From: John Conover <john@email.johncon.com>
Subject: forwarded message from John Conover
Date: Fri, 25 Oct 1996 20:30:03 -0700
Hi Thor. Re: the S-MOS plan for telecommuting in compliance with local
(both county and state, if I recall,) 5 year mandates, circa 1992, or
so, that we worked on. If you recall, the plan had a mandatory 4 hour,
(if I remember correctly,) at cite attendance by all telecommuters, at
least once a week, ie., about 10% of the work-week was spent at the
S-MOS facility, usually coinciding with staff meetings. We were well
aware of the implications of the attached after our pilot program
involving telecommuting during pregnancy leaves. (If I am not
mistaken, Fariba was involved in this.)
John
BTW, the reason for the requirement was taken from:
"Home Work," Phillip E. Mahfood, Probus Publishing Co., Chicago,
Illinois, 1992, pp 67.
Funny, there were many European studies that arrived at the same
conclusion as the attached, as mentioned in the reference-but a
decade, or so, earlier. Funny that productivity improvements were not
specifically measured in the attached. (Productivity improvements
ranged from 25% to over 40%, and feedback and control issues were
discovered early on, as per the reference. Most of these reference the
EC studies done in France after the installation of nationwide ISDN
access in the 60's. The "work-o-tel" is a French invention to
circumvent the issues. Both the work-o-tel and ISDN are French
inventions of the period, specifically developed to address commute
issues.) Worker's Compensation, and other employee liability issues
were presented in the reference, starting on page 99. (I am still
uncomfortable with these-particularly with carpule(sp?) tunnel
syndrome and the USG's recent clarification on the definition of a
consultant in the IRS vs. Microsoft.)
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Message-ID: <"31omq.0._Q2.RmLSo"@netcom19>
From: John Conover <conover@netcom.netcom.com>
To: John Conover <john@email.johncon.com>
Subject: ****Poor Feedback/Control Holding Back Telecommuting - Report 10/25/96
Date: Fri, 25 Oct 1996 15:07:22 PDT
READING, BERKSHIRE, ENGLAND, 1996 OCT 25 (NB) -- By Steve Gold.
According to a report entitled "Teleworking in the UK, 1996," loss of
feedback, isolation, plus the control and monitoring of staff, are
all regarded as major disadvantages of home-based teleworking
(telecommuting) by over half of the respondents polled in the study.
The report, which has just been published by Small World Connections
and sponsored by Mercury Communications in conjunction with Flexible
Working magazine, claims to show a five-fold increase over the last
five years in the number of companies using or planning teleworking
practices. The report also found that all respondents cited security,
equipment cost, and the provision of support as concerns, but only 25
percent of the respondents regard them as major concerns.
According to the report, the results found a clear difference in the
perception of those problems between companies who had experience of
home-based teleworking and those who had not. Those with experience
tended to regard the loss of feedback, isolation, plus the control
and monitoring of staff as less serious than those without experience.
Loss of feedback is assessed as a major disadvantage by 40 percent of
those with home-based teleworkers, compared with 64 percent of those
without teleworkers. The report also found significant differences
with respect to isolation of staff (35 compared to 57 percent) and
control and monitoring (25 percent compared to 52 percent).
According to Bill Murray of Small World Connections, the major
benefits of teleworking are improved productivity, office cost-savings,
and increased staff effectiveness. Around 75 percent of respondents
also reported some benefit from improved staff retention and
recruitment, as well as reduced absenteeism and stress.
The report has been released in the run-up to Telework '96, a
conference that is billed as examining teleworking from a business
perspective. The conference will be held from November 6-8 in London.
Further details of the report and conference can be found on the
Telework '96 World Wide Web pages at http://www.demon.co.uk/telework .
Compuserve subscribers can also access the Telework Europa forum by
entering GO TWEUROPA at the command prompt.
(19961025/Press Contact: Alison Acland, +44-1734-623292, Internet
e-mail 100647.3246@compuserve.com; Reader Contact: Small World
Connections, +44-161-445-0630, Internet e-mail
100431.160@compuserve.com)
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--
John Conover, john@email.johncon.com, http://www.johncon.com/