Yahoo apart, most rely on telecommuting

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Fri 22 Mar 2013 08:26
Yahoo apart, most rely on telecommuting - joshbailey

Last month, Yahoo's CEO Marissa Mayer made the unpopular choice to stop telecommuting programs for the ISP's employees. Best Purchase was fast to follow suit. However, not one but three recent studies say she may have been too short-sighted. Article resource: Three surveys back telecommuting, in spite of Yahoo


Staples study


On March 8, Boston.com reported on a survey commissioned by Staples Advantage, the business-to-business division of the office supplies giant. It polled 150 business decision makers and 150 telecommuting workers about the practice of workers logging in and working at home from their own computers.


About 53 percent of business decision makers said that their employees were more productive when they telecommuted, and 93 percent of the workers like the idea.


Staples the company is the leading office supply retailers, which means the outcome of the survey will impact it.


More telecommuting considered acceptable


About 120 HR executives were polled in a Challengers, Gray & Christmas Inc. survey that asked about whether or not there were telecommuting program plans in place.


These plans were not really being made by most corporations. Of the 80 percent of corporations that responded to the poll, 97 percent said the plans were not occurring.


John A. Challenger, the company's CEO, said businesses pay attention to other business leaders, but are not blind sheep.


"When major companies like Yahoo and Best Buy make notable policy changes, there is no doubt that other employers will take notice and some may even reevaluate their policies," he said. "However, it would be misguided to assume that other companies will follow blindly without considering their own unique circumstances.”


Is it a good idea?


About 1,000 Americans were surveyed by ORC International to find out whether or not they believed telecommuting was a great idea. About 29 percent said they would probably do less work while 65 percent said they thought people would be more productive if working from home.


Of those surveyed, only 11 percent were presently telecommuting. Another 16 percent had done so at some time in the past, while 72 percent had never worked from home.


The split here seems a bit irrelevant to me, since a percentage of workers will always take advantage and make an effort to "goof off" whether they work from home or from the company office. Their effort (or lack of it) shows up in their productivity, and management can see pretty easily who is getting the job done and who is not.


More likely to change


Like it or not, our world is becoming increasingly technological. The internet makes an office on the other side of the world as close as the push of a button. Telecommuting makes sense for many employers in many situations, and, regardless of Yahoo, it is not going away any time soon.


Sources

Los Angeles Times

Boston.com

CNN

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Fri 22 Mar 2013 20:59
Yahoo apart, most rely on telecommuting - daveyjp
Why thousands still spend time travelling to sit behind a computer for hours, then spend time going home is beyond me. A computer can sit on any desk and if a few more large organisations saw the light they could save a load on expensive office blocks and get better productivity.

How many hours were lost today due to office workers not being able to get to sit behind their computer at a desk? Give them a laptop and they could have sat at the kitchen table instead.

After years of doing it going back to lengthy commutes and 9-5 in the same office at the same desk would be very difficult.

The reason it doesn't happen is the misconception that if you are at work you are working and homeworking is skiving.

Edited by daveyjp on 22/03/2013 at 20:59

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Fri 22 Mar 2013 21:01
Yahoo apart, most rely on telecommuting - jamie745

I was born in 1984 when the likes of Tomorrows World promised that mine would be the first generation to mostly work from home using the information superhighway.

What a load of cobblers.

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Fri 22 Mar 2013 23:11
Yahoo apart, most rely on telecommuting - daveyjp
Its only cobblers for those unenlightened companies who are too afraid of changing the way their organisations operate.

Remove desk ownership and you can remove 10-20% of desks from day one due to staff holidays, absence, part time workers etc.
10- 20% less floorspace to pay for. Properties are expensive, reduce floorspace, increase profit.

Manage teleworking and this can be increased to 40% - 50% utilising desk sharing.

All public authorities who are subject to serious budget cuts could save a fortune by simply introducing desk sharing and instantly reduce the amount of office space they need to occupy.





