By Request: Telecommuting

Su Bang says: "As I sit here in my cubicle at Ford WHQ after having driven 20 miles to get here from Ann Arbor, I wonder if cheaper and improved broadband access would make the average white-collar worker as productive at home as in the office thus removing the need for big old office buildings sucking up energy removing the need to commute? If so would this be cheaper to implement than improving/providing mass commuter transportation?"

I don't think the quality of broadband is really the issue here. At the moment, I'm sitting at the Big Bear Cafe (pictured above) at a table with my non-journalist housemate. She's working from home (or, rather, the coffee shop) today for special reasons and normally has to go into the office. But whatever the reason is that her employers want her to come in most days, it's not the quality of internet access.

I do think that this is a pattern we may see changing soon. Some employers clearly put a high value on office location and pay top dollar for centrally located offices in the middle of major cities -- think of Condé Nast and Skadden Arps in 4 Times Square. But many companies have decided that specific location isn't all that important to them, so they should save money by getting space in suburban office parks. Arguably, though, given modern telecommunications technology firms like that ought to save even more money by getting substantially less space -- maybe a conference room and a few swing offices -- and having most people do most of their work from home or some friendly venue in the neighborhood.

If transportation costs continue to rise, we'll probably see some change on the margin here. And there are, of course, good reasons to think we should adopt policies that will improve the quality of broadband in the United States. Would that be "cheaper" than new transit construction? Presumably, but it would also be cheaper than new highway construction. I don't think -- and I don't think anyone thinks -- that there's a compelling case for reducing our overall level of infrastructure spending. The question is primarily one of how much of that should be road spending and how much should be transit spending. The telecommuting issue, though interesting in its own right, is basically an independent issue.

UPDATE: Alyssa Rosenberg had a piece about the federal government's teleworking initiatives, which are ahead of most of the private sector and starting to serve as a model.

Photo by Flickr user tvol used under a Creative Commons license

Comments

Seems to me you could look at countries that are a couple generations ahead of us in terms of broadband access and see what, if any, effect that has had on telecommuting rates.

Posted by DTM | June 18, 2008 1:23 PM

The type of work one is doing plays a role. After all, a line worker in a factory can't telecommute, nor can a surgeon or a bus driver (at least not yet). If I'm working on something on my computer it's less distracting to do so at home, but if I'm having a meeting, I'd much rather do it face to face. So while you don't want to "leave money on the table" by preventing people who would benefit from telecommuting from doing so, it's not one size fits all.

Posted by JMS | June 18, 2008 1:28 PM

I'm self-employed and have worked from home for most of the last 35 years. Until recently, I found myself visiting a client's office a couple of times a week. But, all my current clients (four of them) are "virtual companies". They don't even have offices. So, I go nowhere. I never see another human during work hours. I miss that contact.

Posted by REM | June 18, 2008 1:32 PM

Telecommuting makes offices obsolete the way microwave dinners made restaurants obsolete.

Posted by i don't think so | June 18, 2008 1:33 PM

"But many companies have decided that specific location isn't all that important to them, so they should save money by getting space in suburban office parks."

It's much easier to commute via public transportation to Times Square than to find public transportation to any suburban office park in the NYC metro area.

Posted by CParis | June 18, 2008 1:35 PM

Overall, there are two reasons to limit telecommuting, one good and one bad.

The good reason is that people who are in the same location have casual interactions, and more of them. Which builds up rapport that just can't be built any other way. I spent some years living in northern California, and making the trek down to Phoenix, Arizona every 3-4 months, just to spend a couple days hanging out with people that I worked with. It made an enormous difference in our productivity the rest of the time. Nothing completely replaces that face-to-face interaction.

The bad reason is that some (perhaps many) managers are afraid that they will be unable to figure out who is really working if they cannot actually see what their staff are doing all the time. Who knows, maybe they are correct. But if so, it says more about their weak management skills than about the actual virtues, or lack thereof, of telecommuting. Because suppose that those managers were able to set actual goals for their staff, based on realistic understanding of what they did and how long it should reasonably take. Then all they would have to do would be to notice whether the work got done.

Sure, there are some jobs which just can't be done remotely. If you have to physically use equipment that is in a particular place, you're stuck. But more and more, that just isn't the case for many workers.

