"The biggest challenge has been working through the IT issues that did arise," says Adriane Thormahlen, senior program analyst at the IRS. Nonstandard configurations of laptops caused confusion at times, remote access to e-mail didn’t always function properly, and the help desk wasn’t adequately staffed and briefed to deal with remote problems as swiftly as management would like. "That’s why we did the pilot, to iron out those technical problems. This will all go under lessons learned," says Thormahlen.

Telework’s Hidden Pluses

Experienced telework executives say the hidden and often unexpected organizational benefits of offsite programs far outweigh the temporary inconvenience of setting them up. Being forced to document and disseminate decisions, says AT&T’s Roitz, is a discipline nearly all work teams--internal or dispersed--could use. "When you write something on a white board during an ad hoc meeting with a client, it’s gone," he points out. "Being virtual is actually a plus. If forces you to create a document trail."

Judging workers by their performance, rather than their demeanor in the office, can likewise have the unexpected consequence of allowing otherwise overlooked employees to shine. "People used to be measured in some respects by how well they fit into an organization, how well they sat around the coffee machine and chatted," observes Bob Evans, president of global outsourcing at Unisys. "When the evaluation criteria is different, you may find you have some stars you didn’t know about. Sally may wind up being a far better performer at home than she was in the collegial atmosphere of an office."

And allowing--or finally even encouraging--employees to work remotely can be the first important step to truly becoming a corporation with the global mind-set that’s so in vogue in the new millennium. The ethos of telework--and the wide-area infrastructure it demands--can spur a company on toward becoming more decentralized and closer to its customers, says Meta Group’s Poe. Once companies are comfortable with the idea of remote workers, they’ll be more willing to make moves like putting a satellite office near a key customer site or dispatching a work team to serve as onsite project managers inside a business partner’s walls.

That global perspective may be all well and good for the 10,000-foot view, but proponents say the best reason for managers to support teleworking is a down-to-earth one: It keeps workers happy and loyal. "We wanted to improve our ability to recruit and retain IT personnel," says the IRS’s Thormahlen, "and we found that the ability to telecommute was among the top demands, especially in IT."