The Advantages and Challenges of Telecommuting - Literature review Example

Globalization and culture Name Course Instructor Date Introduction Telecommuting refers to carrying out organisational tasks and duties from a substitute worksite, for instance working from home. In this setting, the workers are allowed not to travel to their workstations or the central point, thus allowing them to work from home or engage the central workplace through telecommunication expertise, for example telephones, emails or faxes. At times, telecommuters are usually referred to as home-based workers. In such a setting, both the employer and the employee often reach an agreement on how they can adequately carry out the tasks and duties that are to be carried out to ease the functioning of the organisation. I support the assertion that the success of telecommuting is rarely achieved because organisations are poorly prepared for it and thus employees end up feeling disempowered. Telecommuting Telecommuting has numerous advantages to any organisation that takes it up, but as a result of poor preparedness, its advantages usually go by unnoticed. According to Kurland and Bailey (2007), telecommuting usually enables an organisation to enlist the services of more workers without having to increase the office space because they all work from optional work stations. On the side of the organisation, this is usually a plus because it enables the organisation meet its goals and objectives because the presence of an adequate workforce make this achievable. The problem often arises when the organisation fails to adequately manage the huge workforce operating from optional workplaces thus leading to employee disempowerment. Due to distant management, the managers and other supervisors often find it hard to adequately manage or supervise their employees work because they can only communicate via telecommunication equipments. Physical appraisal of an employee’s advancement in an assigned task is usually important, an aspect that telecommuting kills. Another issue of control is that managers fail to recognize efforts made by their teleworkers in good performance reviews. In addition, teleworkers are not given clear routine objectives with regards to their place in the organizatiom (Luecke, 2004). For this reason, they end up feeling disempowered. Right top management support, enhances success of telecommuting. Failure to have qualified expertise and skills to enhance proper and quality effectiveness of telecommuting results to disempowerment on the part of the employee and ultimately failure of in telecommuting. In addition, most telemanagers may be uncomfortable with telecommuting programs thus hindering success of telecommuting when an organization is not ready to carry out telecommuting. As such, an organization that desires to succeed in telecommuting must have the right supervisor, well distributed tasks and right top management support (Kurland & Bailey, 2007). These four elements must meet the set standards and practices of telecommuting. Security of information is considered to be very essential in any given organization. Preserving security files and information through telecommuting is one of the critical challenges that can collapse telecommuting. According to Tung & Turban 1998, leaking client’s information make result to teleworkers feeling disempowered. Most organizations have limited backups and limited collective measures to secure their information. Broadband connectivity enables telecommuting success where data, videos, long files transfer is done in high speed. In remote places broadband usage is limited thus making telecommuting relatively hard to achieve success. Installation of broadband is costly. Only few senior workers can afford to install this tool. All these issues are brought by lack of proper preparation from the word go by the companies in telecommuting. Kurland & Bailey further add that in cases where the workers are supposed to work in virtual groups, it becomes hard to coordinate some activities because they only communicate over telephones and other telecommunication equipments hence making it hard to meet the expected goals and results. To a greater extent, this usually impinges on the expected productivity because the measurement of a worker’s input into a task is usually hindered. At many times, telecommuting usually fails because of poor preparedness of organisations combating the mind-set of those who are not involved in the telecommuting because at times this creates a social dilemma. Having some workers carry the office home while others stay at the central point often creates a social solidarity distraction because this splinters the workplace social alliances, an event that might result in resentment thus affecting the employees’ productivity, and in the long run affecting the organisation’s total output. According to Hamilton (2011), as a result of inadequate preparedness in the uptake of telecommuting, workers often feel socially remote or cut off from the organisation because of the absence of a one-on-one interaction with the rest of the workers. Richman (2012) asserts that some tasks often prove overwhelming because the workers are away from supporting resources in the organisation and also that the direct supervision of the managers is not readily available. Such scenarios often curtail the successes of an organisation because collaboration and the learning that occurs in an organisational environment are usually lost. Moreover, without proper planning on