Page 207 - Fundamentals of Management Myths Debunked (2017)_Flat

206 Part 3 • Organizing
How Can Managers Design Efficient and Effective Flexible Work
telecommuting
A work arrangement in which employees work at Arrangements?
home and are linked to the workplace by computer
Accenture consultant Keyur Patel’s job arrangement is becoming the norm, rather than the
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exception. During a recent consulting assignment, he had three clocks on his desk: one set
to Manila time (where his software programmers were), one to Bangalore (where another
programming support team worked), and the third for San Francisco, where he was spend-
ing four days a week helping a major retailer implement IT systems to track and improve
sales. And his cell phone kept track of the time in Atlanta, his home, where he headed on
Thursday evenings.
For this new breed of professionals, life is a blend of home and office, work and leisure.
Thanks to technology, work can now be done anywhere, anytime. As organizations adapt
their structural designs to these new realities, we see more of them adopting flexible work-
ing arrangements. Such arrangements not only exploit the power of technology, but also give
organizations the flexibility to deploy employees when and where needed. In this section,
we’re going to take a look at some different types of flexible work arrangements, including
telecommuting; compressed workweeks, flextime, and job sharing; and contingent work-
force. As with the other structural options we’ve looked at, managers must evaluate these in
light of the implications for decision making, communication, authority relationships, work
task accomplishment, and so forth.

whaT’s inVolVed in TeleCommuTinG? Information technology has made telecom-
muting possible and external environmental changes have made it necessary for many
organizations. Telecommuting is a work arrangement in which employees work at home
and are linked to the workplace by computer. Needless to say, not every job is a candidate
for telecommuting. But many are.
Working from home used to be considered a “cushy perk” for a few lucky employees
and such an arrangement wasn’t allowed very often. Now, many businesses view telecom-
muting as a business necessity. For instance, at SCAN Health Plan, the company’s chief
financial officer said that getting more employees to telecommute provided the company
a way to grow without having to incur any additional fixed costs such as office buildings,
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equipment, or parking lots. In addition, some companies view the arrangement as a way
Airbnb, the global travel rental firm, uses
telecommuters and a contingency workforce to combat high gas prices and to attract talented employees who want more freedom and
of part-time, temporary, and freelance work- control over their work.
ers. Flexible work arrangements, including Despite its apparent appeal, many managers are reluctant to have their employees be-
those for employees shown here at Airbnb’s 51
office in Dublin, enable the company to con- come “laptop hobos.” They argue that employees might waste time surfing the Internet or
nect people in more than 34,000 cities and playing online games instead of working, ignore clients, and desperately miss the camara-
190 countries either online or from a mobile derie and social exchanges of the workplace. In addition, managers worry about how they’ll
phone or tablet.
“manage” these employees. How do you interact
with an employee and gain his or her trust when
they’re not physically present? And what if their
work performance isn’t up to par? How do you make
suggestions for improvement? Another significant
challenge is making sure that company information
is kept safe and secure when employees are working
from home.
Employees often express the same con-
cerns about working remotely, especially when it
comes to the isolation of not being “at work.” At
Accenture, where employees are scattered around
the world, the chief human resources officer says
View Pictures/Newscom that it isn’t easy to maintain that esprit de corps.
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However, the company put in place a number
of programs and processes to create that sense
of belonging for its workforce including Web
conferencing tools, assigning each employee