Posted by wj | June 18, 2008 1:39 PM

As commuting costs rise, I think it will dawn on more and more companies that large cities have outlived their usefulness. Why should Condé Nast and Skadden Arps locate in downtown NYC? It's prestige pure and simple, and I predict that will become a less and less compelling reason for fuel efficiency and a host of other reasons. There are a bzillion small towns in America that would welcome those companies, and they could do virtually all of their business over the internet while their employees would live within a five minute drive.

With the advent of terrorism, big cities make less and less sense. Telecommuting doesn't address this issue, but disbursing our employment infrastructure (to coin a phrase) does. It also makes for a better quality of life for many people. I've lived in NYC and Washington DC, and that kind of living is not people friendly now, and it's getting worse as time goes by. Why not disburse our employment infrastructure, and make life safer, less hurried, more energy efficient, people friendly and enjoyable?

Posted by Bunker | June 18, 2008 1:39 PM

I've been exclusively telecommuting for almost six years; the nearest office is about 1000 miles away.

It works, but personally I wish I had an office to go to, at least once or twice a week. I'm an introvert, but there is no substitute for true human contact with your coworkers.

But many white collar jobs could be done from home most days of the week. That's a pretty big deal.

Posted by Mark | June 18, 2008 1:40 PM

My job could easily be done from home, but it won't be done from home for a variety of reasons. Some have been enumerated by wj. Also, some companies have security issues, and don't want sensitive documents to be on people's private computers and pushed through unsecured internet connections.

Posted by freddiemac | June 18, 2008 1:49 PM

There was a great supplement in the Economist a couple months back about the potential decline of the traditional office in favor of smaller offices with more flexible space, non assigned desks, office-like areas people can pay for services/rent, etc etc. My favorite example was the start up that had their priorities 1) Get blackberries 2) get clients 3) find office space. A year later they still didn't have office space and all but one employee didn't want to bother with it.

Posted by lfv | June 18, 2008 1:49 PM

Bunker,

How can these small towns support the bars, resturants, clubs, etc. that people enjoy? I've had customers in small towns and they roll up the sidewalks pretty early. That's great it you have a spouse and children to come home to. But, if your a single 25yo kid - what are you going to do after work in a small town?

How will you find a mate?

Posted by Jmo | June 18, 2008 1:52 PM

I like the idea of getting blackberries and clients first and worrying about offices later.

However, I'm not a fan of open office spaces or non-assigned desks. I don't think there's anything to be gained by treating employees as vagabonds.

The work that requires my office presence is usually in the ramp-up time of a project, where I and my coworkers depend on each other a lot to teach us the skills we need. After that initial point, the need for interaction drops off, and personal contact with coworkers can be had with a day's notice, and I could come into the office on demand.

The biggest productivity gain for me would be the lack of commute: I find that commuting creates such a big gap in the day that it interferes with the rest of my life... in part because I work in an isolated suburban office park and can't take a quick break to get take-out for dinner without turning it into a big ordeal.

Posted by Tyro | June 18, 2008 2:01 PM

speaking as a long-time veteran of the army of the self-employed, i'll note that not everyone has the discipline to work at home (blogging is not a good proxy for typical white-collar jobs), but i do agree that over time, we'll see less emphasis on the "corporate office."

Posted by howard | June 18, 2008 2:07 PM

Would that be "cheaper" than new transit construction? Presumably, but it would also be cheaper than new highway construction. I don't think -- and I don't think anyone thinks -- that there's a compelling case for reducing our overall level of infrastructure spending. The question is primarily one of how much of that should be road spending and how much should be transit spending. The telecommuting issue, though interesting in its own right, is basically an independent issue.

But transit is heavily subsidized and highways are not. Transit is generally most cost-effective at prime commute times. At other times, buses and trains tend to run with many more empty seats. If the rise of telecommuting significantly reduces rush-hour demand for transit, it will make those massive transit subsidies even harder to justify.

Posted by Mixner | June 18, 2008 2:09 PM

Bunker, the reason companies like Conde Nast locate in big cities is because their industry thrives by being in close physical proximity to the culture and talent that Conde Nast makes its money from. If Conde Nast were dispersed into a group of low-density communities, publishers and writers would have a much harder time meeting each other, collaborating on ideas, and developing their business.

