Will Telecommuting Kill a Career? 247
coondoggie writes to mention that Network World has a piece taking a look at the effects of the telecommute on advancement within your career. From the article: "Over 60% of 1,320 global executives surveyed by executive search firm Korn/Ferry International said they believe that telecommuters are less likely to advance in their careers in comparison to employees working in traditional office settings. Company executives want face time with their employees, the study said."
First Post? (Score:5, Funny)
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I feel that you should sue your former career field, and report the results back to slashdot.
That this should all occur while tele-commuting goes without saying.
Re:First Post? (Score:5, Funny)
Normally I'd just laugh and mod you +1 funny. Sadly I think you might be serious.
I mean, you got first post.
It didn't hurt Charlie's Career... (Score:5, Funny)
It might do if you want to progress further (Score:5, Insightful)
Getting to handle home life and work life and having time to relax and be yourself in the evenings might just be the drug some people seek.
What does "progress" mean? (Score:5, Insightful)
If you're a pure-play techie, then it does not matter. What does "progress" mean to a techie? It means being taken more seriously and doing more technical leadership stuff (architectural etc). In these positions I don't see that telecommuting poses any problems.
Re:What does "progress" mean? (Score:5, Insightful)
Which only works for a small company (Score:5, Insightful)
Going around and asking in person only works that well for a small company anyway. For example here I ended up maintaining the truly awful code of someone whose office is now at the other end of the city. If I wanted to talk to him, I'd have to set an appointment and drive there, which probably isn't any better from the office than from home. In fact, from home I'd actually be closer to his office.
Half the time we _do_ use email anyway, and the other half we just reach for the phone. Why wouldn't it work just as well from home? And since everything is in the same CVS, if you need any clarifications, you can just tell the other guy which project, file and function or line number you're interested in. Having to actually go to another department and ask in person is person is more the exception when phone and email failed, rather than having a permanent exodus of people going to paint something on other people's whiteboards.
Ditto for guys whose code we use, or guys using our code. Heck, some of the frameworks I've had to work with were from companies not even in the same city, or the same country altogether. Some of the guys whose code is being maintained don't even work here any more.
All in all, while I don't deny that sometimes it _is_ an advantage, I see more value in having good and clearly defined architectures and interfaces. That will keep serving you well even when the whole original team moved on to other jobs. It's not a theoretical situation, we actually have one framework here where that's exactly what happened over time.
And when they didn't yet, knowing (or having a way to find out quickly) who to phone or email if you have questions. If the architecture and interfaces are well designed and documented, and you have competent people at both ends of the line, chances are there won't be a whole tome of an explanation you need, so telephone and email work just as well. And when someone new to it needs a more thorough crash course, an appointment can be arranged... which is exactly what we're doing right now anyway, even without telecommuting.
Re:Which only works for a small company (Score:5, Insightful)
So, they can be outsourced no problem, right? That might interfere with their advancement.
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Re:What does "progress" mean? (Score:5, Informative)
Shared Whiteboard: http://www.imaginationcubed.com/LaunchPage [imaginationcubed.com]
Talk to the guy: Skype / IM / regular telephone
Demonstrate a computer environment: VNC / http://www.crossloop.com/ [crossloop.com] / https://www.iremotepc.com/ [iremotepc.com] / many more
And as for other things like calendar and task management - there's a deluge of those.
Anything else? The internet has most likely got it covered! Face-to-face time is only really needed these days for those who get some sort of warm, fuzzy reassurance from it.
It's still not the same (Score:3, Insightful)
>days for those who get some sort of warm, fuzzy
>reassurance from it.
It's still not the same.
Now, I do have some experience "telecommuting"
Re:What does "progress" mean? (Score:5, Insightful)
What I mean is this: Using a game-statistical model, with various directions of advancement, and attributes like skill, office presence (ie: not telecommuting), charisma, and such, it may be provable that, all other things being equal, having an office presence provides social connectivity, allowing the player to advance more easily in his chosen direction.
In cases where the player's other stats are higher, this may be irrelevant - he is more able to move on his own merit, and thus doesn't need the 'social grease'. Additionally, it may be showable that having a periodic office presence has significant advantages over having none, but a continuous office presence may have little advantage over a periodic one.
