Barriers to Telecommuting
By JAdP on August 10th, 2007
In Living the Life, Business
On my recent trip to D.C. I hooked up with an old college friend and his wife, both of whom are attorneys for different government agencies. The wife, who is the more technically astute of the two, was a regular telecommuter; the husband an occasional one. Neither do so anymore because the security restrictions have become overbearing, and the implementing technology confusing and policy restrictions on telecommuting have become onerous.
Most importantly though… The nail in the coffin of their telecommuting days… A new policy on "snow days"… Telecommuters must use PTO to not work on any days that the office is closed, and all non-telecommuting workers get a day off, due to weather making it unsafe to drive to work.
We know managerial resistance is still the biggest reason that distributed work is still the next big thing. And of course a good chunk of our consulting revenue comes from organizations needing help in developing and implementing distributed work programs. But it's still discouraging to hear that the message just isn't getting through the way it should. Could there be a leadership issue here?
-- Jim Ware, Managers Continue to Resist Telecommuting in the Future of Work Weblog
A leadership issue indeed, and all too prevalent.
