Collaborating from a Distance: The Business Value of Teleworking

When gas prices surged to $5 last summer, something happened. Managers everywhere began embracing teleworking to help alleviate some of the pain inflicted at the pump. Often talked about, few managers openly promoted teleworking as an option. Now, deep into a recession, managers have come to realize that for your more senior talent, teleworking not only raises productivity, but also raises morale.

Much earlier in my career, I had a manager say that he wanted to see everyone in the office to make sure he understood what everyone was doing. He said that his style was to "manage by walking around". During a quarterly meeting, we had one of our senior leaders fly in for this meeting. Somebody asked him if he was supportive of teleworking and hiring talent that was not based on the same city as our office. His response was very clear - "If you want to rise in the company, you need to learn how to work from a distance and manage from a distance. The higher up you go, the more your direct reports will live in other cities."

Increasingly, companies are empowering their employees to telework. Enabled with Instant Messaging & "Presence" which allows you to see the availability of your employees at any time, managers feel more comfortable "letting go". What we've come to see over the past few years is that doing so, pays off in spades. Productivity increases of 10-20% are the norm with the added benefit of higher employee morale and loyalty. In a challenging economy when you can't afford to give raises and promotions, allowing people to telework 1-2 days a week, gives them more autonomy in how and when they get the job done. Having the ability to go for a run at lunch, wash your clothes in the middle of the day, or pick your child up from school at 3pm is a real benefit to your most prized assets - your people.

This week's "Trendwatcher" (Institute for Corporate Productivity), sites some great statistics supporting teleworking including research from the non-profit, Telework Coalition, that has found sizable productivity rises within the U.S. and abroad. Two of the findings are:

* Productivity increased 31% among the 9,000 telecommuters employed by British Telecom.
* At JD Edwards, telecommuters are 20% to 25% more productive than office workers (All, 2008).

Some experts say that telecommuting, especially in customer service jobs, will likely broaden and expand in the future. This growth is fueled by solutions such as Cisco's Unified Contact Center, which allows companies to deploy a "virtual contact center" and take customer calls, emails, or chat sessions from home. Not only does it give companies the ability to offer flexible work arrangements for their employees it also allows them to tap talent wherever they are in the world.

Nancy Gofus of Verizon offers some compelling reasons for adopting a teleworking program including: raising employee productivity, savings real estate costs, and going "green". Listen to her podcast.