Of course, the game dynamic changes for a contractor versus a firm-static employee; the contracter lives more on reputation than on social contact, and thus has little need for face-to-face meetings. Meanwhile, the firm-static employee's advancement is eased by the ability to personally impress his superiors and coworkers - his good reputation is formed from good social interaction.
Moving further on, the impact of an office presence on a player's career would be inversely related to the percent of the firm that telecommutes - ie: the greater number of people without an office presence, the less likely it would be that having none would impact an individual's career. People would be used to it, and would very likely have a greater capacity for forming social contacts and personal respect for others via e-mail, phone, or other remote communication means.
So, will telecommuting kill your career? If you're good at what you do, not likely. If it's only most of the time, not likely. If you're a contracter and not an employee, not likely. If your firm is primarily telecommuted, not likely.
You, my good man, appear to be all three, so I'd say your 'player' would lay in a boundary condition in this 'game'. I don't mean to invalidate your position and experience, but to generalize a system and perhaps explain your relative position in it - that is, creating an statistical game doesn't bear directly on reality, but serves only to direct research and hypothesis (which in turn refine the game).
Does any of that sound about right?
Not necessarily a straw man (Score:2)
1. Your whole game theory application starts at "it may be provable that, all other things being equal, having an office presence provides social connectivity, allowing the player to advance more easily in his chosen direction" (my emphasis), and then proceeds to build something that sounds suspiciously like certainties on it. It's as if "may be provable" turned into "already proven" somewhere along the way, and I don't see any such proof. If something only " may be provable", but isn't
Re:Not necessarily a straw man (Score:4, Insightful)
Sorry, mate. This isn't academia, it's slashdot ^_^. I wrote that off the top of my head as a hypothetical model, not an implementable one. IE: you're trying to run pseudocode directly on hardware. Of course nothing in the statement assumes that things are proven. Should be a given in a hypothetical model. Especially one that states it, as you say, at the start.
'Topic: Not necessarily a straw man'
Assuming you're refering to what I called a straw man in the first pgph of my post, of course it's a straw man; it's a statement of subjective experience placed out as evidence to the contrary of a position. There's nothing wrong with it being a straw man argument, just that this case may or may not be a border condition, depending on the results of actual research.
'...pretty much means that you found one axis that is completely independent from the others, and you can maximize without touching the others, which tends to never be true.'
Granted, but that's how the model starts; constraints and such are added as the game is fleshed out with empirical data. Note that I said in no less than two places that it's the beginning of a model in which I hypothesized that it may be a border condition, not that I promoted such a thing as fact.
'As you undoubtedly know, min-maxing in an optimal solution in pretty much any space _can_, in fact, reduce the value on one axis, to gain more on another that matters more.'
Pretty 20-20 obvious, and thank you for positing it. Still, you'll note that it is far easier, in a work setting, to quip a joke or discuss a small matter with your co-workers if they're actually in the room with you, ie: you don't have to take time away from typing code to type an IM or email. You're right, though; there are limits to a person's multitasking ability, and only so many hours in the day. That should be reflected in the game.
"There are problems and factors which you seem to not even consider at all
Very true, but harder to quantify. Should I have determined QoL via hours of free time? How about an inverse coefficient based on commuting time? I'm not being sarcastic, just throwing out examples; what do you think the best quantification of QoL would be?
"As with any other min-maxing problem, you have to reduce X to get more on Y and Z, or reduce Y to get more of the other two."
As you stated before, the model is 'ill-defined', or as I like to say, 'green'. Exchanges such as this, and empirical research are needed to refine the model. The purpose of a green model is just to give ideas about how a system works, not to rigidly define it.
"Two solutions to two different problems can end up _very_ different
True, but that's the purpose of using game theory for such a model. Notice I didn't use 'advancement', but 'movement' in my original post. The idea is to determine whether the player is more able to change his position in the environment based on a number of variables, some or all of which may or may not be connected.
"For example, it seems to me that being a good programmer (and having a boss who can actually judge that) is alone very much enough."
