Confidential Client, Boston. Photo © Robert Benson
Today’s decentralized workforce and growing gig economy have created a multitude of highly mobile employees that easily stay connected through cloud-based programs like Skype, Slack, and WebEx. Millennials, in particular, readily embrace and push for flexible work locations, often choosing that benefit over a bump in salary. According to the 2017 Deloitte Millennial Survey, the percentage of telecommuting millennials is up 21% from 2016, with studies linking remote work to increased performance and productivity. Culturally, working remotely is on the rise, but in some quarters corporate America has something else in mind. Many big businesses that once supported and even encouraged the telecommuting trend are beginning to pull back.
Since 2013, among large corporations, we’ve seen a slow but steady effort to bring telecommuters back to the office on the premise that working shoulder to shoulder, augmented by spontaneous conversations in the office, is more conducive to nurturing innovation and building company culture. Google, Aetna, Yahoo, IBM, Apple, and Bank of America have all reduced or eliminated their work-from-home programs. Although evidence confirms that telecommuting workers can increase productivity, it has yet to demonstrate the effectiveness of telecommuting on innovation or company culture.
The benefits that come from face-to-face interaction and chance encounters with coworkers cannot be undervalued. But the power of technology to unite and provide a neutral virtual space where telecommuting participants are less likely to be influenced by charisma, physical proximity, nationality-based biases, or even their own introversion opens the door for fresh input, perspectives, and innovation, making agreement with dominant team members less probable.
Confidential Client, Culver City, CA. Photo © Benny Chan/Fotoworks