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With the release of a new survey, the risks and rewards of telecommuting are under scrutiny again. The survey suggests that, by holding onto an old school mindset of "in the office, under our control" many companies are shooting themselves in the foot and letting measurable business benefits pass them by.

Intranet Dashboard recently released the results of its Telecommuting Survey. The results from this U.S. survey of 390 executives show that 70 percent of the respondents were restricted from telecommuting, and the major reason it was not more prevalent was due to management's lack of trust in employees and productivity concerns.

I know from experience that telecommuting was the perfect fit for me. I could be more productive without all the interruptions of the office, and I could enjoy the perks and wild fantasies like actually being able to look out and open a window. I considered it a privilege and loved the times I was able to do so.

In my case, even though the company supported telecommuting on paper, it was left to "management discretion." What that means is -- depending on the whims and personal styles of your current manager -- they could decide whether or not to allow you to telecommute. Unfortunately for me a reorganization left me with a fearful and distrustful manager and this great perk vanished immediately across the board for everyone in the department. Not only did it squash the potential productivity gains available through telecommuting, it did wonders for reducing employee morale.

The survey results bear out this intangible effect on employee satisfaction as well. More than 65 percent responded that flexible schedules were more important to motivating and retaining staff than increases in base compensation, monetary bonuses, equity incentives, and rewards programs.

Besides the general fear and insecurity factor, managers are also concerned that telecommuters won't get the access to information and systems needed to perform their jobs. They also want to make sure that security, bandwidth, and overall IT infrastructure costs are not compromised or overly costly.

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A company like Intranet Dashboard may have the answers to many of these technology concerns. As you might imagine, since Intranet Dashboard sponsored the survey, it is quick to address this concern by highlighting its suite of Intranet applications. Intranet Dashboard offers more than 40 Intranet tools to create and manage information and business processes. Their one stop shopping Intranet solution has been around in numerous incarnations for over 10 years. They were one of the earliest companies to offer an "intranet in a box" solution and continue to enhance their multi-faceted solution.

Regardless of the intranet solution a company chooses, the options abound for remote work. It's not the technology that is at the root of management's concerns but rather their perception (and fears) of technology that create the widespread syndrome of micromanagement. As I read the individual results of the survey, I noticed a few surprising statistics that illuminate how behaviors and expectations keep the brakes on and inhibit full adoption of telecommuting.

When asked "Do you measure Intranet usage in your organization?" 59 percent of the respondents said no. Here's a clear example of investing in a technology and attempting to drive employee behavior ("find it on the Intranet") without measuring results. How hard is it to simply glance at some web statistics now and then? How do you know what is really going on if you don't even look? The same folks so worried about Intranet ROI aren't even checking actual results.

Another surprising question to me was "What percentage of your workforce do you expect to regularly telework in the next 3-5 years?" Over 70 percent of the respondents fell into the greater than 25 percent category (with the split being fairly even between the ranges of 0-5 percent, 5-10 percent, and 10-25 percent). To me this question illustrates how deeply ingrained the fear and mistrust is and how unwilling management is to shift their thinking.

In the current environment of "doing more with less" and needing to drive business results, managers can no longer afford to turn a blind eye and a deaf ear to employees' desires for telework. It is one of the few low cost ways to drive increased productivity, improve employee satisfaction, and reduce costs associated with employee turnover and endless distractions in one fell swoop. It is not just a win-win, but an exponential win. All that needs to happen is for management attitudes to get on the bandwagon and realize the next generation of benefits available to them by using the Intranet to the fullest.

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