Absolutely true! But I'll give you an example using a real game: Final Fantasy. It's equally possible to defeat a given monster if you're uber strong or uber magical, but it's also possible to do so if your character is well balanced. Similarly, it may be possible that the ability to network somewhat well can make up for, for example, being a merely mediocre coder. If that were the case, it may be the reason for the existence of so many mediocre programm
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Isn't the logical corollary that you need to be in the office to be effectively managed, too? After all, what good is it for that manager to be walking around an empty office?
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I think the very notion of "career progression" is changing these days. It used to be that an employer was expected to coddle you for 40 years as you "waited your turn" and slowly advanced up the ranks. Telecommuting of course would kill your "advancement" in this environment.
Nowadays, employers routinely slash&burn and rehire as needed. Assuming you don't actually need to
Re:It might do if you want to progress further (Score:5, Insightful)
Best of all, the fact that I cannot "work from home" forces me to be extra disciplined during my work-day, and I make sure that I prioritize my tasks and complete all my important tasks before I head for home. Admittedly, this is a generalization and may not be true for everyone, but it works for me.
Conversely, if I went back home at 6 sharp (because I had the ability to carry my work home) and still had some pending work for the day, I would never be able to truly unwind at home until the pending work has been completed. A beer tastes way better when you're tired and satisfied.
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Nothing beats a good physical workout after a day in the office, be it cycling home from work, Karate or even sex (I know, this is /. ;-)
Re:It might do if you want to progress further (Score:4, Funny)
Buddy, you must not have a wife and kids!
They're more demanding than the work environment.
My office is my sanctuary.
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So, is it the telecommuting, or the environment? Being in the office is the best way to further your career by networking with professionals in your field. Telecommuting is also viewed by many in this part of the country as a copout - that telecommuting isn't "real work". Seriously - I've been asked in interviews by "serious" [iem.com] companies here wh
Somehow not surprising (Score:3, Interesting)
I've worked with good managers, but I've also met at least one person whose idea of management was showing everyone who's the boss, full time. He seemed to have some deep seated belief that _noone_ and _nothing_ works unless you keep reminding them that you're watching them. He literally used to keep clicking on Netscape's title bar (this was in the 90's) to show Netscape that he's watching it. He actually believed that Netscape actually loads a page fast
It does me. (Score:5, Insightful)
I can't exactly put my finger on the day and time I decided I didn't need to "move up" any more, but let me tell you, it was a liberating moment.
The funniest part of it is that immediately after the first time I turned down a "promotion" because I felt satisfied with my life as it was, coincided directly with the really good opportunities showing up. It almost seems like happiness and satisfaction are qualities that draw success. Instead of running after success, if you reach a point where you're not quite so hungry, so desperate, success starts coming after you, instead.
I've seen what ambitious, driven people look like. Take someone like Dick Cheney for example. Here's a guy who clawed his way to the top, literally. He's worked his way to a level of wealth and power most people only dream of, and his face is like a road-map of pain and desperation. I wouldn't want to be inside his head on the day he shuffles off this earth.
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It's like the p
Why? (Score:2)
Why? Cheney probably thinks he did just fine. Hell, even Al Capone still thought he'd done nothing wrong when he died in prison. People are that way. EVERYONE tends to think they are doing "the right thing". Some are correct. Some are wrong.
Evil (if it exists) and "bad" people are much more
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I think he'll be thinking with regret about all the babies whose blood he didn't get to drink.
I mean, check google images and take a close look at the man. The Japanese invented the word "sanpaku" for him.
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Indeed, it was for me, and that's why I was very pleased with the change when I switched from a 100% telecommuting job to a regular office job with no telecommuting.
When I was working at home, I'd take my time and often take an hour or two break to go shopping or do laundry or something during the day, meaning I was often working until 9:00pm. As a result, there was not a very good dividing line between work
Of course... (Score:4, Interesting)
You got to have at least some face time.
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Duh (Score:2, Insightful)
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Telecommuting seams good if all you need is a pay check. But if you want to build a career I find it hard to believe that telecommuting is the way to go.
--
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Where does the weight tip in your personal life of home life over corporate ladder?
I work from home. I don't have to deal with traffic or bad weather. I probably work longer being that my office is readily available but that doesn't bother me. I get to see my kids in the morning, for lunch, and for dinner. Before telecommuting, I only saw them right at dinner. For me, telecommuting is a win-win.