It's not just about having a few specific employees in the same place, it's about maintaining day-to-day contact and exchange of ideas with industry players and talent and partners, many of whom aren't employed by the specific company directly. That's a lot harder to do if each business entity is dispersed into a separate suburban office park.

Posted by Tyro | June 18, 2008 2:11 PM

Facetime is important to a degree in terms of developing and maintaining contacts, but that's what, 10% of an average person's job; the reality is that most office workers could work from home most of the time. The main barrier is the notion of hours worked, it doesn't really matter most of the time if you work 4 or 8 hours a day as long as you deliver on your objectives and perhaps are reachable; my boss realises this, but I imagine he is one of the more enlightened few.

In any case you still need decent public transport in the US as you will always need it sometimes! Even in Illinois, which I know best, where they have what is a relatively good Amtrak service, the frequency and reliability of intercity trains is poor by European standards. And no, I don't want to schlep out to O'Hare just to go to Champaign, an up and down flight.

So no, not a complete substitute, but a partial one, and one that requires more a cultural change than a technological one. I have high speed broadband at home, but it's not really required for the exigences of work.

Posted by NickW | June 18, 2008 2:14 PM

Facetime is important to a degree in terms of developing and maintaining contacts, but that's what, 10% of an average person's job; the reality is that most office workers could work from home most of the time. The main barrier is the notion of hours worked, it doesn't really matter most of the time if you work 4 or 8 hours a day as long as you deliver on your objectives and perhaps are reachable; my boss realises this, but I imagine he is one of the more enlightened few.

In any case you still need decent public transport in the US as you will always need it sometimes! Even in Illinois, which I know best, where they have what is a relatively good Amtrak service, the frequency and reliability of intercity trains is poor by European standards. And no, I don't want to schlep out to O'Hare just to go to Champaign, an up and down flight.

So no, not a complete substitute, but a partial one, and one that requires more a cultural change than a technological one. I have high speed broadband at home, but it's not really required for the exigences of work.

Posted by NickW | June 18, 2008 2:16 PM

With the advent of terrorism, big cities make less and less sense. Telecommuting doesn't address this issue, but disbursing our employment infrastructure (to coin a phrase) does. It also makes for a better quality of life for many people. I've lived in NYC and Washington DC, and that kind of living is not people friendly now, and it's getting worse as time goes by. Why not disburse our employment infrastructure, and make life safer, less hurried, more energy efficient, people friendly and enjoyable?

This is the "who wants to live in cities, they're too expensive!" argument. The flaws are obvious. I think the biggest benefit to working for a company in a big city, is that the pay has to be more competitive. If there is another potential employer across town, you have to pay your employees well enough so they won't leave. If you're employees would have to move out of state to get a new job, that's a whole lot of extra leverage.

Posted by mpowell | June 18, 2008 2:22 PM

Bunker, the reason companies like Conde Nast locate in big cities is because their industry thrives by being in close physical proximity to the culture and talent that Conde Nast makes its money from. If Conde Nast were dispersed into a group of low-density communities, publishers and writers would have a much harder time meeting each other, collaborating on ideas, and developing their business.

But what share of Conde Nast employees are publishers and writers? I think most of their employees probably are not creative types for whom face-to-face contact is important, but grunt workers dealing with sales, advertising, production, etc. And a lot of that grunt work could probably be done remotely without any loss of productivity. Even the creative workers may not really benefit from physical contact every day. Telecommuting doesn't have to completely replace physical commuting to yield a benefit. If a lot of people telecommuted just one or two days a week, that alone would significantly reduce the demand for rush-hour transportation.

Posted by Mixner | June 18, 2008 2:24 PM

Mixner, Conde Nast could probably locate its accounting staff to New Jersey, true. However, certain specific industries thrive on the network effects gained through the clustering of talent in the same area. Many members of their support staff are likely taking the job because it's an "in" to the publishing industry and can parylay their position into another job in their industry in close proximity. That's why you're going to see companies like Conde Nast stay in NYC. A publishing company is going to be at a competitive disadvantage, both in terms of attracting talent and being productive, if it's not located in a place that is filled to the brim with lots of writers and creative types that can be discovered or can deliver their pitches on short notice.

In other industries, of course, the situation is different. Engineering seems to go for the suburban office park model.

