Telecommuting

What with the current event of Yahoo's Marissa Meyer abolishing telecommuting, putatively to foster innovation (see, for example, CEO Mayer Calls in All Yahoo Telecommuters, in Monday's CIO), this guidance via Ziff Davis's CIO|Insight is (largely) sensible and timely. (Some of the practices are **too draconian or *debatable, based on my experience.) 

Nine 'Best Practices' For Telecommuting 

By Dennis McCafferty  |  Posted 02-27-2013 

Despite Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer’s ban on telecommuting, CIOs and other senior managers are warming up to the idea of allowing certain employees to telecommute. For certain, these workers must hold job positions that are compatible with the concept. And they have to "earn" this accommodation through proven performance. That said, the concept is gaining popularity. More than 3.1 million professionals in the U.S. telecommute for more than half of their working hours, which is a 76 percent increase since 2005, according to the Telework Research Network. And 20 million employees work from home at least one day a week. You can expect such requests to increase, because four of five workers say they'd like to work from home at least part-time. Clearly, a CIO can't move forward with these arrangements without giving the topic a great deal of consideration. After all, telecommuting can impact productivity, work quality and the safety of your organization's data assets. So to establish some guidance, Janco Associates has developed the following "best practices" for CIOs and other tech managers on telecommuting. These best practices are part of an extensive report from Janco titled CIO IT Infrastructure Policy Bundle.

1. It's management's responsibility to decide which jobs can telecommute 
2. Telecommuters should demonstrate appropriate independence and accountability 
3. **Managers should allow one week's notice before terminating a telecommuting agreement 
4. Employers should reimburse additional expenses of telecommuting 
5. Telecommuters should work the same number of hours as other employees 
6. **Caregivers must be used if dependents are present where the telecommuter works 
7. Telecommuters should participate in mandatory meetings 
8. Corporate data and sensitive information is company property 
9. *If the telecommuter uses her/his own equipment, the company is not obligated to support same 

Update on Monday, March 4, 2013 at 08:35AM by williamgarrity

http://www.fastcompany.com/3006478/why-working-home-worst-both-worlds 

. . .

For working parents, working from home is the worst of everything. It isn’t really working, and it isn’t really being at home. You can defend it or rail against it as much as you like, but here’s the unspoken truth: You are fostering disappointment and frustration from all parties while fooling yourself into believing you’ve arranged for the best of both worlds. You can’t be two places at once. That’s it; that was my epiphany--astoundingly simple, as they all are.

On the days or half days that you are working from home, you’ll get the sense that the office is questioning your commitment. You’ll probably even question your own commitment, so why shouldn’t they? Instead of focusing on your work, you put energy into proving your work ethic to people at the office. But even more importantly, when you don’t set up clear boundaries between work and home, you’ll end up with no clear boundaries between work and home. I’ve seen many employees write their emails at all hours of the early morning and late night revealing they are always catching up or playing offense to put the ball back in the office’s court while they're busy tending to kids. As an employer (and someone who has worked at home), I can honestly say that I feel a lot less hesitation to call someone at home at night if they’ve been working from home during the day.

. . .