What is missed from commuting is the errands that can be run whilst
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Besides, it's not only telecommuters but those of us with remote managers that face these types of challenges.
I haven't had a local manager since 2000.
Has it hurt me relative to others overall? Perhaps. ...but it hasn't hurt
Independance (Score:4, Interesting)
This isn't data. Sheesh. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Most people actually put where they live ahead of the company. Proximity to work location ranks no higher than ninth when surveying people on how they choose a residence location. They care way, way more about local traffic, schools, local businesses, and so on. (Sorry I don't have a link on this; this data was presented in a class lecture for Urban
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Second, many if not most people put where they live ahead of their company. If your company announced tomorrow that it was moving all of its office across the country, do you really think everyone would pick up and move? Conversely, if I apply for a job with the intention of telecommuting, I am demonstrating a preference for that company ov
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Finally, if I can get more done from home than my peers can in the office, why would you promote them instead of me? I don't know about other people, but I'm actually more productive at home than I am in the office.
Because, like most regular managers, they don't measure your worth by the number of high value tasks or projects that you complete on or ahead of time, they like to see you banging away on your keyboard. Doesn't matter if you're paying bills on your online checking account, looking for a car part on Ebay or actually working, they just like to see you beating the keys.
I've come up against that quite a few times in the past. Doesn't matter if you kick ass and take names from the house, you're just not a
Re:This isn't data. Sheesh. (Score:4, Funny)
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No, we prefer to "cannon"-ize some of them...
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That's the problem in a nutshell.
News flash! This just in! People who actually do productive work like to telecommute, while mindless parasitical execudroids prefer to have their minions in the office where they can control them and distract them from their real jobs with meetings and other pointless busywork. More on this breaking story as it develops!
Face it, suits are the new nobility, and as far as they're concerned, the rest of us are pea
Frame of reference issue.... (Score:5, Insightful)
All telecommuters take note (Score:4, Interesting)
unseen == unappreciated. this is dispite the fact i dragged this multimillion $ company out of the dark ages and wrote them a business system and POS system linked together which run the entire venture, i also admin their web/email/db services at the same time. without me they would still be scratching away are hand written paper reports and trying to make it work on excel.
to add to this insult, i did all this on a cut throat budget at a bargin price for them. my rate is 50% of what the next guy would charge.
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Re:All telecommuters take note (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:All telecommuters take note (Score:5, Insightful)
Then take a long vacation and prove them wrong.
to add to this insult, i did all this on a cut throat budget at a bargin price for them. my rate is 50% of what the next guy would charge.
When you come back, tell them you now have a better offer somewhere else, but since you're old friends you'd continue to work for them for double your current rate if they want to keep you. That will quickly make up for the money you lost from the time off, and if you're right they won't find anyone cheaper. People who are working for bargain rates rarely get any respect, telecommuter or not. Management thinks, "why, if they were really good, they'd charge more".
If they go for it, they should have new respect for you as a highly-paid professional who has significant value to the company that they missed when you were unavailable. If they don't buy it, you were wrong about your value to this company, and you can move on to another job where things may go better for you. Either way, your current problem is gone.
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So he could take his leave and be unavailable when the realize they needed him 2 years ago.
It can also affect future job prospects. (Score:2)
In
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you are in a GREAT position to find a new job, you can job hunt while at work without anyone knowing.
Get a new job offer, go in and tell your boss, "i quit, management acts like assholes, You dont stand up for me, and I cant take it anymore.
They will either do the typical "ok have fun!", or if you really are as valuable as you think you are, they will shit a brick right there and offer you more, promise changes, yadda,yadda....
Just be ready for the "ok, bye!" response by having a real offer i
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I'm not trying to be glib. It's just that I have been in situations like that. If the company isn't willing to pay you close to market value, regardless of location, you are almost always going to get the shaft. I bet they would shaft you even if you were on-site.
I've been doing it for five years, but I have always done it hourly. I *never* do fixed bid contracts. There are so many reasons not to, but let's just cite the obvious one that 90% of software projects are
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Assuming you actually are a contract worker, I can see why they might not appreciate you. Take an English class--it'd be well worth your while.