Posted by Tyro | June 18, 2008 2:34 PM

Alas, IBM, which in so many ways has long been an unusually progressive company -- in terms of same sex benefits, diversity, and other things -- is now reversing course and moving back into the 1950s. Although worldwide they encourage people to work at home, here in Massachusetts they have apparently decided that too many people have taken them up on this offer and are building a new gigantic campus -- it will be the largest software development campus in the world -- in a sleepy rural suburb, 12 miles from the nearest public transportation. In addition, they've decided that nobody will be allowed to work at home more than 1 day a week unless they live more than 50 miles away from this new campus. Given the current cost of gas, not to mention issues of global warming, a 50 mile limit is pretty crazy. Unfortunately many people are polishing up their resumes in the hope of jumping ship before this new campus opens -- it's sad to see a company like IBM moving backwards on this one.

Posted by An IBM Guy | June 18, 2008 2:42 PM

For me telecommunting wouldnt work for psychological reasons. I would get distracted too easily at home (there is a reason many people go to study in a library in college). I suspect many people who are like me need a clear break between work and home to keep the 2 portions of their lives separate. Finally, I kind of like getting dressed up in the morning and getting out of the house. If I worked from home there would be stretches of over 24 hours where I would not leave my appartment, and that would just bum me out.

And, as other people have pointed out, face time with your coworkers is really important. Email and phone can go a long way but they cannot truly subsitute for face to face interaction since much of our communication is non vermal.

Posted by MS | June 18, 2008 2:42 PM

Working from home can really suck - ask any academic. Most people need frequent contact with other humans in the flesh world and only meeting your spouse or partner gets old quickly. Also, while regular scheduled meetings can be rather unproductive, explaining something to someone in person is in many cases much more productive than sending 20 emails back and forth.

Posted by novakant | June 18, 2008 2:46 PM

Before dismissing broadband as an issue, it helps to define which white collar jobs we are talking about. Sure, jobs that use simple Office applications don't need a ton of broadband. But try being my husband, a mechanical engineer who telecommutes to a job 100s of miles a way, and who has to download giant files to and from work--it can take hours to download certain files, and certain files cause the network to time out before he can get them. Consequently, there are certain tasks that he simply can not do.

It is also hard to solve problems related to abstract parts, or math.

In sum, I think that jobs that rely on proprietary software, complex network rules, large files, and/or abstract problems that need to be solved in a group setting can be hard to telecommute to.

Posted by Mary | June 18, 2008 2:57 PM

Yeah, ISTM that the real issue is a social one -- being in a city is fun. Working from home is boring. Convenient, but boring.

Posted by Cliffy | June 18, 2008 2:58 PM

Mary, no I agree a certain amount of techological infrastructure needs to be in place, but in most places that I'm aware of in the Western World you should be able to get 10-20 Mb broadband that is reliable and certainly up to most tasks. The rural US I can't speak to certainly.

Posted by NickW | June 18, 2008 3:08 PM

All the previous twenty-five comments have completely missed the obvious observation to be made on this issue.

If workers in a given organization can work remotely or telecommute, then the obvious implication is that their work can be outsourced to some contractor in Bangalore, India. Then, American cities won't need to build more infrastructure to support mass commuter transportation for white-collar workers, as those white-collar workers will be unemployed. If you don't have a job, you don't need to commute, either by telecommunications or physical transportation!

Posted by Brahma | June 18, 2008 3:13 PM

By the way, there is a large middle ground between cities the size of NYC or DC and small towns--and it just so happens there is a decent number of midsize post-industrial cities in the interior of the country with underutilized legacies from their boom eras (in terms of housing stock, cultural institutions, and so on). And in fact relative to the expensive coastal cities, there are particularly good housing deals available in neighborhoods close to the relevant employment centers, which would be conducive to professionals looking for shorter and more fuel-efficient commutes. So my guess is that before you see the professional employers in places like NYC or DC move operations to small towns, they might instead end up in cities like Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Minneapolis, St Louis, and so forth.

Which is not to say NYC and DC are going to die off in a mass exodus to the interior ... but I do think the pressure on professional employers to relocate at least some operations will mount among young professionals, provided the relative housing prices in close-in neighborhoods do not converge quite a bit between the expensive coastal cities and post-industrial interior cities.

