Careers: Telecommuting - Risks, Rewards and Remedies

Graduates entering the workforce are going to be increasingly presented with the opportunities - and challenges - of telecommuting. How employers and employees alike prepare for the risks and rewards of telecommuting will likely determine whether or not the initiative succeeds for a particular company.

While telecommuting numbers haven't lived up to their lofty pre-Millennium predictions (up to 55 million people), estimates vary wildly, from as few as 9 million Americans to nearly 45 million. No doubt, the discrepancy lies in the qualification of whether the tele-commuter is "full time" or "flex-time" (part time).

It's growing at about 5 % annually (e.g., five times faster than our population), and can only be expected to climb as gas prices go stratospheric and metro freeways get more arterially clogged. Employers get to save on overhead, not to mention the approx. $25 B of productivity lost each year by those same traffic woes. Employees, of course, get to save all that commuting time and cost, and hang at home in casual garb.

I expect that with continued improvements in “Death of Distance” technologies – Wifi, Skype, Bluetooth, VOIP, and gigs of rapid-send imagery – (and TiVo for those who are goofing off!) this trend will only continue and possibly even accelerate.

Representative jobs or industries for tele-commuting are virtually endless; just about any professions where face-to-face meetings aren’t essential on a day-to-day basis. We see it with "virtual concierges" for resorts, hotels, and other purveyors of hospitality; we see it in JetBlue’s home-based customer service agents; we see it in the international project team that only occasionally needs to meet together at a physical venue.

It strikes me that an ironic byproduct of all these conveniences will be the need for increased training in communications skills; e.g., the cyber-gibberish of the Gen Y / Millennial world – “BFFs, “LOLs” and other farcical shortcuts that are long-on-cute but short-on-content and clarity will never be able to take the place of clear, concise communication. Bottom line, the necessity for clearly articulated (written or verbal) communication is going to be amplified in this dangerous-leisure environment of the stay-at-home employee.

Employers, career guidance professionals and educators alike will need to help these future leaders accomplish that. Their tool chest? Good ol’ fashioned composition, technical writing, phone etiquette, persuasive selling techniques, etc. – not to mention a whole new emphasis on organizational skills, now that the (ostensibly) ordered cubicle has no other watchdog than the employee him(her)self.

Perhaps even more focus on debate, diplomacy and other interpersonal etiquette - after all, there's something to be said for the rough-and-tumble of face-to-face communication and the organic synthesis that can yield from a closed-off conference room full of gesturing, interrupting, stammering, animated and otherwise conscientiously-committed employees. No online gadgetry can substitute for that priceless (and OK, occasionally ulcer-inspiring!) experience.