Edited by daveyjp on 22/03/2013 at 23:13

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Sat 11 May 2013 05:47
Yahoo apart, most rely on telecommuting - crazygal
great share
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Fri 18 Dec 2020 19:27
Yahoo apart, most rely on telecommuting - catsdad
I spent my last few working years with a mixture of hot desking and (increasingly) home working. It was OK for old stagers like me who knew the company inside out but I have serious concerns at the effect on younger workers or new recruits to a company.

How can you have a human experience of work if you operate from home on a screen for 40 years? Looks to me like a modern equivalent of the treadmill used in Victorian prisons to keep felons occupied mindlessly as a punishment.

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Sat 27 Feb 2021 15:46
Yahoo apart, most rely on telecommuting - concrete

The last 15 years of work were spent working remote from Head Office. That is because geographically as Regional Manager for the Northern Region I needed to be close to the worksites, which were all over the region. I saw colleagues at strategy meetings and the like and it was good to see them. I did notice when we had a London office, mainly for prestige purposes, that whenever I was there for a few days it was very difficult to get anyone to go for a drink or coffee after work. They all lived miles out of London and had trains to catch etc. So the idea that the work experience was carried over into social activity doesn't fly, certainly not for London and other major metropolitan areas. We did need an office for general admin tasks but effectively the vast majority of our work could easily have been achieved remotely from the office. But we were engineers for construction which may be a more suitable discipline to manage remotely. In any event I am sure that recent events will shape the world of work in years to come. I am all for companies making more profit too. It generally means better pay and a healthier company with more security.

Cheers Concrete

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Sat 27 Feb 2021 17:11
Yahoo apart, most rely on telecommuting - Avant

I agree that social activity in most cases isn't the big issue, except perhaps with young singles who are more likely to go to the pub after work.

The balance is between the need for teamwork, in most, but I agree not all, cases best achieved face-to-face, and the sheer waste of time spent on commuting - on average between 2 and 4 hours a day.

At least the pandemic has made people think about how to achieve this balance. My bet would be that many office workers will end up spending anything between 1 and 3 days a week in the office and the rest at home, depending of course on the nature of their job.

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Sat 27 Feb 2021 19:23
Yahoo apart, most rely on telecommuting - movilogo

The biggest impact of the pandemic is possibly the widespread acceptance of Work From Home. While this was common in IT industry before it has now become mainstream in other industries like police, medics etc. My local GP now does telephone consultation first, then if necessary video consultation and finally face to face if necessary.

I, personally, happy to get rid of my 1.5 hr commute each way. If my employer expects me to back in office 5 days a week, I'd search for an alternate job where telecommuting is acceptable. Up to 2 days max in physical office is OK but not more than that anymore.

I know some will argue that if your job can be done from home then it can be done from Bangalore or Manila etc. But outsourcing is happening in last 20 years so nothing new.

Think in this way, a US company can now easily recruit a UK guy if no physical need for being in USA. So any work that can be done remotely, competition will be global.

If NASA can operate a spacecraft in Mars from Earth, it is surprising why it took us a pandemic to make WFH mainstream.

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Mon 1 Mar 2021 20:03
Yahoo apart, most rely on telecommuting - Xileno

The more dynamic companies have been doing this for years. For the last ten years I've been doing two to three days from home, the rest in the office. I manage a team of software developers, provided the work is getting done I couldn't care where they are based. I think face-to-face contact is important particularly at the start of a project but when everyone is clear on what they need to do, they can often be more productive at home. I can always call the team back into the office if the project is spinning out of control but this has not happened yet.

I think it's harder for the young. My nephew who is 27 is in a shared house with five others so working from home is not so easy, he has a laptop set up in his bedroom and there are distractions. I am lucky in that I have a separate office in the house, plenty of space, no distractions and a view out into the garden.

Work is what one does, not where one goes.

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