Telecommuting - Good Career Move?

The study has some dichotomous findings. My paraphrased summary is this – Companies are beginning to support the idea of telecommuting. However, workers are leery, thinking that if the boss doesn’t SEE them working that the boss will believe the worker is just off goofing around. 64% of people also believe it may lead to their being passed over for a promotion

So there are a couple sides to this, right? First off, there is the side of the manger. Here is an article from the Chicago Tribune. It is clear that the manager in this story is struggling because he can’t “see” his employees so he doesn’t necessarily know what they are doing. I have some insight to offer at this point. Just because people are in the office does NOT mean they are working on work. They are cooing to their two year olds, filling out there office pools, and watching March Madness streaming live. [note: I have no personal experience with the aforementioned – I have friends at other companies who tell me these things]. Look, the truth is people who can work independently and have been producing good work aren’t all of a sudden going going to telecommute and turn lazy.

Next, there is the side of the worker. If you work from home, there is always that pull to the pantry. Mmmmmm leftovers. Imagine how hard it would be to pass that up every time you walk by. Seriously, though, people who work at home have a hard time ‘turning it off.’ They tend to work more hours. There is also a concern that you won’t be caught up with the social scene at work (I have not been part of the social scene since 3rd grade kickball). The key if you are going to work from home is to be comfortable. Click here for my suggestions.

So my solution to this is to work at Panera. I love Panera. You can sit there for hours and work, all for the cost of a cup of coffee (my tip – soda’s are free refills). I throw my headphones, plug into Pandora and since there are no interruptions (see my brilliant post on interruptions), I can really cook. Ballpark, I would say I am 3x more productive when I am at Panera vs. in the office.

Additional survey findings include:
• 80 percent of respondents believe telecommuting is a trend that will continue to grow over the next five years.
• 32 percent of respondents telecommute.
• 46 percent of respondents’ companies allow them to telecommute.
• 62 percent of respondents believe companies prefer them in the office to prevent a lack of communication; 41 percent believe it is because of the cost of the technology involved.
• 61 percent of telecommuters do so to balance their family and work life, and 37 percent do so to reduce their carbon footprint

So how has this telecommuting worked out for me…….well, I’m the VP of this blog, so I’m on my way.

I don’t know about you, but i like lists. The Inc 500. The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. People’s 50 Most Beautiful People. Oh, and of course you can’t have a list discussion without including David Letterman’s Top 10 List.

Cue the drum roll. And now, from Steelcase, a new list: 8 Considerations for Building a Workspace for a Networked World! Ok, so it might not have the same staying power as the lists above, but it’s interesting none-the-less, especially if you’re in the process of setting up a new office space.

The list and accompanying introduction were taken from the June 2008 edition of the Steelcase 360, Workspaces for a work-anywhere world. Enjoy.

We may be mobile, global, and wireless, but we still need connections beyond the virtual. We need spaces to connect in person with others. Today’s workplace must be a collaborative environment that extracts the most value from the space, attracts and retains great talent and reflects the aspirations of the organization. What are those places like? Those spaces often include the following:

8. Places for mentoring—millennials are joining the workforce and boomers are starting to leave, so quiet places (e.g. a private enclave, a meeting space off to the side, etc.) help people share expertise and experience, further the organizational culture, preserve institutional memory, and encourage more collaboration.

Distracted by Maggie Jackson

As I write this blog post, I am going to count how many times I am interrupted by co-workers, email, etc…..

According to Maggie Jackson, multi-tasking is costing the US Economy about $650 billion a year. Well, it’s actually the loss of productivity that she claims comes with multi-tasking that is the problem. Her book, Distracted, has been making the rounds and has been featured in Business Week, Fast Company, BuzzFlash, and several others.

There are some interesting stats to support Ms. Jackson’s claim:

- On average, an office worker when interrupted takes 25 minutes to get back on task, and one-third of the time, they never do {so if I get interrupted 20 times in a day, it may be better if I don’t even show up because at that point I will have negative productivity, right?}.

