Management Challenge

Still, IT executives shouldn’t buy in to the promise of telework without at least being aware of its potential pitfalls. For example, in the Internal Revenue Service’s office of information resources management in New Carrollton, Md., remote workers who were assigned to generic workstations on days when they were in the office struggled initially with incompatibilities between their laptops and docking station software. And at the Marasco Newton Group, an Arlington, Va., IT consultancy, teleworkers sometimes opt to return to full-time office life because they miss the interaction with their coworkers or find their spouse and children can’t cope with a home-office arrangement. And other companies report that project deadlines occasionally slip when IS employees first begin teleworking and find self-motivation to be more difficult than they anticipated.

So what’s the secret to effectively managing, measuring and motivating IS workers you can’t see? Within IS, it’s important to pick the right positions. (Hint: programming at home works great, but running cable is pretty much an in-office procedure.) Choose both workers and managers who are good communicators willing to embrace a results-oriented work style. Use technology where it will help, such as teleconferencing and instant messaging, and work around or find solutions for its pitfalls (lack of bandwidth is the number-one challenge remote workers face, managers say). Finally, support remote endeavors with clear, fair, companywide policies that spell out simply what is expected of all employees and managers, remote, onsite or otherwise.

It Does It Better

For instance, CIOs are beginning to use telework as a way to provide 24/7 network coverage without having to maintain a permanent second and third work shift, observes Jonathan Poe, vice president of Meta Group’s executive directions practice in Burlingame, Calif. "It’s all about working smarter as an IT organization. Before, the system administrator would have to drive in at night or on the weekend whenever anything came up," Poe says. "Now you can set up a home office with network administration capabilities and save somebody the two hours of drive time."

Telework-savvy managers say many IS jobs lend themselves nicely to an offsite arrangement. "IT workers are classic knowledge workers, with a lot of concentration and creativity in their work, and knowledge workers make great teleworkers," says Joseph Roitz, a former IT manager who is now director of AT&T’s companywide telework program.

Even better, IS workers and their managers are often able to more easily navigate one of the tough turns in telework--determining how much work is being done offsite and how well it’s being done. "Other groups have struggled with getting goals, objectives and measures into place," Roitz says, "but the IT world already has a lot of emphasis on timelines, budgets and deliverables, and those all help when it comes time to telework."