-1 Troll in my book.
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themselfs?
Key word: "believe" (Score:3, Insightful)
So what? I bet over 60% of global executives believed there were WMDs in Iraq, that Saddam Hussein had something to do with 9/11, that ENRON was a great company, and so on. Just because global executives believe something doesn't mean there's any truth to it. Sheesh, what a non-story.
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Except (Score:2)
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If someone asked me if I believed that being an atheist would make someone unelectable in the USA, I'd say yes, I believe that. Does that mean I would never elect an atheist? Not at all. I just believe that most other people are bigoted idiots.
It could be exactly the same principle at work in this case.
non-exclusive telecommuting. (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't think we'd put up with complete telecommuting, not unless the employee was phenomenal.
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Mind you, I mainly do development so just about everything I norma
Really? (Score:2, Insightful)
At the end of the day, people help those folks they know and are comfortable with. This means that if you don
Decreased ladder climbing motivation (Score:3, Interesting)
But as far as climbing a bit faster in the middle levels of corporate IT? The job satisfaction of avoiding the 10 rush hour commutes per week, the large home office, home cooked food instead of cafeteria or lunch bag amounts to quite a lot of non-monetary compensation.
If I couldn't telecommute I'd probably jump from job to job and company to company in order to maximize my income, but as long as I can telecommute a lot of the time and as long as the job isn't too unpleasant and as long as the pay covers my expenses, I don't have a whole lot of motivation to look for a new job.
Not just telecommuting... (Score:5, Funny)
Live to Work or Work to Live? (Score:5, Insightful)
If you want to be independent, set your hours, spend more time with the kids, choose your employers and your work, or whatever, then by all means, go file for an LLC and get to work. It's hard and you'll probably earn less and get less sleep.
I've seen even the best employees who were teleworkers get let go before the mediocre folks who bitched at the water cooler, come lay-offs time, that's just the way it works, humans are social creatures. It's a bad 'career' option, but a good lifestyle choice.
Neither choice is right for everybody but it's good to honestly assess which is the right one for you.
Face time? (Score:3, Insightful)
Taking this to the extremes... (Score:5, Funny)
At one company I worked for, management wanted to install new cubes with half-height walls so they could see if everyone was working with a simple glance out over the office. They backed off when we complained to their managers that the real problem was that out managers were insecure jerks who overreact to problems instead of proactively managing the department. It got even more interesting when our management banned the posting of Dilbert cartons on the cube walls that randomly appeared to mock them.
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Oh my, a lack of selfirony too. If I get to be a big boss someday (wouldn't bet on it), I plan to put the following dilbert strip (02.01.2000) on my door:
CEO to Senior VP: "The research supports my strategy. You can read the research but don't make copies"
Senior VP to VP: "I can tell you about it, but you can't read it"
VP to assistant VP: "I don't remember the reason b
There's more to Life than Career... (Score:2)
(corporations, from the point of view of the tax system...
I think) that Phil Greenspun was promoting in one or both of
his online "web whore" books (by different titles, of course).
If the job and/or environment you want isn't to be found, the
Creative Minority go off & make one of their own design, either
within an existing company context or in a company of their
own design.
Next challenge, please...
It won't, if *everyone* is doing it.... (Score:3, Insightful)
It worked remarkably well. Communication between team members was actually better than on many teams that I've worked on in cube farms. When everyone is isolated, a consciousness develops that everyone needs to be very explicit about picking up the phone and calling each other to stay on the same page. In the cube farm, it's easy to become complacent about the fact that so-and-so has a cube two aisles over, and never go and talk to them.
The telecommuting job was wonderful in terms of being able to keep up an aggressive pace, sustainably. Adding up the time for the commute to and from the job I had had before it, plus getting ready in the morning before going to work, travel time out to eat at lunch, and so forth, an eight-hour work day generally took me around eleven hours or so. On my telecommuting job, I wound up working lots of ten hour days, yet felt like I was working less hard.
On the other hand, my current job involves agile development where everyone is together in a single project room, and that's just about as pleasant, and much more efficient in terms of delivering on time. And impossible to do by telecommuting....
