Telecommuting : Computers Cut the Cord to the Office
Three mornings a week, Rick Higgins chugs vitamins and orange juice, puts on a suit and, like many other Southern Californians, hops into his car for a 40-minute commute to an office in downtown Los Angeles. On the other days, the San Fernando Valley resident enjoys a leisurely breakfast and occasionally even a bike ride before work. Those are the days he telecommutes.
For several months, Higgins, 33, a marketing manager for Pacific Bell, and half a dozen colleagues have been working in their homes or in small satellite offices, using computers and state-of-the-art telecommunications gear to touch base with supervisors at the company’s San Francisco headquarters. By using this team to evaluate the benefits and problems associated with “home work,” Pacific Bell hopes eventually to be able to tailor products and services to companies that let employees work at home.
Higgins, who relishes the days when he can wear a polo shirt and casual pants in his home office, is pleased to be on the cutting edge of what he sees as a trend. “I like to be my own boss,” he said. “The flexibility and freedom make me more relaxed with the job. I feel I can get more done.”
Not Major Force Yet
While telecommuting has not yet become a major force in the corporate world, the development of fast-paced communications equipment is prompting more companies to let small groups of workers sever their office ties.
Jack Nilles of USC’s Center for Futures Research, who coined the term telecommuter in 1973, figures there are about 30,000 such workers in the United States, with an additional 70,000 in “satellite” or local work centers. As many as 200 companies have some sort of telecommuting program, according to Gil Gordon, editor of a newsletter called Telecommuting Review. Some studies predict that there will be as many as 15 million work-at-home jobs by 1990.
Some optimistic observers envision a world without traffic snarls or fuel shortages, in which most workers will be able to stay at home or travel short distances to so-called “intelligent offices” with sophisticated computer and telecommunications hookups. Construction work and television production may not lend themselves to at-home work, but consider the wealth of occupations that do: travel agent, architect, writer, salesperson, data-entry clerk, insurance agent, real estate agent, bookkeeper, accountant and on and on.
There are many who doubt, however, that telecommuting can be carried that far without creating some difficulties in running a business because employees would be scattered and working alone too much of the time.
Telecommuting appeals especially to disabled workers, retirees who want to stay active, pregnant women and young parents who like spending more time with their children. It also is attractive to all those who have ever dreamed of giving their commutes and dress-for-success wardrobes the heave-ho.
Carol D’Agostino of Valley Stream, N.Y., has a metabolic problem that causes her to tire easily. Severe allergies make it impossible for her to work in offices where co-workers smoke or wear perfume. A traditional career seemed out of the question.
“I was on my own, divorced, and had the problem of supporting myself,” she recalled.
She started classes in word and data processing at a nearby community college that sponsored corporate internships. About a year ago, she became a telecommuting intern for Electronic Services Unlimited, a New York consulting firm staffed almost entirely by telecommuters.
The company was so impressed that it hired her to maintain a mailing list, produce and mail a monthly newsletter and write case histories of companies’ telecommuting programs.
“I’d be totally useless in an office, but my company finds me very useful at home, which is a great feeling for me,” she said.
Southland Firms
Among Southern California companies that have telecommuters are Allergan Pharmaceuticals in Irvine, Security Pacific National Bank, and Blue Cross and Blue Shield. Rising Star Industries, a 3-year-old software developer in Torrance, has 80 employees, about 75% of whom telecommute. Last summer, Santa Monica-based General Telephone of California had eight volunteers for a telecommuting project during the Olympic Games.
The state of California has a pilot proposal to put 200 workers in satellite or home offices; the program awaits financing of $1 million to $1.7 million. And Higgins of Pacific Bell, who expects his telecommuting project to last at least two years, is working with the Southern California Assn. of Governments to find sponsors for telecommuting projects as a way of easing freeway congestion and air pollution.
The association, which represents six counties, projects that telecommuting will result in a 12% reduction in work-related trips in the region by the end of the century. Pat Mokhtarian, a transportation planner, figures conservatively that as many as one-fifth of a projected 15 million workers in Southern California could be telecommuters by the year 2000.
Electronic Services Unlimited notes that corporations can benefit from telecommuting because of increased productivity, reduced absenteeism, improved employee recruitment and retention, savings on office space and access to expanded labor pools, including part-timers.
‘Becomes Old-Fashioned’
“Our view is that the new technology is the driving force behind the trend,” said Marcia M. Kelly, president of the firm. “It becomes old-fashioned to have to go to the office every day. The fact now is that our work can be done from anywhere.”
Lynda Anapol, director of telecommuting for Pacific Bell, said that the company has been able to recruit people from, for instance, the Silicon Valley who might otherwise consider the company’s central location in San Ramon, in the East Bay across from San Francisco, to be geographically undesirable. It also retained an employee who would have resigned to have a baby, and brought back three people from disability leaves.
