Telecommuting is a concept that seems more at home in the Western world, rather than over here in Malaysia. I tried to explore the implications and practicality of this concept as applied to my own poor self as a guinea pig, and this post sums up my personal observations.
Before proceeding further, especially if any one reading this is somehow related to HR (of my present company), don't make assumptions. This is practically a *simulated telecommuting experience*. As HR policies dictate, we're not able to carry forward our balance annual leave infinitely over to the following years (ironic, as I would have thought that giving it your 110% generally leaves little time to use up annual leave in the first place). I am challenged to devise a method to drop below the top management radar, from the list of employees with high balance annual leave, and at the same time keep the important stuff (objectives and targets, department goals and projects) moving onward. So happened that due to a minor accident by a careless Kancil driver which left me car-less for a few days recently, by taking annual leave to stay at home, and at the same time staying in constant contact with my fellow colleagues at the office, I try to see if I can get things moving on at a comparable pace while physically being away from the office, so to speak.
Some jobs, by nature, are highly confidential, and are also unsuitable (not allowed even) to work on outside the office. Perhaps if you work for the FBI or CIA this applies to you....
* Infrastructure
Most of my daily work is spent working on a computer, mainly communicating via e-mail (MS Outlook) and working on data and reports (heavy use of MS Excel and Word). Of course, what I do is basically oversee and ensure that our New / improvement product / package development projects are moving and meet the pre-defined schedule (otherwise, plan out a recovery plan and re-define the schedule). That's as much as I can safetly say without violating the P&C policy and getting myself into a nasty predicament.
1) Laptop - Must have
For this, I have the benefit of a company-issued laptop, to do homework (or, depending on how you look at it, a device to extend your enslavement to the company way past office-hours...!). My previous *weapon* was a Dell D630, but recently, I have been issued with a replacement Dell E6420 (whether or not this makes much of a difference will be the subject of a future blog post).
2) Broadband Internet Connection - Must have
Of course, our project files are all parked on the company's internal servers, so to access them (via secure VPN) at reasonable speeds, you will need a fast and stable Broadband connection. Still anything can go wrong, so the best practice is a create a temporary working folder on your Desktop and copy over the file that you will be working on. Not only does this save you from a broken connection (when you anyway have to save the file locally), but it will speed things up quite a bit, especially if your MS Word likes to "Auto-save" from time to time.
3) Printer - Optional
The "paperless office" is still far, far away. Ironically, though it takes longer to find a physical printed document, it is much easier to refer to a piece of paper by your side, rather than flipping back and forth between different windows / virtual desktops. I try hard to resist printing out something for temporary reference, only to send it off for recycling after I'm done. Working around this in MS Word, I can view side by side with another word document, or resize the windows accordingly so that both documents are in view. Of course, this requires a rather large screen or monitor. My company issued laptop has a 14.1" screen with a horizontal resolution of 1366 pixels, but a vertical resolution of only 768 pixels, so working side by side is still manageable.
4) Phone - Must have
Communication is key to getting things done in a team. Unfortunately, getting the right message across in writing relies on both your ability to write down clearly what you are tring to say, and the ability of the receiver to correctly understand what you are writing. And of course, the message only has a chance to get across once someone actually opens up and reads your e-mail. For my case, having the ability to call up my staff is an invaluable tool and greatly helps. Through the phone, you can get real time feedback on whether your message got across correctly. I try to remember to ask for someone to explain back to me what he or she understands, to gauge their level of understanding. If the message comes back totally different, clearly we have to work on our communication skills!
5) Instant Messaging - Optional
Whether it's something as consumer-based as Yahoo! Messenger or specialized like Microsoft Office Communicator (OCS), instant messaging is another facility to enable real time communication. Of course, you need an internet connection for this. Nowadays, IM is not only restricted to typing - many support Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) and even video conferencing (for which you'll need a really fast internet connection and a webcam). I use OCS frequently in my communications with my counterparts overseas, mostly for desktop sharing (where you can show someone your desktop so you are all looking at the same file). Formerly we used a similar web-based online conferencing service called WebEx, but there was a terrible lag, especially when viewing PDF files, for some strange reason, so I could be looking at page 10 now, but my counterpart in Germany would still be looking at page 8!
* Experience
So, with the infrastructure set up, what was my experience like?
On working with others, most of my team are quite seasoned and thus we work together like a well-oiled machine. Save for some new people, who have yet to work as efficiently as us "old timers", most of the time, a short concise instruction is all I need to give, and it would be worked on with the necessary degree of efficiency. Of course, this does not work unless you have strong team support and good communication, even then, miscommunication and lag might set in once in a while, even among old players. I would say this is plausible, given the current set up, and can be further improved.
On working alone, example, generating reports, analysing data and creating test plans for reliability qualifications, this is a good place to work, as I'm free from the frequent distractions that crop up while in the office. Of course, some might argue, at home there are even MORE distractions, but generally, those you can control, you can cut out and keep focused on the task at hand.
Working at home is an unnatural thing for some. Some people even believe, because you are at home, you should not be working! Children (especially mine), seem to operate under the thinking that because Daddy is at home, they can play the whole day with him! So, telecommuting only works when you are effectively isolated from others.
Any real savings on commuting costs?
Well, not having to drive to work does save fuel, but for this to work you have to reduce the overall distance travelled per week. Going on "half-day" does not save fuel, since you still have to go to work for half a day. The farther away you live from office (and the less fuel efficient your car and driving technique), the more you will "save" from telecommuting.
of course, there are somethings that I cannot do, because I have to be physically present at my office, such as set up a tester or physically verify some devices using bench equipment. As I'm very much working as an engineer more often than most, there is no real alternative than going to work. Perhaps some day, we can have an "avatar" like in the movie, where we can perform tasks remotely (tele-presence). Until that day comes, though, tele-commuting might be a viable option sometimes, but for some, it would be impractical. I am sure if the company sanctions it, the nature of the job and required infrastructure would be well taken care off beforehand.
Do any of you out there have a similar working experience via telecommuting that you can share?
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