Is the office the best place to be?
The idea of 'teleworking' or 'telecommuting' or whatever buzzword is popular at the time, has been around for many years. To date it's penetration into the mainstream market has been fairly limited.
There are compelling reasons to get rid of the daily to-and-from the office ritual. The savings in fuel and vehicle costs, reduction of congestion of our roads, reduction in stress for employees - not to mention the hundreds of thousands of tonnes of greenhouse gasses we could save from entering the atmosphere each year - are all possible even if only a small fraction of them started working from home, or from small, regional offices.
So why is it not more widespread?
All sorts of reasons are quoted, but we believe there is one fundamental, root issue as to why not - the illusion of control.
The whole 'if I can see you and it looks like you are working, then I am in control' way of thinking.
Anybody who has been around business long knows this is nothing but an illusion, but it is still perpetuated right throughout the ranks of our businesses.
Most managers do not know what their subordinates do, even when they are at work - so the very idea of having the same subordinates working outside the boundaries of this illusory control structure is terrifying.
This is not the fault of the manager in most cases. The manager is often completely hamstrung by ill-defined, inconsistent and conflicting internal processes, empty rituals and a complete lack of a general understanding of how everybody fits into the grand scheme of things.
To change, the first thing businesses need is a clearly defined and consistently applied internal management system.
It does not have to be standards based - it just has to work. When everybody knows what is expected of them, it is far easier to let go of the old illusion of control and get back to good old fashioned trust.
Once a manager is able to clearly match employee output against defined and well communicated expectations - so the manager can then report to their manager - then we have a good base to free some of them from the daily grind.
The technology needed for it to work is already here. There are a raft of Internet enabled groupware suites available to facilitate distributed workforces. Even building you own custom build collaboration software and/or intranet is no harder that building a new website because the technologies are the same.
It all comes down to a simple process:
- make the commitment to change,
- get you business processes right first; and
- then, and only then, see how you can leverage the technology available.
Human ingenuity has proven that almost nothing is impossible, it just takes an open mind and the gumption to stand up and just do it.
