“the importance of autonomy and happiness in productivity and performance”
No, no, no. There’s a simple disconnect going on here. Work is not about happiness, it’s not about “flourishing”.
“My attitude is I don’t really care where you are or when you work, once you get the work done. It seems like common sense to me.”
That’s actually the essense of the problem here. And it touches on what IELB says above also. For teleworkers there is an intensification of work, it’s not all about having the flexibility to drop the kids to school, to throw a load in the washing machine, to post on CLR etc. It’s about getting the work done, as you pointed out, that’s the bottomline. And there’s no escape. As IELB says, there are no duvet days for teleworkers, there’s no such thing as “too sick to work” unless it’s really really bad, there’s no clocking out time, it’s all about the “commitments to the team” and professional pride in getting the work done. But for every half hour of flexibility in the employees favour there’s the pressure to work late on getting that report in on time or whatever. That pressure isn’t any different when it’s located at home than if it is in the office, working late is working late, regardless of location. The reality is that without the separation of work space/time from home space/time, and without the normalising effect of social interaction with work colleagues, it is actually more stressful to be under pressure to deliver as a remote worker.
I appreciate that this perspective is not one you may have considered as an employer, other than to believe in the “common sense” of win-win for teleworking employer-employee relations.
This fluffy rosy view of teleworking as guaranteed win-win doesn’t stand up I’m afraid.
If you’re genuinely interested in a balanced assessment of tele-working and it’s impact on family, and how as a good employer you might best implement teleworking, then have a read of that book I referenced above. It’s on Google.
