Making Telework Work

Increase your organization's competitive advantage while decreasing its carbon footprint. The traditional workforce - using the model of the 9-to-5 employee - is a thing of the past. Companies, and their employees, are utilizing flex-time and work-from-home arrangements. Modern telework solutions counter problems of escalating real estate costs, traffic and commuting and employee turnover, and promote carbon footprint reduction and higher employee productivity and satisfaction. Telework has taken center stage as a means to generating productive business. Making Telework Work is a call to action, helping organizations gain competitive advantage in a technology-rich world. Leaders of teleworkers must grasp the big picture while still accounting for the details. To do so means developing capabilities that mark extraordinary leadership, not just run of the mill management.

Experts from across all industrial-organizational (IO) psychology describe how increasingly rapid technological change has affected the field. In each chapter, authors describe how this has altered the meaning of IO research within a particular subdomain and what steps must be taken to avoid IO research from becoming obsolete. This Handbook presents a forward-looking review of IO psychology's understanding of both workplace technology and how technology is used in IO research methods. Using interdisciplinary perspectives to further this understanding and serving as a focal text from which this research will grow, it tackles three main questions facing the field. First, how has technology affected IO psychological theory and practice to date? Second, given the current trends in both research and practice, could IO psychological theories be rendered obsolete? Third, what are the highest priorities for both research and practice to ensure IO psychology remains appropriately engaged with technology moving forward?

This book will help managers and team members alike who are about to or have already started working remotely. It will enable managers to comprehend the challenges of managing remote workers and put strategies in place to overcome these, and will advise employees how to approach their work when doing so remotely.

Technological developments have enabled a dramatic expansion and also an evolution of telework, broadly defined as using ICTs to perform work from outside of an employer’s premises. This volume offers a new conceptual framework explaining the evolution of telework over four decades. It reviews national experiences from Argentina, Brazil, India, Japan, the United States, and ten EU countries regarding the development of telework, its various forms and effects. It also analyses large-scale surveys and company case studies regarding the incidence of telework and its effects on working time, work-life balance, occupational health and well-being, and individual and organizational performance.

Analyzing data from the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey and culling current research in the field, this study delves into teleworking in the United States to uncover current trends.

Does telework work? Telework, or telecommuting, offers numerous benefits to both workers and the firms that employ them. Off-site workers enjoy flexible schedules and avoid the costs, stress, and wasted hours of workday traffic. For employers, telework is a powerful incentive in a firm's efforts to be considered an employer of choice. Firms that implement successful telework programs enjoy reduced absenteeism, enhanced employee retention rates, and increased productivity. This book provides indispensable guidance in designing the tools for choosing and managing teleworkers—the telework guidelines, policies, assessments, evaluations, home safety inspection forms, sample labor union telework agreements, and advice from human resource specialists and managers who have successfully implemented telework. Even if you decide that teleworking isn't appropriate for your firm at the present time, the information included in this book may convince you of the soundness of a telework contingency plan, especially in the aftermath September 11. When the unexpected happens, having a telework plan in place can ameliorate the chaotic conditions facing workers who are suddenly displaced from the office. Among the challenges addressed in this book are compliance with the law, ergonomically correct home offices, and remote computer security issues. Replete with valuable resources, including Web sites, consultants, and software, this book also explains how to avoid such primary stumbling blocks to successful telework as teleworker isolation, coworker resentment, and managerial resistance.

Working in non-conventional settings is on the rise in today’s business world. It is important to understand every angle of such employment in order to choose the arrangement that will work best for each company. Anywhere Working and the New Era of Telecommuting is an essential research publication for the latest information on flexible work arrangements and how these are made possible through recent developments in ICT. Featuring extensive coverage on a range of topics such as virtual offices, digital inclusion, and telehealth, this book is ideally designed for researchers, professionals, and managers seeking current research on the methods, benefits, and disadvantages of non-traditional working environments.

Break the chains to the past and learn to use the Internet and your existing skills to discover your true potential. Become a teleworker. Employees, managers and entrepreneurs can telework now. Forget about rush hour, meetings with a stressed boss and the boring office chit chat. You can telework from home, a coffee shop, a park and even from a plane 35,000 feet up! This is a book about people. It includes what I've learned in the last eight years, while working happily from home. Contents: * The benefits of teleworking * Ideas for convincing your boss to let you work from home * What you need to telework * Jobs you can do from anywhere * How to start teleworking * How to manage a distributed team * How to enjoy more time with family and avoid becoming a workaholic * Cases from my friends in many countries * Useful resources for teleworkers