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EDITORIAL: It's Tele-Working
(Richmond Times-Dispatch (VA) (KRT) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) May 11--Anyone who has seen an old movie in which a gruff reporter snatches up the handset of a candlestick telephone and barks, "Hello, sweetheart -- get me rewrite!" knows telecommuting wasn't invented yesterday. But technological advances in recent years have rendered it vastly more efficient and effective.
As one study of the topic has summarized, "Telecommuting may be the most cost-effective way to reduce rush-hour traffic. It helps improve air quality and highway safety. It conserves energy, expands opportunities for the handicapped, and -- when used as a substitute for offshore outsourcing -- it can help allay globalization fears. It can even make organizations, public and private, more productive, which is good news for our nation's managers" -- some of whom suspect telecommuters are just goldbrickers lazing about the house when they should be working.
But as the study by the Reason Foundation notes, that is not the case: Both J.D. Edwards and American Express found employees who telecommuted actually were 20 percent to 43 percent more productive than office workers. Telecommuting saves companies money in many other less obvious ways -- from lower real-estate costs to less wear-and-tear on workstations.
Of course, telecommuting won't work for many occupations: You can't wait tables or perform angioplasties by satellite link-up (although many medical institutions, including naval hospital ships and aircraft carrier hospital decks, use satellite communications to confer on medical emergencies). And there are at least perceived advantages to the creation of a creative-talent critical mass when innovators gather in close proximity. That's one reason advertising agencies congregate in New York and techies huddle in Silicon Valley.
That perceived benefit can prove a liability, too -- because of the phenonomenon known as group polarization: Sometimes groupthink leads to observational distortion and grievous miscalculation. (As the demotivational poster from Despair Inc. puts it: "Meetings: None of Us Is as Dumb as All of Us.")
In Virginia, the benefits of telecommuting extend not only to workers and companies but to taxpayers. It maximizes the efficiency of the transportation system, part of whose purpose is to get workers to the job and back. If employees can eliminate car trips by accomplishing their assigned tasks from home, then scarce transportation dollars can be spread that much further.
There is another advantage that ought to be considered in a post-9/11 world: A net-centric, widely dispersed workforce is less vulnerable to -- and more capable of rebounding after -- a terrorist attack, particularly an attack on a central geographic point.
The commonwealth has worked to develop a telecommuting policy across all secretariats; some jurisdictions also have developed their own telecommuting policies as well (e.g.: In 2003 Fairfax set a goal of having one-fifth of the work force telecommute at least one day a week by 2006 -- and met it.) Virginia also has established a program through the Department of Rail and Public Transportation called Telework!VA, which provides state incentives to businesses that establish or expand telecommuting opportunities. (The Web site is www.Teleworkva.org.)
Telecommuting has contributed to the slight improvement of commuting times in the Richmond area in the past couple of years, and has grown substantially nationwide even as other transit alternatives such as car-pooling have stood pat or actually declined. State and local governments should strive to increase telecommuting even more. As a spokesman for the Virginia Department of Transportation told this newspaper last year: "We know . . . we can't build our way out of congestion."
To see more of the Richmond Times-Dispatch, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.timesdispatch.com.
Copyright (c) 2008, Richmond Times-Dispatch, Va.
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
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