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•
Examples •
Benefits and Challenges •
Success Factors •
Compensation and Benefits
Implications
• Internal
Best Practices • Telecommuting
Agreement • Troubleshooting
• FAQs |
Telecommuting
Internal Best Practices
(SAMPLE
– to be replaced by Our Company)
Here are two examples of how telecommuting has been used
successfully at Our Company:
Mary Martin, Software
Designer, Software Engineering
Mary was the lead engineer on a large project when she
requested telecommuting two days a week. At that time she had
been with Our Company for seven years and had consistently been
a good performer.
Mary’s manager, Joe Seymour, selected Mary to be the lead
because of her abilities to motivate and communicate well with
her coworkers. Before Mary took on this role Joe had been
getting a lot of feedback that team members were getting limited
direction and that her predecessor had been aloof and
unapproachable. Mary turned this team around by being involved
and attentive.
Before approving the telecommuting arrangement Joe wondered how
well she would be able to continue leading her team while out of
the office two days a week. But he decided to approve the
request, largely because Mary had been doing a good job of
assigning, managing and coordinating the multiple tasks involved
and made the case for continuing to do so when she completed her
FWA Proposal Form.
The arrangement is working wonderfully. Mary has empowered her
team to make some decisions independently, and she wears a pager
and is available for times when team members want to discuss
something with her. The
contract they are working on also requires customer reviews
quarterly on-site. Typically,
the preparation for these reviews require an intense week or two
of work just prior to the site visit, often involving long work
days. Mary usually doesn’t telecommute during the quarterly
review preparation time.
Mary finds the key to her successful telecommuting is
Communication (“With a Capital ‘C’,” Mary said.) “As
long as I do a thorough job of communicating with all parties
concerned (coworkers, team members, management and customers)
regarding how to contact me if needed, we have no problems.
And what’s wonderful is that we have the technology now
that makes this communication appear seamless. Customers don’t
even realize that they’re contacting me at home.”
Doug
McKee,
Senior Researcher, R&D
Doug had an interesting motivation for requesting an FWA: He
manages his son’s rock band and wanted to be able to do so
without having this job interfere with his work at Our Company.
While “the reason” someone wants to apply for an FWA is not a factor in Our Company’s FWA decision-making process,
in this case it makes this an even more interesting
success story.
Doug combines telecommuting with flextime. He works from home
one day a week to accomplish his company tasks in a quieter
environment. He is very productive on the day he works at home
and made the business case for this when he applied for the
arrangement. Doug has flexibility in his schedule that allows
him to attend to band management details while still completing
his company work.
On performance days/nights, he adjusts his normal day to
accommodate travel and late nights that are part of being a
manager of a rock band.
How does Doug do all this and still get his company job done? Most importantly, he has the support of
his manager, Madeline Mixer, who finds that Doug has become an
even more valuable, creative and effective employee over the
past two years that this arrangement has been in place.
Secondly, he and Madeline regularly discuss his position
objectives and deliverables. This has led to a high level of
trust between Doug and Madeline and has resulted in Doug feeling
empowered to do his job.
The experience of running a small business while meeting a
personal need is growing Doug's skills and he finds these skills
valuable in his company
job today.
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