Telecommuting Morphs Into 'Teleworking' as Boundaries Blur Between Home, Office Work
Business Sees Advantage of Tech-Savvy Work Force

January, 2003
San Diego Business Journal

By Lee Zion

Telecommuting is dead. Long live telecommuting.

Lindsey Burroughs, spokeswoman for the local Cox Communications office, said the wild predictions made in the 1990s about the decentralized office seem to have been off the mark.

"Everybody was saying telecommuting is the next big trend. It's going to change the business world totally. And that never materialized," she said.

There were several "fear factors" behind this. Employers worried their workers would be less productive, while employees feared that less time spent near the boss would cost them raises and promotions, Burroughs said.

There were also fears about security breaches, and other worries about unproven technology, she said.

So it looks like telecommuting flopped. But not really.

"A lot of us have been sitting around saying, 'Telecommuting really never took hold.' Well, it sort of did," Burroughs said.

When Cox conducted a survey among 1,000 adult Americans about their work habits, they found that an increasing number of employees were doing work outside of the office. Many of these did not consider themselves to be telecommuters, she said.

"Over half of the respondents to our survey -- 54 percent of them -- do some sort of 'teleworking.' They work outside of the office, at least once a week," Burroughs said.

This includes everything from basic job functions as checking voice mail or email, taking work home with them, or doing office work on their home computers. About a quarter of all respondents said they do this more than five times a week, she said.

Survey Reveals Major Challenges

The majority of workers felt that teleworking improves their productivity. And yet, 71 percent of respondents said their employer made no provision for either telecommuting or telework, despite the fact that the employees were already doing it, Burroughs said.

The survey has given Cox an opportunity -- and a challenge. Employers need to see that telecommuting does work, and it does make employees more efficient, she said.

If expanded, then an employee could work from home on certain days. That allows employees to be efficient as they meet a family schedule, or if they have to meet a plumber who can come only during regular business hours, Burroughs said.

It could also help reduce freeway traffic -- highly important in a congested area like San Diego, she said.

That means the office of the future will need wide bandwidth -- and so will employees' homes. This will expand workers' capabilities, Burroughs said.

"They can get on their laptops, call up a big attachment quickly, look at graphics, look at video, if they have to, and do all those sorts of things that require what we call 'a pretty big pipe.'"

Francie Murphy is one such person. As the head of Del Mar-based public relations firm Francie Murphy Associates, she works out of her home via the Internet and a high-speed cable modem.

She also has two subcontractors working for her -- telecommuting from Pasadena and Orange County.

Murphy touts the advantages of working out of her home -- both for herself and for the people working under her. There's no wear and tear on her car, nor her health. She saves money because she doesn't have to pay a lease, and gets a tax deduction for setting up an office in her home.

Meanwhile, the subcontractor in Pasadena benefits from telecommuting because she can still work with two small children in the house. The employee in Orange County enjoys being able to do the same job that used to require a daily commute to Los Angeles, Murphy said.

Working from home has also made Murphy more efficient. She isn't bothered if clients on the other side of the country schedule a conference call at 9 a.m. Eastern time -- which is 6 a.m. here.

"If I was working in an office, I'd have to get down to the office by 6 a.m. Now I'm here -- everything's up and going," Murphy said. "Is it true sometimes you're doing the conference call in your robe and slippers? Of course! It's 6 a.m., and you probably are."

Murphy notes that it's more acceptable to work from home in public relations than in other professions. Still, she has some advice for bosses considering whether to allow their employees to telecommute -- the most hard-working staff members will remain dedicated, whatever the working environment.

"The kind of people who came in early and stayed late, and worked through lunch -- overachievers ... there is no risk they'd ever slough off and watch soap operas," Murphy said. "If you look at the employee and they're extremely dedicated ... I don't think you'd have to worry about them."

John Gantz, chief analyst for Framingham, Mass.-based research firm International Data Corp., sees a bright future for the technology that supports telecommuting. However, telecommuting itself will remain fairly rare, since companies are very conservative.

The majority of the workers, then, will engage in after-hours work or occasional mobile work. Broadband technology will make it easier to do that, Gantz said.

Gantz noted that demand is already increasing for broadband in the home. People are using the Internet to download large files, and the prices for DSL and cable connections continue to fall.

Wireless will also catch on. Hotels, airports and other locations will feature hookups allowing business travelers to get on the Internet instantly, he said.

Currently, 57 million households are online. Of these, 19 million are connected to broadband, expected to grow to 27 million by the end of 2003, Gantz said.

These paired trends -- the increased time people conduct work at home, along with the spread of broadband -- will have two impacts on business. First, business will have to invest more heavily in security infrastructure to better control access to data over the Internet, he said.

Secondly, with more home users able to download more content from the Internet, business owners should give more thought to how their companies presents itself on the Internet and the image it projects, Gantz said.

Going Wireless

The big question is how quickly business will adopt wireless technology. Gantz predicts the office of the future will adopt Bluetooth or similar technology, making it possible to move vast amounts of data without wires.

But wireless technology also comes with its own challenges, including how to keep data secure, he said.

Gantz points to Dartmouth College as an example of what the future might hold. The university went wireless this year, he said.

"They don't even use phones anymore. The kids all 'instant message' each other -- they could be just down the hall from each other, but they IM each other to see if they want to go out for a beer," Gantz said.

These students will bring their techno-savvy to the workplace, he said.

Burroughs agreed. In about a decade, today's teens and pre-teens, will enter the work force. These future workers will demand broadband Internet connections in their homes -- either through cable, DSL, wireless technology or perhaps a combination of all three, she said.

These future workers will also demand flexible work schedules, and will be in a better position to realize the benefits of telecommuting, Burroughs said.