When your boss is 3000 miles away does it matter? (Score:2, Interesting)
So Face Time is when we all fly to a central location, twice a year, to meet up.
Re:When your boss is 3000 miles away does it matte (Score:2)
I chose to go to work since it was in downtown San Francisco and the my choices for lunch were much better there than where I lived (San Carlos).
The President of my company (Score:2)
So it's a problem of perception, then? (Score:3, Interesting)
Telecommuting makes sense if (Score:2)
In other news... (Score:2)
It's pretty subjective, but most CIOs are clueless (Score:2, Interesting)
Pros:
> work your own schedule
> wear whatever you want (even your boxers, only)
> Save money on gas
> Increased productivity due to isolation
> Listen to music as loud as you want/can!
> no boss breathing down your neck (but rather via IM instead)
> no sick co-workers infecting you with their germs
> no office-politics
Cons:
> Anti-social behavioural patterns
Story Title (Score:2, Funny)
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No commutative property of corporate addition (Score:2)
Wait, I thought that counted as the best reason to telecommute?
On a more serious note - I've worked for a fairly small international corporation (~5k employees). And physical presence at the corporate headquarters meant absolute diddly-squat. I had only a vague notion that we had executives hiding somewhere on the third floor. They never came out to play with the engineers, except at "informative" "internal" meetings that curious
Keep in mind (Score:2)
And the positions where executives are more actively involved in personnel decisions are probably ones where having "face time" with a candidate is more relevant to
How about both? (Score:2)
An acquintance over net that spans 10 years (Score:2)
enough to build up trust, intimacy, compatibility, cohesion and even share some secrets.
few people are able to get a major promotion before 10 years anways.
How true (Score:3, Interesting)
The next company (the current one), I have been with them for 1 year now. MANY people in the company know about me, I am much more in the "public" view then previously. I have a greater interaction with people then before. Every day, its conference call after conference call.
But, if I keep staying at home and working I might get passsed up. Which is why I think I am being asked to move across the country. I am ready to do it, but its going to take a lot of adjustment going back to an office structure. I get way more done at home then in the office. Which is strange why they would want you to be in the office all the time.
I don't have kids (nor do I want them) and I am not married. I am in a long term relationship, and she will be going with me. I am lucky that I don't have the distractions at home. When that office door is shut, that means GTFO. At first I had friends bothering me during the day, until I stopped answering calls from them or answering the door during business hours. That helped a ton.
Anyway, if you work at home too much you will lose touch with the office. Many times there are things going on that I don't hear about, or find out way too late. This can also make you miss promotions or showing special interest in events. Hell, even attending events becomes interesting.
Face time mainly because they can't make decisions (Score:2)
Too many in management are insecure, they feel they just have to be doing something and unfortunately that means doing it to someone.
I would still TC even if it meant some slowness in career progression, if not just for the peace and m
Schedule Face Time (Score:2)
Schedule face time with your boss. Many telecommuters often have to go in to meetings at work regularily, but that's not enough. Tell your boss you'd like to have lunch with him/her and during the lunch ask about the department and how things are headed. Show some interest in what's actually going on ins
Perhaps... (Score:2)
I'm not in a huge push to advance my career, my salary has been cut in half so I can have a reasonable schedule without a beeper in my pocket and more time to spend with my wife and son. Working from home isn't always for those who are chasing a seat in the boardroom. If you need a "study" to tell you that, p
the people I have meet that telecommute (Score:2)
responsibilities (Score:2)
it's a tradeoff between flexibility and being exhausted and worked out.
i'd prefer to be happy and flexible with a decent pay rather than have a big pay with not enough time to spend it enjoying.
And a summary would be.... (Score:2)
How many of what? (Score:2)
Over 60% of global executives (I'd say probably 150% of 60%) don't get or even expect face time with the majority of their employees. They wouldn't even recognize most of them as employees.
They do, however, know how to understand what a question is asking and answer it in such a way as to present themselves in the best light, and darn sure don't want their employees to think they're hardly even known to their t
Bah (telecommuting for 5 years now) (Score:5, Interesting)
The only thing that will hamper your career if you tele-commute is if you suck at tele-commuting.
