidity (ie come in because "we've always done it that way")

2. Liability. This one makes more sense, but could I think easily be handled, for ex. compensating an employee with a slightly higher salary and then putting the onus on them to provide their own coverage which would cover them at home, etc.

 

[Frinkiak7]

Sounds like it could be summed up in 2 ways:

1. Stupidity (ie come in because "we've always done it that way")

2. Liability. This one makes more sense, but could I think easily be handled, for ex. compensating an employee with a slightly higher salary and then putting the onus on them to provide their own coverage which would cover them at home, etc.

1. Exactly. Stupidity and stagnation.

2. The problem is a little deeper than that, though. Each employee would not only have to shoulder the cost of personal injury liability, but also equipment loss or damage, auto, and other coverages. The salary increases necessary would be a huge burden to the company, and there would be no guarantee that the employee would actually maintain the appropriate coverage. Plus, disaster recovery would be a nightmare. I'm not saying that working at home is a bad thing, mind you, just that the benefits to the company don't necessarily outweigh the potential costs.

 

[Cleon]

I think telecommuting has its advantages, but it's not as logistically simple as it's made out to be. There are benefits to face-to-face communication, and being able to talk to the guy in the next cube/office without having to call him up or send him an email. Plus getting two or three people together for a quick meeting or consult is much easier and quicker.

I tend to think that I'd get too distracted working at home. I actually prefer going in and sitting in the cube all day. I like letting work space be work space, and home space be home space.

My company allows limited telecommuting, if you can provide a good reason and/or need. That seems the logical way to go about it, IMO.

 

[Wudang]

I worked for 8 years at a place that let you set your own hours. They tore up the timesheets and you just agreed with your manager that you'd finish coding x,y, and z by day n and so on. It was then up to you to manage your time. Some days I'd work from home all day and be very productive, other times I needed to be in work all day, and sometimes it'd be half and half. Sometimes I'd give myself a half day and others I'd work 7am until 11pm because I was on a roll. Some developers liked to do nothing for a few weeks, just let the ideas roll around then code in a mad frenzy before the deadline. Others liked to get all the work out the way as soon as they were handed it then spent a few weeks getting to grips with something new. It worked very well there but a less ambitious scheme failed at one of the company's other labs. The general view is that you needed a culture of:
- management that trusted the staff and were focussed on results, not on "being managers"
- committed staff who were focussed on the job
Almost every manager I met who was against the idea was a bad manager who had no ability to manage staff unless he was standing over them.

 

[bigred]

The problem is a little deeper than that, though. Each employee would not only have to shoulder the cost of personal injury liability, but also equipment loss or damage, auto, and other coverages.

? Since the only "equipment" you need are a PC and 'net connection, I don't see that being an issue. As for auto coverage, people already have auto ins. and it's moot point anyway because you're telecommuting. I don't see any of these things as an issue.

The salary increases necessary would be a huge burden to the company

I disagree, and the savings to the company due to less overhead would more than make up for it.

and there would be no guarantee that the employee would actually maintain the appropriate coverage.

Then you put it in the employment contract that they MUST do this ie as a term of employment.

Plus, disaster recovery would be a nightmare.

? If you mean what if the PC is zapped by lightning, you have them backing up their data regularly (ie download to the company's server or some such).

I'm not saying that working at home is a bad thing, mind you, just that the benefits to the company don't necessarily outweigh the potential costs.

With rare exception, I think they do

 

[bigred]

Almost every manager I met who was against the idea was a bad manager who had no ability to manage staff unless he was standing over them.

Me too. And I think that's the real problem. Well, that and a paranoia that if you can't "hover" over someone that they won't get the job done.

Heck even if you had jobs where they were 1/2 in the office and 1/2 telecommute, it'd be a big improvement. Or maybe have a day a week you come in for a weekly staff meeting, etc. But I can code a program or write a user's manual or whatever just as easily from home as I can in an office. In fact, I can do it much MORE efficiently because phones aren't ringing off the hook, people aren't popping in my cube to chatter, I don't have some moron 2 cubes down laughing his head off at some funny video someone emailed him, etc etc etc.

 

[Wudang]

Me too. And I think that's the real problem. Well, that and a paranoia that if you can't "hover" over someone that they won't get the job done.

Yep, that's why you tie homeworking in with being measured on whether you deliver your work to spec in the timeframe you said you could, rather than whether you kept a chair warm 9-5.
Other benefits - I recall before a few times, 2pm, can't see my way past a problem, sitting their until 5 with my brain stuck in a loop. Instead I could go home at 2, have a coffee and catch some TV or a book, chill, and at 8pm when the eureka moment struck I'd get stuck in.

The company didn't have to expand it's car park any more because enough staff were at home on most days that the current capacity was enough.

People worked longer hours for free because they could work when they were on a roll and take a break when they were tired. So the work they did was usually higher quality.