the side of the organisation on how the telecommuters manage their time while in the optional station, it usually becomes hard for the workers to different between individual time and employer’s time, an occurrence that results in resentment when each digs from the other. Another factor that often results in the disempowerment of the employees is usually the aspect of trust on the part of the employer to the telecommuter. Cox (2009) is of the idea that most employers often value face-time rather than the results of the assigned duties and tasks thus leading to a conflict of interests between the employer and employee and in the long run resulting in the total failure of telecommuting. When organisations fall short of allowing their telecommuters to come up with decisions regarding their tasks, then the whole idea behind telecommuting fails. According to Yap (2001), many organisations often fail to carry out practicability studies regarding telecommuting, an aspect that usually result in them incorporating workers into a little known about endeavour, thus adding to the workers troubles. Moreover, organisations fail to install communication connections and yet expect the telecommuters to deliver to the expected standards. Such poor organisational preparedness enables telecommunication to flop even before it is launched, and in so doing putting a weighty task on the telecommuters. Carlson (2006) argues that the failure by organisations to provide office equipment, for instance computers and telephones, usually result in the disempowerment of the telecommuters because it leaves them in a compromising position whereby the organisation delegates tasks but there are no mechanisms to ensure that the tasks are optimally carried out. In setting up a telecommuting department, organisations should ensure that all equipments are in place so as to ease the work of the telecommuters. On the same, to ensure the empowerment of the employees, Carlson proposes that an organisation should carefully choose the workers that it wishes to telecommute and at the same time offer instructional courses to the managerial level on how to handle the splinter stations. Failing to adequately incorporate the employees into the telecommuting program often leaves them feeling powerless because they are usually overwhelmed and thus resent the entire program. Belanger (2010) is of the idea that training employees on how to handle themselves in the optional workplaces and at the same time keep in touch with the happenings at the central workstation is usually essential in ensuring that they feel appreciated and part of the entire organisation. He further adds that the employees should be made to understand that telecommuting will not hold back their career development in any way. Bloom et al (2013) is of the view that the failure by most organisations to educate their workers on litheness at work is the major cause of the disempowerment issues that befall telecommuters. Most organisations usually choose the workers that they wish to telecommute without first taking them through an open forum that allows them to determine if they want to be part of the program or not. Conclusion Telecommuting is a program that can have untold benefits to an organisation if approached in a manner that is all inclusive of an organisational stakeholders. To ensure that this program progresses smoothly within the intended setting, the organisation ought to ensure that the option as to who wishes to join the program is left open or a consolidative way of knowing who will participate is arrived at. Moreover, to make it a success, it is essential to make certain that all the requirements for the kick off of the program are readily available so as to avoid any inconveniences on the part of the of the workers. References Belanger, F, 2010, Workers' propensity to telecommute: An empirical study. Elsevier Science: Blacksburg. Bloom, N, Liang, J, Roberts, J and Ying, J, 2013, Does Working From Home Work? A Lesson From A Chinese Experiment. Retrieved 3/4/2013 at http://www.stanford.edu/~nbloom/WFH.pdf Carlson, K, 2006, How to Make Telecommuting Work for your Company. M. Lee Smith Publishers LLC Brentwood. Cox, W, 2009, Executive Summary: Improving Quality of Life Through Telecommuting. The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation. Retrieved 3/4/2013 at http://www.itif.org/files/Telecommuting.pdf Hamilton, E, 2008, Bringing Work Home: The Advantages and Challenges of Telecommuting. Centre for Work. Retrieved 3/4/2013 at http://www.bc.edu/content/dam/files/centers/cwf/research/publications/pdf/BCCWF_Telecommuting_Paper.pdf Kurland, N, and Bailey, D, 2007, Telework: The Advantages and Challenges of Working Here, There, Anywhere and Anytime. Retrieved 3/4/2013 at http://www.stanford.edu/group/wto/cgi-bin/docs/Kurland_Bailey_99.pdf Luecke, R, 2004, Harvard business essentials: manager's toolkit: the 13 skills managers need to succeed. Harvard Business Press. Richman, B, 2012, Assessing whether telecommuting is a fit for your organization. Memphis Business Journal. Retrieved 3/4/2013 at http://hrmpact.com/documents/telecommuting.pdf Tung, L & Turban, E 1996, Information technology as an enabler of telecommuting, International Journal of Information Management, 16(2), 103-117. Yap, C, 2001, Does Telecommuting Make Economic Sense for Companies? Proceedings of the 29th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences. Retrieved 3/4/2013 at http://www.computer.org/csdl/proceedings/hicss/1996/7330/00/73300386.pdf Read More