– A typical information worker’s day can be broken down as follows: 28% Unnecessary Distractions; 25% Productive Content; 20% In Meetings; 15% Searching Through Content (emails and web searching); 12% Thinking and Reflecting. {I’m wondering who gets to judge if a distraction is ‘unnecessary’}

– In a day, the typical information worker turns to email 50 times, instant messaging 77 times and visits 40 different websites. {40 websites…..that may be contributing to the productivity loss….not the multi-tasking}

– The average number of corporate emails sent and received per day is projected to rise from today’s 156 messages to 228 by the year 2011. One reason for the increase is “Spam,” junk email generated by social and business-networking sites like LinkedIn and Facebook. {I know I am getting old, but ‘spam?’ I guess I don’t have my inbox overflowing with people wanting to be my Facebook friend. One day…}

There is actually a somewhat dark element to the book. Check this out: “Smitten with the virtual, split-split, and nomadic, we are corroding the three pillars of our focus (orienting), judgment (executive function), and awareness (alerting). The costs are steep: we begin to lose trust, depth and connection in our relations and our thought. Without a flourishing array of attentional skills, our world flattens and thins. And most alarmingly, we begin to lose our ability to collectively face the challenges of our time. Can a society without deep focus preserve and learn from its past? Does a culture of distraction evolve to meet the needs of the future?” Yikes.

Well, I had 2 important e-mails to answer and 3 conversations while taking care of this blog post. I’m at the point now where noise and interruptions are the norm and I don’t think I could think if everything was quiet………

Informal meeting space perfect for instant meetings

If you work in an office environment, then you are very aware that collaboration and working in teams is becoming increasingly important, but how do you design for it?

Below is a summary of a recent article from the Steelcase 360 about how to optimize your office space for collaboration, a topic of discussion in every office redesign. For the full article, please click here.

There’s no ‘I’ in teamwork – But there’s plenty of future (summary)
According to the International Facilities Managers Association, IFMA, the amount of space devoted to conference, training, and break out areas in the workplace increased 17% from 2002 to 2007 and the size of our workspaces are decreasing.

When designing a collaborative space, you should consider and incorporate what Lew Epstein, director of Advanced Product Marketing at Steelcase, believes are the three key aspects of a collaborative workspace.
(1) the social aspect – how people connect, challenge and inspire one another to achieve their full potential;
(2) the spatial aspect – space is key in hosting and boosting collaboration. Collaboration can happen anywhere.
(3) the informational aspect – Workers today use laptops, Blackberries, iPods, wikis, etc. to solve problems and work to innovate together. Turn them into team tools.

For team space solutions or workspaces designed to embrace collaboration, click to view collections from the Steelcase Store.

If you haven’t had a chance yet, take some time to check out the Steelcase 360 ezine. 360 is a news and knowledge publication loaded with Steelcase insights on work related topics.

About a year ago, the lead 360 article was titled “Working in Four-Part Harmony.” The topic, how real estate workspace is allocated given the mobile workforce, is still relevant today. Do you have a permanent workspace to call home or are you like many of us who sit around a big table with a team?

The full article discusses how to take the four work patterns described below into account when designing an office, but if your lunch is short ( another growing trend) then a cliffs note version is below.

Working in Four-Part Harmony (summary)

More than 2 billion people now use cell phones along with an estimated 50 million PDA’s and 3.2 million BlackBerries®. We send an astounding 9 trillion emails a year. Thanks to this technology, we are a mobile workforce. We are away from our desks 40 to 60 percent of the time in meetings, in collaborative spaces, at our 3rd place (defined by Roy Oldenburg as public places like pubs, cafés and parks where people gather to meet with others), or even taking the occasional vacation day (it could happen, right?).

These four different ways of working—alone, in pairs, and in small and large groups—are how knowledge work gets done. The workplace must effectively support all four.