Managing Telework:

Chapter

Contents

1: Concepts of Teleworking

Principles of Decentralization

Why Decentralize?

Having Your Cake and Eating It Too

How Is It Possible?

Forms of Telecommuting

Chocolate—Home-Based Telecommuting

Vanilla—Satellite Telework Centers

Chocolate Chip—Local Telework Centers

Tutti Frutti—Combinations

But Does It Pay?

Telecommuting vs. Teleworking

2: Selecting Teleworkers

Dissecting Jobs

Jobs as Collections of Tasks

The Simplified Selection Version

A Slightly More Complicated Version

Is There a Teleworker Personality?

Teleworker Traits

These May Be Better Off in the Office

Try Some and See

The Selection Procedure

Volunteers Only!

Evaluating Jobs and Work Groups

Details

Discussing the Options

Final Selection

3: Site Location

Homes

Who Decides?

Standards for the Physical Setting

Who Pays?

Some Details on Setting up a Home Office

Telework Centers

Selection Issues

Telework Centers versus Conventional Office Environments

Organization-Operated (Satellite) Centers

Multi-client Telework Centers

4: Telework and Technology

General Rules of Technology

Reality Tests

Technology Trends

Computers

Telecommunications Networks

Softwar

Security

Some Remote Access Infrastructure Options

Teleworking with a central facility

Distributed facilities

Access via the Internet

Network isolation—real or virtual?

Technology to Fit the Job

Routine Data/Text Processing

General Mid-Level Information Jobs

Specialists

Sales and Field Service People

Senior Executives

5: How Do You KNOW They’re Working?

The Two Halves of Telemanagement

Establishing Trust

Quality Communications

The Buyer-Seller Mentality: Setting Performance Criteria

Focusing on Product Instead of Process

The Agreement Between Managers and . . .

Meeting and Review Strategies

Why Have Meetings?

Scheduling Issues

Telemeetings and Teleconferencing

The Importance of Ongoing Feedback

Informal Communications— The Key to Productivity

Keeping Teleworkers Linked into the Office

New Employees

Career Management for Teleworkers

Spotting Problems Early

Global Teleworking

Why consider it?

Infrastructure factors

Telework forms

Cultural influences

Laws and regulations

6: Rules and Regulations

Key Issues

Allocation of Responsibility

Fair Employment Practices

Time Accounting

Sick Leave

Liability and Insurance

Putting It Together

TeleGuide: An Introduction to Telecommuting

What Is Telecommuting?

The Company Telecommuting Demonstration Project

Things You Should Know Before You Volunteer

Health and Safety for Home Telecommuters

Equipment

Liability

Travel Expenses

Hours of Work

Training

Performance and Workload Standards

Effects of Participation in the Project

7: Measuring Results

Data Sources

Beginning Telecommuting

Quality-of-Life Effects

Effectiveness Changes

Quantitative Estimates

Training Influences

Environmental Impacts

Air Pollution

Energy Consumption

Cost and Benefit Considerations

Costs

Benefits

Results

A Simplified Analysis for Test Purposes

8: Issues for Home-based Teleworkers

Getting Down to Work

Training Yourself

Training the Household

Dealing with the Neighbors and Drop-in Traffic

Living Above What You Can’t Change

Managing Yourself

New Working Relationships with Co-workers

Job (Re)design

Communicating with Your Supervisor

Feedback and Help

Technical Problems for Computer Users

Physical Support

Dealing with Personal and Household Compulsions and Relationships

Dealing with the IRS

Bailing Out

9: Training

Training Issues

But First, General Orientation

Training What?

The Book(s)

Training Face-to-Face

Training Topics and Methods

Management of Telework Centers

10: Getting It Together

The Preliminaries

Convincing the Executive Suite

Developing the Demonstration Plan(s)

Critical Success Criteria

The Advisory Board

Champions

Key Documents

Timing

Participant Selection

The Rest of the Hierarchy: Orientation Briefings

Formal Selection Procedures

Site Selection

How many sites and where are they?

How long?

Site redesign

Creating the Technology Infrastructure

What’s needed

Assembling the pieces

Testing, testing, testing

Training

Review the training plan

Make or buy decision

Training sessions

Reinforcements

Review and Evaluation

Questionnaires

Costs and Benefits

Job Analysis and Design

What needs changing?

Rollout Strategy

11: Organization Design Impacts

The Industrial Revolution Tradition

Fragmentation

Dispersion

Diffusion

Network organizations

Evanescent organizations

Up- Down- Under- and Right-Sizing

The flattening of organizations

The rise of micro- and mini-businesses

Get it where you can; the global economy

12: Marketing Telework Centers

Goals

The Target Markets

In general

Narrowing the focus

Site Selection

The potential telecommuters

Their employers

Available buildings

The tradeoffs

The Marketing Plan

Defining Marketing Objectives

Market Research Resources

Strategy Development

Making It Happen—Implementation Tactics

Marketing programs

Media activities

Non-media activities

Schedule

Budget

Personnel costs

Production costs

Other cost factors

Evaluation

13: Telework Around The Globe: A peek into the future

The Flow

Telecommuting in the United States

Telecommuting versus teleworking: survey problems

The future around the world

The OECD Countries
(click to see European and OECD forecasts)

Latin America and the Caribbean

Eastern Europe

Asia Pacific Region

South Asia

Asia Planned Economies

Africa and the Mid-East

Consequences

The growth trends

The bottom line

Appendices

A: Supervisor’s Telecommuting Check List

B: Telecommuter’s Agreement

C: Department Telecommuting Policies

D: Detailed Work Agreement

E: Tools for Assessing the Future