Posted by DTM | June 18, 2008 3:20 PM

Another mistake is to focus merely on current technology. Transportation infrastructure takes a long time to build and typically has an operational life of decades. If you're trying to factor in the effect of telecommuting on transportation demand a decade or more from now, you need to consider the kind of communications technology that is likely to be available in the future. And it's only going to get better. It may never be able to completely replace face-to-face contact, but it can probably get pretty close. High-definition, high-speed, immersive video and audio teleconferencing systems already exist, but they're still expensive and rare. But 10 or 20 years from now, they may be cheap and widely available.

Posted by Mixner | June 18, 2008 3:22 PM

It's true that many people prefer to go in to work; the nice thing about diversity though is recognizing that different people prefer different things. Myself, I get a great deal more distracted AT the office than I do at home; when I'm in the office I constantly need to get up to stretch my legs, go get a bad-for-me nibble from the machines, pop by the cubicle of someone I haven't spoken to in a while, etc. The days I work at home are the only days I get long sustained periods of work done, frankly.

As for outsourcing, IBM already does that a lot. And that adds one of the most ironic twists to this latest decision of theirs to make people come in to the office: for the past 3 years, every team I have worked with has been heavily distributed. Even though I am in Massachusetts, more than half of my colleagues at any time have been in North Carolina, Texas, Toronto, California, Germany or Dublin. Team meetings are always more by conference call than in person even when you do have some collocated colleagues. My current team is based in Raleigh, Dublin, India, and China, with some outliers in Colorado and Amman, Jordan. Personally, I find this amount of diversity very refreshing and pleasant (though I agree that many people do find these "distributed" teams very unpleasant and much prefer face-time). If I had to come in to the office, that is two hours a day of time lost to commuting, only so I can talk to my Dublin or Raleigh colleagues from a cubicle instead of home.

Posted by An IBM Guy | June 18, 2008 3:24 PM

Does anyone have any sort of actual numbers for how many jobs are hypothetically telecommutable? The barista at the coffee shop isn't going to telecommute. I'm a chemist, and while in theory I could operate the mass spectrometer remotely, I can't prepare and load samples remotely. What fraction of jobs are all typing and talking?

Posted by Beige | June 18, 2008 3:44 PM

"But transit is heavily subsidized and highways are not."

Wow, Mixner, you're right! We're so lucky to have highways built by pixies and maintained with magical leprechaun gold.

Posted by LaFollette Progressive | June 18, 2008 3:55 PM

I have been telecommuting 2-3 days/week for the past year and I absolutely love it. I work in business development so I travel a lot, so when I am home I try to cut down on commuting by car if possible. I agree with a lot of folks above that your work/life balance can get out of whack if you allow it, but applying some discipline to how you structure your day helps.

I can easily admit that I am 100 times more productive when I work from home. Not having to rush in the morning, sit in traffic, arrive at worked pissed and needing 30 minutes to unwind is reason enough. When I work from home, I can start my day at 6 am, communicate with my Europe-based colleagues, and have more done before noon than I would have spending 8 hours at the office. Often times i'll work from 6 am to 7 or 8 pm, taking an hour or so to eat and walk the dog. Not to mention, no afternoon commute home. Once you sit in traffic on the way home, there is no way you are going to crack that laptop in the evening.

Agreed that face to face is important, but you don't need face to face everyday.

In my experience, preference for telecommuting seems to be generational. The older folks don't seem to care for it, maybe for a number of reasons like technology saviness, or not wanting their traditional family time interrupted, or they don't want to appear to be slacking off, but young folks seem to really embrace it.

Also depends on your HR department, if you have a bunch of control freaks (which there are many in HR) they will discourage telecommuting because they want to control your whereabouts. They don't seem to grasp that you can manage work output by methods other than clocking in and clocking out.

Encouraging companies to support telecommuting (in those jobs where its applicable) is something the government should do in an effort to increase energy conservation and decrease emissions. Would be a far sight better policy than the cockamamie cap and trade boondoggle they recently cooked up.

Posted by JBJB | June 18, 2008 4:08 PM

Two rules for everyone:

1. Never go to law school.

2. If you do make the mistake of going to law school, never voluntarily take a clerkship that rotates you to different courts throughout the state after graduating.

