“Telecommuting is Green and Saves Money, but Most Employers still Resist it”: A Deeper Analysis

by Michael Graham Richard, Gatineau, Canada on 23rd June 2008 for treehugger.com 

and the “My Input” is purely my own input of ideas and analysis

(Photo Credit: Sean Dreilinger)

Telecommuting Faces Employer Inertia
In these days of increasing environmental awareness and rising oil prices, telecommuting is gaining mindshare. Yet employers are still reluctant. According toCIO Insight Research’s Mobility Survey: “51 percent of CIOs and other senior IT leaders surveyed said their companies discourage fulltime telecommuting. An equal number of the 237 respondents—24 percent each—said their firms encourage fulltime telecommuting or remain neutral.”

But there is hope, since when asked how their company’s policy has changed over the past 3 years, 34% said that it’s more positive against 8% replying it was more negative for full-time telecommuting, and for part-time telecommuting, the figures are 46% vs. 5%.

(Photo Credit: veo_)

On the employee side, things are different, especially in the IT sector (where telecommuting makes the most sense, obviously).

“In a poll of 1,500 technology workers, 37 percent said they would accept a salary cut [of up to 10%] if they could work from home, according to Dice Holdings.”

Telecommuting Could Save Billions of Gallons of Gasoline 
According to Telework Exchange, “for white-collar employees who feel they could do their jobs from home began to telework twice a week, the United States could conserve 9.7 billion gallons of gasoline and save $38.2 billion a year.” These calculations are based on 50 miles roundtrips in vehicles getting 24 miles per gallon, with gasoline at $3.94/gallon.

Links by Treehugger.com

Telecommuting
TreeHugger Picks: Telecommuting
Telecommuting: Why don’t you stay home?
Bill Encourages Telecommuting in USA

Efficiency
CherryPal: A 2-Watt Computer the Size of a Paperback
Efficiency is Crucial to a Green Future

More on Employers Resisting Telecommuting
CIO Insight Research’s Mobility Survey
Most Employers Resist Telecommuting
U.S. IT Pros Eager to Telecommute
Telework Exchange Report (pdf)

My Input:

Great idea. At least superficially. If going to work is going to be only a 9 to 5 affair at the computer, why not do it at home? Saves the gasoline required to go to work everyday. Multiply that with the number of people who go to work everyday to do a job of this kind, and you get a reasonable estimate of how much fossil fuel you save. You could also probably multiply that over the number of years we had always done that. But that complicates things, of course.

However, the sheer magnitude of it all is very apparent when put into perspective. You don’t need a complicated study to do all that.

However (a second one), is it really such a good idea? What about work productivity? What about the ease of communication of ideas? What about dissemination of orders, information, ideas, announcements etc? Would all these, which are probably or arguably important in any corporation be compromised by telecommuting?

Let’s do a much closer analysis, a qualitative one, not a quantitative one.

What are the potential benefits for employers? Let’s make it bite-sized shall we?

• Possibly (the key-word) greater work productivity due to increased comfort/convenience at home
• Possibly a saving in the form of employee wage cuts as appropriate by decreased fuel allowance (”In a poll of 1,500 technology workers, 37% would accept a salary cut [of up to 10%] if they could work from home, according to Dice Holdings.”)
• Probably more man hours, due to tapping of hours beyond the rigid 9-to-5 working hours currently (for e.g. at night)

Let’s analyze these potential benefits deeper. My list isn’t exhaustive, this is all I can think of at the moment. Feel free to comment.

Number one. Greater work productivity at home. Possibly. With good work discipline, self-discipline, TV-discipline, refrigerator-discipline, you could possibly pull off uninterrupted, quality work. Trust me, and be honest to yourselves, home is the worst distraction you can give yourself for work, unless you have the mentality to counter that. So number one isn’t really a convincing factor for positivism for support for telecommuting from company heads.

Number two. This is possibly the most convincing point. You save money paying people. And people wouldn’t mind anyway, because transport is already so expensive, and is probably set to be worser in future. This probably needs a quantitative analysis. So I can’t help you there.

Number three. To really be honest, I think the freeing of hours beyond the standard today, probably wouldonly compensate for the loss of productivity from telecommuting. Last-minute work at night, loss of quality from rushing through work. These is irresponsible behaviour. However, you’re bound to have this kind of thing in every company. 

The solution? A more mature policy that would have strict standards of quality of work, with the flexibility of working times for productivity. These would in turn promote a healthy mature employee who can plan his time well, and still produce results. What utopia! However, it is achievable, nevertheless, to a certain degree. Experimentation would be a good idea to see which policies or ideas fit which forms of work, which companies, which employees etc. Company policy should be customized to the employee, the nature of work, the nature of the company etc.

  

The ultimate verdict: let’s not BLINDLY talk about telecommuting as the green solution, without considering the consequences. Let’s as environmentalists or green fellas provide WORKABLE SOLUTIONS, rather than rant off at shallow, superficial half-conceptualized policies. I am not criticizing anyone or the article in specific. I am merely directing all of our attention to the greatest mistake that environmentalists made, make and probably keep on making.

 

 

~ by limjunying on July 5, 2008.