Friday, November 23, 2007

20 year study on homeworking

There are so many of these surveys saying teleworking/telecommuting/homeworking/shedworking is great that I tend not to bother you with them since they all say pretty much the same thing, but Tom Jowitt in PC Advisor comments on a really large study from the Department of Management and Organisation at Pennsylvania State University by Ravi S Gajendran and David A Harrison. The researchers looked at nearly 50 studies on flexible working over the past 20 years with details on nearly 13,000 homeworkers. Overall, they suggest teleworking is great for both employees (more control over how they work, higher job satisfaction, increased company loyalty, less stressed, better work/life balance, improved performance) and employers (performance levels don't drop, something AT&T should be musing over...). Their conclusion: "Contrary to expectations in both academic and practitioner literatures, telecommuting has no straightforward, damaging effects on the quality of workplace relationships or perceived career prospects."

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