Are Remote Workers Good or Bad for Business?

Countless workers dream of trading in their nail-biting commute and bustling office for the peace and quiet of home, where they can get things done without interruption while wearing their favorite pair of jeans. Many companies are also on board with letting staff work remotely, and some even give their employees a great degree of geographic freedom, allowing them to live hundreds of miles from company offices.

While most agree that working remotely can be good for employees, there is less consensus on whether or not it benefits employers.

The benefits of working in an office
Tom Davenport, the President's Chair in Information Technology and Management at Babson College, recently blogged about Eclipsys, a software company that changed CEOs because the board of directors wanted someone to run the company from its Atlanta headquarters. (The previous CEO lived in Silicon Valley.)
Davenport quotes the company's new CEO, Philip Pead, as saying, "You can't deny how effective it is to be able to sit down and have lunch with another leader and resolve an issue quickly."

It's especially important, Davenport says, for senior managers to work in an office setting. He explains, "researchers have shown that their jobs typically consist of a variety of short, and frequently unplanned, interactions. It's much easier to accomplish these when you are all in the same vicinity." He cites companies such as IBM, AT&T and Sun as "dialing back" their virtual offices and encouraging employees to work at least part time in offices.

The benefits of working remotely
On the other side of the issue is Davenport's fellow Harvard Business blogger and Harvard Business School professor Rosabeth Moss Kanter, who wrote two months ago that allowing workers to stay home at least one day a week would "raise productivity, save energy, decrease pollution, reduce traffic congestion, cut household expenses, increase quality of family life and keep educated women in the work force."

Why working remotely doesn't always work
If there are so many benefits to working remotely, then why are some companies moving away from the practice?

Moss Kanter believes that many companies aren't ready for the stay-at-home revolution:

Without a culture of strong accountability, collaboration, trust and personal responsibility, remote work doesn't work. That culture is missing in too many organizations. Managers don't always know how to coordinate and communicate with people they do not see face to face; they must value the work product and not the face time.

Home office image courtesy of Flicker user dierken, CC 2.0