Communications of the ACM

Communications of the ACM

Viewpoint: Exploring the Telecommuting Paradox

By Mohamed Khalifa, Robert Davison
Communications of the ACM, March 2000, Vol. 43 No. 3, Pages 29-31
10.1145/330534.330554
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According to a recent survey conducted by the International Telework Association and Council, 19.6 million U.S.-based employees telecommuted in 1999 (www.telecommute.org). Although some 62% of companies are reportedly encouraging telecommuting [1], a mere 7% of employees actually telecommute. This curious dichotomy—the small number of telecommuters despite the apparent plethora of telecommuting programs in organizations—has been characterized by Westfall [3] as the "telecommuting paradox."

The potential benefits of telecommuting are manifold and make it appealing to both employers and employees. Organizations can expect to see reduced overhead costs in maintaining a central work facility, improved work productivity, greater staffing flexibility, and better employee retention. Telecommuters in turn can expect a better quality of life, more flexible work schedules, and reduced transportation costs and travel durations. Possible drawbacks for the employer include the cost of implementing telecommuting programs, the difficulty management may experience in supervising employees, and the negative effects telecommuting may exert on employee career development.

A significant weakness identified in previous studies is they only attempt to prove the potential benefits of telecommuting, as perceived by employees who currently do not telecommute or by employers who hypothetically consider telecommuting benefits in relation to the organization.

We describe briefly how we elicited the beliefs of current telecommuters toward telecommuting and then identify the key factors that contribute to the decision to telecommute and the possible implications of telecommuting.

In order to elicit the factors affecting the adoption and the level of telecommuting, we conducted semi-structured interviews with 28 North American telecommuters. These interviews were based on Triandis's [2] model of human behavior, which helps explain telecommuters' intention of their future level of telecommuting. The model incorporates four domains of contributory factors: behavioral attitudes toward telecommuting, perceived consequences of telecommuting, relevant social factors, and facilitating conditions.

Perceived consequences are: increased economic benefits; improved quality of home, work, and social life; and an increase in work production. However, respondents were concerned that career development might be negatively impacted. For instance, the influence of family, peers, superiors, and subordinates were all seen as relevant to the decision to telecommute. This suggests that a particular group of people either believes one should telecommute or overtly encourages one to do so. Concerning facilitating conditions, relevant factors are the suitability of work space at the telecommuting site (whether home or a satellite site), self-efficacy (including comfort and confidence while working without assistance), access to the appropriate technology, and the availability of technical and logistic support.

After the initial survey, we conducted a follow-up to determine the significance of the elicited factors in explaining the telecommuters' intention of future telecommuting. Almost 16% of 650 current North American telecommuters responded. Respondents were asked to agree, disagree, or indicate their indifference to the various factors that are expected to affect their intention to telecommute in the future. The results are presented in Table 1.

According to Triandis's model [2], intentions are also determined by attitudes toward the behavior. The attitudes are in turn influenced by the perceived consequences of the behavior. Consistent with the reported positive beliefs regarding the perceived consequences of telecommuting, the respondents were mostly favorable to this work arrangement. Over 85% of respondents perceived telecommuting to be wise; over 90% perceived it to be both good and pleasant. Only 3% reported discomfort with telecommuting, indicating they intended to reduce it in future. By contrast, 32% indicated they would telecommute more in future; the other 65% were comfortable with their existing levels of telecommuting.

Perceived consequences, social factors, and facilitating conditions are all found to be significant in explaining the respondents' intentions regarding the level of future telecommuting. Figure 1 presents the significance of the domains and their constituent factors. The significance was assessed using structural equation modeling techniques.

Where perceived consequences are concerned, the key driving factor is productivity. According to Westfall [3], employees are motivated more by self-interest than by altruism or commitment to organizational goals. They are also more concerned about risks to themselves than are their managers. Telecommuters must have access to appropriate productivity tools, as well as good project management techniques and coordination that enable them to work remotely, yet keep in touch with their colleagues. Failure to provide these tools in the working environment will act as a disincentive to telecommute, since the gains from eliminating unproductive time will be offset and improvements will not be evident.

The principle social driver of telecommuting is peer influence, reflecting organizational culture. It is critical that the organizational culture not simply accept the value or importance of telecommuting, but actively and enthusiastically promote it. We noted that peer influence was seen, perhaps surprisingly, to outweigh the influence of superiors. We explain this by considering that even if superiors do encourage telecommuting, the organizational culture and hence the reward system must also support it as a desirable behavior. Clearly, however, where the organizational culture is favorable, the additional influence of superiors—combined with their own practice of this behavior, will provide additional incentives to telecommute.

Self-efficacy has been found to be the most powerful influence on the intention to telecommute. Self-efficacy implies that telecommuters can function without relying on assistance on how to use the technology or how to perform their tasks effectively. This finding reflects the importance of job suitability and the need for formal training: telecommuters should know how to make best use of their time and have the ability, willingness, and motivation to work remotely from other people and from technical support facilities. Telecommuting programs should therefore focus on those people and tasks that are suitable and train telecommuters and their managers accordingly.

The telecommuting paradox is a reflection of this work arrangement to penetrate organizational life. To address it, organizations need to understand telecommuting drivers and identify what they see as their goals in implementing a telecommuting program. The factors we have identified as drivers for telecommuting can be used by organizations with focus groups of potential telecommuters so as to learn more about how telecommuting could be implemented. In particular, potential telecommuters need to consider their own expectations, for example, their self-efficacy and productivity, in order to understand how telecommuting can work best for them. They might consider what productivity tools are most suitable for their work, or what a training program consists of for it to be both effective and relevant. Finally, at the organizational level, there may need to be a culture change—a change to a new paradigm of work arrangements and reward schemes that will encourage more people to telecommute.

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