“One fellow had broken both arms and couldn’t even telecommute until they adjusted the cast,” Anapol said.
In addition to Higgins’ team, which Anapol heads, Pacific Bell has about 40 other workers at home or in satellite offices and intends to expand that to 100 by year-end. The company employs 72,000.
Chevron Chemical Co. found another use for telecommuting. About 18 months ago, the San Francisco-based unit of Chevron had the idea that computers in the field could help make its sales representatives more competitive. After a year of surveying employees and researching equipment options, the company started a pilot program. By mid-November, 43 employees will carry Hewlett-Packard portable computers that will give them instant access to the latest sales figures, customers’ credit histories and prices.
Not an Answer for All
“The consensus (among the sales representatives) was that this kind of thing would give them more tools to become better than the competition,” said Glenn Weckerlin, a marketing analyst with Chevron Chemical. “But we have to be careful that people don’t jump on the bandwagon thinking that telecommuting is the answer to everyone’s problems.
“It shouldn’t be something that management decides is needed. (The need) should come from the customer level and push its way back up to management.”
Hewlett-Packard Laboratories in Palo Alto uses telecommuting to complement, but not substitute for, office work. In 1980, the company started providing computer terminals for employees who wanted to be able to work evenings and weekends at home.
“The idea is very useful from the standpoint of allowing more flexibility for the researchers,” said Ted Laliotis, the laboratories’ manager of technology market development. “It is not, by any means, a substitute for coming to work. It is a supplement that allows for more flexibility--for example, if a child is not feeling well and a worker needs to go home early.”
Despite the program’s success, Laliotis does not foresee a day when the company will let workers stay at home all day.
‘Cross-Fertilization’
“In the research environment, we need to have our people together,” he said. “You need the cross-fertilization among those doing research or design.”
Even when a career seems fully suited to telecommuting, the advantages can backfire. Some telecommuters complain of isolation, concern over advancement, a tendency to work too many hours and, in the case of one Mountain Bell employee, weight gain. It seems that her self-discipline did not extend to the family refrigerator.
Moreover, many managers resist the change. “One of the major deterrents is organizational inertia or managers’ fear that they’re going to lose control if their people aren’t physically gathered around them,” Nilles of USC noted. The solution in many cases is to schedule days in the office for at-home workers. This can also help employees combat their feelings of isolation.
While some observers contend that a shift to telecommuting is inevitable in the Information Age, others said that institutional barriers are so great that it will never replace traditional office work.
“Why don’t employees stay home now?” asked Margrethe Olson, an associate professor of business at New York University. “The reasons have to do with their gaining from social interaction. There’s a sense that, as you walk in the door of an organization, you belong to that organization. There is a sense of belonging and a sense of acceptance of the culture, which means you are a loyal, committed employee.”
Labor Unions Object
Among telecommuting’s major detractors are labor unions. The AFL-CIO and Service Employees International Union have called for a ban on telecommuting, saying that widespread use could lead to exploitation of workers, especially women, in “electronic sweatshops.” Their opposition rests largely on concern that home work will lead to violations of minimum wage, overtime and child-labor laws.
Nilles foresees the possibility of international “telescabs” who would take over the work of striking employees. “As the world becomes more computerized,” he said, “we certainly have the possibility of workers in Singapore doing the work that might be done in New York.” However, Nilles added, most telecommuters are white-collar professionals whose work cannot be measured on a piecemeal standard.
One Southland company does expect soon to hire several data-entry operators who would be paid on a piecemeal basis to process Medi-Cal claims in the workers’ Sacramento-area homes. First, however, Computer Sciences, a computer and communications company based in El Segundo, must solve a logistical problem--how to get the paper work to the workers, said Scott Sharpe, vice president of personnel.
The company views telecommuting as a way to take advantage of an untapped source of labor--those who are tied to their homes because of children. “The unions’ complaint (about electronic sweatshops) is self-serving,” Sharpe said. “The employees want this sort of thing.”
Potential Problem
One potential problem for telecommuters is old zoning laws dating in many cases to before the Civil War. In Chicago, local authorities notified a couple of telecommuters, who did free-lance writing and software development at home, that they were violating zoning laws that sharply separate commercial and residential land-use.
A final consideration is the cost for would-be telecommuters whose employers do not pick up the tab. Home equipment can cost as little as $400 or as much as $7,000 for a sophisticated phone and computer system, with printer and modem to hook up the home unit to the company’s computer. Some firms may lease the equipment to the user on a monthly basis.
But for many telecommuters, the rewards are worth the irritations. Higgins’ wife, Nicki, enjoys the freedom of occasionally being able to leave their two daughters in her husband’s care.
Says Rick Higgins of his telecommuting experience: “The more I do it, the more I like it. I feel that the technology today and the jobs available lend themselves to this. It’s going to be the wave of the future.”