My current daily commute is 120 miles round trip, by car, from Boston to New Bedford, Massachusetts. Every. Single. Day. I would give my left testicle to telecommute.

Thanks for listening.

Posted by owenz | June 18, 2008 4:11 PM

I guess what I was trying to get at was, is there anything that can be done to encourage the use of telecommuting for those jobs for which it is viable (regardless of whether people prefer going to the office or not). Teleconferencing or even videoconferencing can be used for meetings and for people like me who spend most of my time running computer models on Linux servers, basically all of my work can be done at home and there would be no productivity issues.

Is the proportion of the population for which this is viable large enough that it would make any difference in terms of energy consumption/pollution etc?

If so then I guess this would be a simple thing to implement given that quality of broadband access is not an issue.

Posted by Su Bang | June 18, 2008 4:11 PM

I live on a small farm in rural upstate NY and have been telecommuting to a job in silicon valley for the past 8 years. Mostly it works pretty well, but the company has a telecommuting culture and really, really understands how to do remote/distributed collaboration quite well. Having the right collaboration tools makes a big difference. In meetings, nobody seems to forget about the people who are dialed in, which has happened to me at other companies.

Infrastructure does matter, too. We didn't have broadband out here when I first started working from home and so my employer paid for a fractional T1 out to my house, which cost more per month than my mortgage. A few years ago I was finally able to badger a regional cable provider to bring cable out to my house, and although it's kind of unreliable (I'm the last house on the cable run) it's a heck of a lot less expensive than the T1 was, which matters quite a bit as the economy teeters and companies are looking at how to more aggressively contain expenses. Some people who live really remote and telecommute use satellite, but it doesn't work well in bad weather and the physical delay introduced by having to bounce off at least one satellite makes many collaborative tools difficult to use and VoIP out of the question. Also, some satellite providers are a little too gung-ho about firewalling and will filter out mail traffic to other than their own servers, VPNs, and so on.

In terms of convincing employers, I think either they get it or they don't. I suspect that my (extremely large) employer has come out ahead on having large numbers of telecommuters by being able to save money on physical plant at the corporate campus. They've also been able to hire people who would be unavailable if they had to relocate.

Posted by Melinda | June 18, 2008 5:13 PM

Thanks for responses from Jmo, Tyro, mpowell, Mixner

Jmo asks, "How can these small towns support the bars, restaurants, clubs, etc. that people enjoy?" I live in a small town, and there are plenty of bars, restaurants, etc. And take it from me, they're mating as well. There is a somewhat larger city close by, and other opportunities, as well as long weekends in much larger cities.

Tyro says, certain types of businesses would have "much harder time meeting each other, collaborating on ideas, and developing their business." Perhaps, there are some businesses like that, and so they'll stay in the city. But there are alternate possibilities for networking, etc. And perhaps those businesses would discover some unexpected benefits from being "out of the bubble."

mpowell says, "This is the ‘who wants to live in cities, they're too expensive!' argument." Actually, I didn't mention expensive. I did say "safer, less hurried, more energy efficient, people friendly and enjoyable". As for competitive employment, with the advent of the internet, jobs are available virtually worldwide.

Actually, I wouldn't advocate forced relocation or passing laws to make this happen. I just believe that more and more companies will begin to see the advantages of dispersing their business within the U.S. It's already happening globally, and there are vast unmined opportunities in places that have experienced large industrial declines, or where distances have made operating impractical until the advent of the internet. I know several people in my town who have moved here from larger cities, and conduct ALL of their business online.

Posted by Bunker | June 18, 2008 5:41 PM

"But transit is heavily subsidized and highways are not."

Okay, Mixner, thanks to you I lost two minutes of productive time just laughing. That is the most ludicrously wrong thing I have ever heard. Americans spend approximately $100 billion per year on their roads, Mixner. And that's just direct expenditurel; it doesn't incorporate the many de facto subsidies given to the automobile and related industries, or the many policy decisions which can be argued to be de facto subsidies, such as zoning requirements which forbid public-transit friendly intensification.

And LaFollette Progressive owes me a new keyboard for "We're so lucky to have highways built by pixies and maintained with magical leprechaun gold." !!!