I have been working from a remote location for 5 years now. For 3 of those years, I would travel once a month or once every two months for a week on-site. The rest of my time (that is at least 40, but usually 46, of the 52 weeks of the year) I was working out of my home. And during those three years, my clients were 3 time zones away. I was a senior technical lead and I usual lead teams from 2-5 people. I was a senior contributor and I received 2 "absolute best" team awards on one project. During the other two years, I worked exclusively from my home.
The only time telecommuting hurts your career is if:
- You have poor interpersonal skills (well, this will hurt you regardless, but it tends to lead to even more misunderstandings if you are remote)
- You are not self-motivated. If you can't stick with the code instead of catching ST:DS9 on G4 because you are bored or frustrated, telecommuting is going to expose this weakness.
- You do not have a dedicated workspace. If you are trying to do 10 things at once AND work, you are screwed.
- Your company isn't telecommuter friendly (kind of a "duh", but it needs to be said). You can't force a company to accept you as a telecommuter if they hate telecommuters.
I find a lot of companies that are "family friendly" are usually good telecommuting places. They usually have the infrastructure and have good speaker phones in their conference rooms. They are set up for it and they don't look down on you if you attend a meeting by phone.You can also mitigate a lot of issues by coming in for face time on a regular basis. While it isn't my favorite approach, it tends to make most employers happy. Just having a good chat program and a dedicated phone will work wonders. If people can almost always get ahold of you exactly when they want to, they usually don't mind the telecommuting. It's when they can never get a hold of you and you never seem to be "on-line" that they get fiesty.
To be clear, I usually work the schedule of the company, not my own. So even if I could wake up at 12p and work till 8p, I don't do it. I work 8a-4p so that people in different time zones can reach me at a reasonable hour their time. And since most coders come in late and work late, that works pretty good when I am three hours behind them ;-)
All that said, I have never wanted to be a manager. Sr. technical lead is as far as I let a company promote me. So maybe I don't care about career advancement in the technical sense. I'm happy cranking out quality code, and companies continue to hire me for exactly that reason. Even if I had worked on-site all these years, my career would be pretty much the same, since I would never take a management position.
I don't think you can be a manager and tele-commute--unless your whole company is virtual or network based. There is just too much that goes wrong on a daily basis, and if 90% of your workers are in one place and you only see them once a week ... well, stuff is going to go bad.
Sometimes design or brainstorming meetings are difficult. But this could be solved with tech too--it's just that most companies don't want to be bothered with true teleconferencing setups and virtual whiteboards. I find this forces people to be a bit clearer when explaining things over the phone--which can be an added bonus. Or you just make sure you are on site for important design meetings.
Sure there is a negative impact (Score:2)
However, there are real cost and performance advantages to telecommuting: commute/travel time is freed up, long periods of quiet time for working on more difficult problems, energy savings, savings in office space, etc.
The question is, will your managers bala
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I think telecommuters can easily be seen as valued members of an organization in terms of the work output they produce. However, when it comes to things like trust, loyalty, commitment to the company, how well they "fit in" with the company and its culture, etc, it is much harder to judge someone who is never seen face to fac
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"Old Economy" or "New Economy" doesn't matter. Companies are still run by people, and people haven't changed. One important factor is that people have a harder time saying, "no", in person. If you are present in the office, you will generally have an easier time getting the better pr
Re:It makes sense....in some situations. (Score:4, Insightful)
There are other ways for things to go wrong. You can wind up on the 'do we really need these people?' list for many reasons:
Basically, I now take it as axiomatic that without 'face time', misunderstandings inevitably accumulate. I've found you can only set up telecommuting arrangements after working onsite for a while, and developing trust, and that it's easier in small companies, or when you're essentially contracting. But if the people who trust you change jobs for any reason, you're back in a precarious position, because you can't build relational trust reliably from a distance.
I'm presently in a fabulous situation whereby my boss drives near my house on his own way to work, so any work meetings we need also take place offsite. That maintains all the face-to-face communication we need, is great for my productivity (since I don't have to go *anywhere*), and gives him a good excuse to stay out of the office once or twice a week also. But it wouldn't work if I weren't (at minimum) in the same city.
(I can't comment on whether video conferencing can produce the required level of communication; I think it may; never tried it.)
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