Comments on: 6 Answers About Telecommuting

By: Marcin Grodzicki

Marcin Grodzicki — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 19:54:32 +0000

Recently I’m having second thoughts about telecommuting. I agree with Peter that ‘old’ companies just aren’t ready for teleworking, and it’s actually hard to keep in touch with everyone while ‘not being there’ (at least it’s a lot faster if you’re there). But my doubts started elsewhere – in my motivation. Even if you’re in a hot startup it’s easier (for me) to keep energy and motivation up if I change environment from ‘home’ to ‘work’ (wherever that is) every day. I have trouble escaping ‘warm’ home atmosphere in the morning. I wonder how you do it Mike – how you keep your spirit up, and organization in place with kids running over your head and kitchen needing urgent cleaning. You seem to be handling it pretty well, as far as I could judge by reading your tweets. It’s a good topic for a full post I guess.

By: Peter Campbell

Peter Campbell — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 18:43:13 +0000

I think you have to be careful with your number 1 recommendation. How full time telecommuting will impact your relationship with your co-workers and company has everything to do with how tech-savvy, and telecommuting savvy, those people and your company happen to be. For a small, geographically diverse startup, you have a culture that is built on telecommuting, and we have some industries that are successfully adopting their cultures to function healthfully in this fashion, but the large, majority of businesses are populated with people who, while they have email, are not culturally ready to treat remote workers in the same way they do the ones who they see daily. It’s a real shift. The danger for the remote worker is that, while they might well be productive and enjoy some of the benefits, they will exempt themselves from the day to day interactions that put them in consideration for projects and promotions. The “out of sight, out of mind” danger to their careers is authentic. So, if your corporate culture is web 2.0 compatible, great. But you’re in the minority right now.

By: Shannon

Shannon — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 18:03:08 +0000

You are dead on with this and I, too was bemused by the ‘old ways’ pall that hung over the whole article. But as you address here the article provides a lot of the barriers that you will face.