Posted by seeker6079 | June 18, 2008 6:13 PM

The company I work for allows telecommuting; Phoenix being the sprawl that it is, they took a common sense approach. I can access e-mail, all files, the company network and applications, basically everything that I use in the office from home. Conference(or video-conferencing, or NetMeeting)or direct calls can always be made from home, too. Why bother fighting the traffic and contributing to the smog? Obviously, not every position could do this but for those who can, and if you're a true homebody like me, it's a great deal. Saves us tons in gas money!
I don't feel the lack of face-to-face is that much of a problem. Just as it is possible to form sort of friendships over the internet, it is possible to develop good working relationships, but I do think it is harder work and requires better communication skills.

Posted by kristi | June 18, 2008 6:15 PM

One thing that I don't believe hasn't been mentioned yet. The flawed assumption inherent in this discussion about why companies would change things around to facilitate telecommuting because of longer commutes and higher gas prices is that it assumes that the companies are bearing this burden. They're not. They don't give a single tiny damn that you are paying $4 for gas instead of $2, and even less of a damn that you are losing years of your life driving out to the industrial suburb where they have inconveniently located. You are absorbing all of those costs. As long as you are in the door at 9 and out at 5 they don't care about anything else. From a fiscal angle why should they? Their employees are absorbing almost all of the higher energy, lifestyle and opportunity costs necessitated by that stupid industrial suburb.

Posted by seeker6079 | June 18, 2008 6:19 PM

seeker,

Americans spend approximately $100 billion per year on their roads, Mixner.

That's interesting, but it's completely irrelevant to the statement of mine you quoted. I said "highways are not subsized." You do understand that "subsidy" is defined by the source of funding, not the amount of funding, don't you?

And that's just direct expenditurel; it doesn't incorporate the many de facto subsidies given to the automobile and related industries, or the many policy decisions which can be argued to be de facto subsidies, such as zoning requirements which forbid public-transit friendly intensification.

Please list these alleged "many de facto subsidies" and show me your evidence for them. That includes zoning.

Posted by Mixner | June 18, 2008 6:26 PM

Re: it assumes that the companies are bearing this burden. They're not. They don't give a single tiny damn that you are paying $4 for gas instead of $2, and even less of a damn that you are losing years of your life driving out to the industrial suburb where they have inconveniently located. You are absorbing all of those costs.

Um, everyone that works for a company is absorbing those costs, and without the people, there's no company. However oen issue is that the folks who set telecommuting policy (generally the HR department with upper management signing off) are people who can't easily telecommute and so are difficult to get on board.

Re: As long as you are in the door at 9 and out at 5 they don't care about anything else.

It's more like 8 to 6 nowadays. Although reducing tardyism and absenteeism for reasons like a child's illness, or the worker's own minor cold, is a good argument for telecommuting.

Posted by JonF | June 18, 2008 6:40 PM

Mixner, I forget why I engage you. You are arguing past the point.

Governments spend money on transit. Vast amounts of money on transit. Governments make many direct decisions which impact on transit: regulatory, statutory, and the like. They make indirect decisions on matters which have an impact on transit, such as the zoning matters to which I referred. (Many Canadian developers, for example, had to struggle against suburban-era zoning codes to build New Urbanist developments which had higher degrees of population and commercial density than the ubiquitous "two cars and fully detached houses" model.)

The vast majority of these decisions have, since the end of the second world war, favoured the automobile and roads; the amount of government money and government aid -- direct and indirect -- that have gone into those have vastly and staggeringly outweighed the investments in public transit. One can argue that that's a good thing (and you have). One can argue that doing it another way is wrong (and you have). But to ask me to prove such an obvious truth is akin to me having to prove that since Truman there have been six Republican presidents. I can do it ... but in the words of the sargeant's prayer, Ask The Lord To Have You Stop Wasting My Bloody Time.

And please don't pull that JK internet tactic where you demand proof and links for something that you can't get off your lazy fan and argue against. If you can prove to the contrary, be my guest.

Posted by seeker6079 | June 18, 2008 6:49 PM

Seeker, the companies are bearing the costs, in the form of physical plant. If they can reduce the amount of square footage they have to maintain, they can reduce what they pay for heating and cooling, for maintenance costs, for water, electricity, and sewage, etc.

Posted by Melinda | June 18, 2008 7:06 PM

seeker,

The vast majority of these decisions have, since the end of the second world war, favoured the automobile and roads; the amount of government money and government aid -- direct and indirect -- that have gone into those have vastly and staggeringly outweighed the investments in public transit.

