I am a huge advocate of telecommuting. I acknowledge that telecommuting is difficult as the employee has to be very self-disciplined and the management has to let micromanagement go and extend a huge amount of trust in the employee. I think the benefits far outweigh the negatives. Barack Obama sees the benefits to the family in encouraging telecommuting as stated in The White House’s Family Agenda.
Expand Flexible Work Arrangements: Barack Obama and Joe Biden will address this concern by creating a program to inform businesses about the benefits of flexible work schedules for productivity and establishing positive workplaces; helping businesses create flexible work opportunities; and increasing federal incentives for telecommuting. Obama and Biden will also make the federal government a model employer in terms of adopting flexible work schedules and permitting employees to petition to request flexible arrangements. [Source, WhiteHouse.gov,The Agenda-Family]
Be sure to read Duncan Fisher’s summary of Obama’s program and his oration on fatherhood.
He can “encourange” all he wants, until there is some “tangible” reason to let up on the reigns, more corporation will opt to be able to have employees under their thumbs.
Sure there are plenty of good reasons for telecommuting, but most don’t seem to care. Until you can start showing them real bottom line numbers, they will continue to believe that most cannot work under this system and need “constant supervision” Why? Because otherwise, certain levels of management would essentially be putting themselves out of a job by promoting this, and what middle manager is going to promote something that will take away from either his power if not his entire job?
Good point about the jobs. Do you not think those management jobs could metamorph into remote management? Someone still has to write TPS reports.