Managing Telework

"You can keep connected _logically_ while decentralizing _physically_."

"You or they might be able to work at home part of the time, but there's also a need to be in the office part of the time, too. Estimate how much of the time you and each of these employees _don't_ have to be in the office to do each task."

"Organizations can use multi-client centers as test beds for possible satellite offices?or as halfway houses for potential home-based teleworkers. "

"The absence of a particular technology, beyond the fundamentals, is rarely a reason (or excuse) not to telework."

"Intranets generally differ from the Internet only in that they may be isolated from it."

"Mix face-to-face and electronic communications so that the routine, information transmission types of messages get sent electronically and the very complex or emotion-related ones get sent or received face-to-face."

"Your job is to provide specific, measurable, and attainable standards for the teleworker to meet so that he or she knows what must be done, why it must be done, and when and how well it must be done."

"More than one teleworker has told us that . . . there are fewer meetings and those that do occur tend to be shorter and more productive."

"The rules should be sufficiently specific to minimize the risk of ineffective performance but sufficiently flexible to allow tailoring for work unit and individual cases."

"A key issue in evaluating telecommuting, or any other change in organizational behavior, is whether the net economic?the infamous bottom line?result is positive, neutral or negative. "

"The first part is establishing your home office and setting up a good working environment. The second part is getting yourself together and rearranging your head."

"Even before any telecommuters are selected or "how-to" sessions begin, it may be necessary to brief both managers and prospective telecommuters on the concepts, issues, costs, risks and benefits of telecommuting."

"By far the best way to avoid problems in developing teleworking, as in any innovation process, is clearly to state what you expect to go well, and to anticipate everything (and everybody) that could go wrong, well before you start implementation."

"Informed consent is the watchword for a smoothly run telework program."

"Telework, in addition to providing increased locational flexibility, also allows greater organizational flexibility. Because of technological advances . . . forms of organization are now possible that could not exist in previous times."

"Finding willing telecommuters is rarely a problem. They, after all, are the ones who have to put up with the long commutes to work."

"The primary audience for your marketing materials comprises the target employers and their employees who live in your neighborhood. Secondary audiences are residents and organizations in your community."