Journal Review 2: Making telecommuting work

Rothman, J. "Making telecommuting work." Software, IEEE Volume 17, Issue 5, Oct. 2000 124-126. 24 Jul 2008 .

Johanna Rothman, a consultant for managing high-technology product development, helped analyze and implement telecommuting system for a software company she was managing at the time. Johanna examined the employee who was going to telecommute, the project team which she worked for, the management she was under, and other employees whom would need to contact the telecommuter. She was particularly interested in how communications would be passed between the telecommuter and other employees and managers. The personality of the telecommuter, and the personalities and actions of how the team works also played a factor in making the implementation of telecommuting.

Johanna made a lot of finding in her report in how to make telecommuting work. One of these finding was that it was very important to know the how exactly a telecommuter would do their work, and in a group setting work was done. It was important that managers, telecommuter and group members specified what work was to be done by each member, and that it was clear to everyone as it is difficult to check with your fellow employees if you are working at home or vice versa. Setting up rules for interaction was also important. While at work, there is an office culture or set standards of communications between employees, those standards disappear when a co-worker start to work at home. They are not as easily reachable as they would be at the office. It is important to make sure that these rules are convenient to all employees and mangers, and not just the telecommuter.

The second finding she made was that personality played a huge role in how successful an employee was as a telecommuter. Telecommuter needed to open, and willing to talk to people. If they lacked this type of personality there was many problem which a manager may face. One of these was an issue which could affect the productivity of a group or the company. This was if a telecommuter was having a problem with their work, it was harder for manager or other co-workers to find out about their troubles. If this telecommuter who was having problems was scared to ask for help from other members, or too stubborn to ask for help, it could throw a project behind schedule, and lower the productivity of the company. Another issue had to deal with input from group projects. If the personality of a telecommuter is one that is quiet and shy, during group meeting they may not be giving their input on a project. Since they probably not the type to speak up and they are not present at the actual meeting, they might be overlooked, and might not fully understand the whole project.

This paper itself was very interesting. I liked how the author used a real life example to help prove her claims. It actually made me think a lot about how exactly do companies choose which employees are allowed to work from home. It also made me wonder how some companies are totally independent from working at offices and totally remote working environment. If personality did play this much of a role, are companies the are fully remote working extremely interested in personality test when hiring employees to see if they are compatible with this type of work style? The paper was also made me wonder if these finding were specifically for software companies which are heavily reliant on group work as the author was a specialist in this field.

Business Management was definitely played a big role in this paper. It does not seem that this research was a interdisciplinary, however due to the authors knowledge in software engineering, it is possible that she used her understanding of how software engineering was done to help create these guidelines on how to make telecommuting works.

This paper was extremely useful in my research. This paper help me gain a better understanding of how the management side of business would look at the problem, and what were some of the solution from a real life business example. It gave me insight on things I need to consider such as employee’s personality, rules and guidelines on how employees should communicate with each other.