Management fads come and go. But anyone who thinks that telework is a passing trend should take a closer look.

Alain Verbeke has done just that. He spent five years studying the impact of telework on employees, managers, bottom-line results and on society.

His conclusion? Telework is here to stay, says Verbeke, who holds the McCaig research chair in management at the Haskayne School of Business at the University of Calgary.

Companies that already use telework are planning to do more of it, he adds. And managers and employees have discovered that their biggest fears about working from home or from satellite stations were ill-founded, or in most cases easily overcome.

Alain Verbeke: Managers fear loss of control over staff

It is a new business model, and Verbeke declares that telework, like mass production, has the potential to change society.

In large part, telework can reduce the demands for costly transportation infrastructure and cut pollution levels. Research shows that telework reduces people’s stress levels – imagine avoiding that 40-minute rush-hour commute twice a day – which leads to better health.

Verbeke’s findings this year have been published in North America in a book he has co-written with Viviane Illegems called Moving Towards the Virtual Workplace: Managerial and Societal Perspectives on Telework.

Verbeke will discuss his findings at the International Trade and Technology Summit in Calgary on June 23-25 (www.calgarysummit.com).

In an interview prior to the summit, Verbeke spoke enthusiastically and with conviction about the future of telework. He defines a teleworker as a person who spends at least one day a week working from home or from a satellite office using information communication technology as a substitute for work-related travel.

His five-year study gathered information from 83 companies in Brussels, a city of one million people. The city has run out of land to expand its infrastructure (i.e. to build more office buildings) and telework is proving to be one of the best options to overcome the challenge.

“One of the important conclusions of the research is that companies that adopted telework weren’t turning back,” he says. “They were staying on that path and planned to use it further.”

Verbeke explains that from a management perspective, telework succeeds on many levels.

First, employees are a company’s most important resource, so anything that can be done to attract, motivate or make staff more productive is a good managerial move, he says.

(In Canada, a January 2002 Royal Bank survey said that 77 per cent of teleworkers reported increased job satisfaction and 72 per cent had more time for their families. The Canadian Telework Association estimates that 1.5 million Canadians telework, most from home.)

And with fewer people working, the cost of office space can be reduced significantly – up to 50 per cent in actual cases, Verbeke says.

At the same time, business has a societal responsibility and telework offers many benefits.

“The first most evident thing is that you can reduce the pressure on the roads infrastructure,” Verbeke says – and with it, pollution, accidents and stress levels.

It also creates more opportunity to decentralize retail and other activities from the downtown core and spread them out into communities.

And telework is an important lever in moving towards a digital city: Meaning if there was ever a scare (terrorism, or other activities that disrupted the downtown core), business would be able to continue operating almost at normal levels.

So why don’t more companies embrace telework? The biggest barrier is fear. Managers worry about a loss of control over staff, or suspect that teamwork will suffer.

Verbeke’s research showed that wasn’t the case. With workers out of the office for one to three days, managers had to make more objective decisions on the work the employees were actually doing, he says. Managers also found that teams functioned better because, for example, when meetings were called, all participants were better prepared and less time was wasted.

At the same time, the majority of workers found they had fewer distractions at home, eliminated wasted time traveling, loved their flexibility (which helped with childcare and eldercare issues) – and significantly, were more efficient than at the office.

Verbeke says a common concern for workers is the loss of social and professional interaction, but research showed that only a small minority of workers actually found it a problem.

“Employees have to ask, ‘Is this for me?’ ” Verbeke says. “And employers have to make sure they have the right people in place. Are they self-starters and disciplined? Or are they the type of person who needs to have a group of people around that motivates them to work?”

In some cases, training might be necessary for staff. And Verbeke also says it’s important for companies that want to start teleworking to begin with pilot projects utilizing small groups of people.

Organizations should talk to other similar companies that telework and choose the best practices that will fit their company, he adds. How far you go depends on the firm.

“You have to state that this isn’t a fad . . . that once you head down this path, you can’t turn back.”

And companies aren’t going back. Verbeke says they’re realizing it’s a useful strategy for their business. Once they buy in, teleworkers won’t go back to working five days a week in the office – not because it’s a luxury to work at home, but because it’s just more productive.

He notes that it’s been predicted nearly half of the 2000 largest global firms will eventually adopt telework. In Canada, companies such as Nortel, Bell Canada and IBM Canada already utilize telework as a business practice.

Verbeke hopes to develop telework as an option in Canada. He and Haskayne colleague Bob Schulz recently received federal funding that will allow them to work with a small group of Calgary companies. The pair will try to apply, adapt and augment ideas developed in Verbeke’s Brussels research at the local level.

He believes it’s an ideal market.

“When you look at the people downtown in large office buildings . . . I would venture to say that 40 to 50 per cent of those individuals are good candidates to work from home, or a telework station, between one and three days a week.”

Just think of what that would do for rush hour.