I'm still waiting for you to substantiate this claim.

In 2002, the most recent year for which the Bureau of Transportation Statistics provides data, the federal government collected $4.5 billion more in revenues from gasoline taxes and other fees imposed on highway users than it spent on road and highway infrastructure. The government didn't subsidize highway users, it made a huge "profit" from them.

In contrast, the government subsidized transit users to the tune of $7.7 billion.

Posted by Mixner | June 18, 2008 7:27 PM

I did say "safer, less hurried, more energy efficient, people friendly and enjoyable"

Actually, cities are more energy efficient, because their density allows for more efficient use of resources. Larger buildings are easier to heat than many smaller individual buildings.

As for the others:

Safety: less likelihood of dying in a car accident if you're using transit to commute to a city or already live inside the city.

People friendly: people seem to like cities quite a bit. It's why there are so many people there. The "network effects" of those people are the reason businesses want to go there. Similar for enjoyability-- even people who live and work in suburbs go to cities to enjoy themselves.

As for whether less hurried is a positive or negative, I think that's a subjective judgment.

Posted by Tyro | June 18, 2008 7:51 PM

> Conde Nast could probably locate its accounting
> staff to New Jersey, true. However, certain
> specific industries thrive on the network effects
> gained through the clustering of talent in the
> same area.

In my experience with both the "shared services" and "remote office" models the quality of work is very negatively affected by the lack of grounding of the support function in the core business. Even if it is only talking with operating guys in the cafeteria having Accounting located in Cedar Falls IA to save cost really doesn't work when the corporate action is in New York.

Cranky

Posted by Cranky Observer | June 18, 2008 9:10 PM

Freddiemac-

Unsecured internet connections aren't that much of a problem nowadays, with decent VPN solutions and fairly good connectivity.

Documents on people's personal computers are a problem, but you can get around that by say, issuing something like an Asus Eee to your employees and telling them they will do company work exclusively on that.

Posted by Marty Busse | June 19, 2008 8:37 AM

I don't think one can talk about how resistant businesses are to telecommuting without talking about the illusion of group productivity and the need some managers have for the ability to walk over and demonstrate their control over employees. An email or phone call just isn't as satisfying to a lot of people as walking into the cubicle and demanding the status of the report on Widget Amalgamation. The need some people have, when the bigwigs come to visit, to be able to walk into a room full of people who are working away, is also not trivial. (I like to call this "Potemkin village management.")

Those aren't the only reasons, but you will, if you advocate more telecommuting, run into them a lot. People will articulate the claim that they are more creative and productive in an office (and when faced with evidence that people aren't, they'll get very annoyed and resort to argument by anecdote), but they won't come out and say they need to be able to walk into someone's cubicle and to have a room full of busy bees to show off when VIPs visit.

A reason that I consider fully legitimate, though, is the fear related to injuries in the home while someone is telecommuting. Is that covered by workmen's comp? Can the company be sued if you go to get a reference book from the basement and trip on your own stairs? I think that can be resolved, but I can understand that fear.

Posted by Marty Busse | June 19, 2008 8:53 AM

I don't think one can talk about how resistant businesses are to telecommuting without talking about the illusion of group productivity and the need some managers have for the ability to walk over and demonstrate their control over employees. An email or phone call just isn't as satisfying to a lot of people as walking into the cubicle and demanding the status of the report on Widget Amalgamation. The need some people have, when the bigwigs come to visit, to be able to walk into a room full of people who are working away, is also not trivial. (I like to call this "Potemkin village management.")

Those aren't the only reasons, but you will, if you advocate more telecommuting, run into them a lot. People will articulate the claim that they are more creative and productive in an office (and when faced with evidence that people aren't, they'll get very annoyed and resort to argument by anecdote), but they won't come out and say they need to be able to walk into someone's cubicle and to have a room full of busy bees to show off when VIPs visit.

A reason that I consider fully legitimate, though, is the fear related to injuries in the home while someone is telecommuting. Is that covered by workmen's comp? Can the company be sued if you go to get a reference book from the basement and trip on your own stairs? I think that can be resolved, but I can understand that fear.

Posted by Marty Busse | June 19, 2008 9:03 AM