The perfect 'absentee' employee

You never hear complaints about him from his supervisors and he floods your inbox with great ideas. He is, however, never around. He is a telecommuter.

Telecommuter, teleworker, e-worker, WAHs (work at home), virtual work and mobile workers, telework or the ability to work from anywhere outside your office is being embraced by corporations large and small around the world.

The good
According to Rose Stanley, a work-life practice leader, from the nonprofit association, WorldatWork, trends in e-working will continue to increase globally. "A 2006 estimate by JALA International says there are 100 million workers currently under some type of telework programme (at least one day per month) globally with it forecasted to more than triple by 2030."

While the numbers may seem startling, experts are quick to note that e-working is an extension to concepts such as teleworking and telecommuting which were coined in the 70s by Jack Nilles.

A physicist and engineer from Lawrence University, Nilles demonstrated the first telework project in 1970s.

"At that time, those concepts were limited to certain flexible work practices, in particular working partially from home, say one day per week," says Jasper Lim MS researcher at Delft University of Technology in The Netherlands. These types of home teleworking were originally used to solve traffic congestion problems, he adds.

The idea was to reduce the need for office space and improve balance of work and family. But, says Lim, since the appearance of new forms of information and communication technologies (such as wireless networks) there are even more e-working practices. "For instance, people can now work on the train during business travel, checked their emails during vacation or even work during a trans-Atlantic flight."

Telework was also the beginning of outsourcing some difficult to staff positions. "IT professionals from India are hired remotely to work for a company based in Europe," says Lim. So as technology evolves, the way people work evolves.

Just as Lim suggests, Robert Smith, director of the US-based ITAC, agrees that technology has driven the tele-commute. Founded in 1993, Smiths' ITAC is an organisation dedicated to awareness, progress and success of work independent of location. He believes people can work from anywhere due to the increasing availability of portable computer and high-speed communication technologies.

"For example, the use of broadband in the U.S. home by teleworkers increased by over 60 percent during the past year resulting in 25.6 million home-based teleworkers with high speed access."

Large companies are finding that employees are more willing to work for flexibility [telework] than ask for more money, says Stanley. And teleworking is a boon to small companies too.

"However," says Lim. "the motivation for applying e-working in a company depends on a number of factors." He suggests that CEOs and CFOs need to ask themselves: Is any employee requesting e-working, such as family life issues? Are there benefits for the company in terms of cost reduction, in terms, for instance, of office space? Does the company care about society and environment - reducing traffic congestion, pollution?