Working from home
The advent of computer technology and the Internet have revolutionized the world of work. As the Internet becomes increasingly popular, so does the practice of working from home. The Jakarta Post's computer correspondent Zatni Arbi discusses this new trend in Indonesia.
JAKARTA (JP): When rumors were circulating that there would be huge rallies on Jan. 15, Fiona Mambu, the program manager for communications at IBM Indonesia, decided to stay home rather than risk becoming trapped in a dangerous situation. Yet she was able to get all her work done that day. All she needed was a telephone line, a cellular phone to back it up, a fax machine and a ThinkPad.
It just so happened that her company had introduced a flexible work arrangement for its employees, particularly those working in marketing departments, in July last year. So when she needed to contact a coworker to discuss their ad campaign, Fiona simply called him at home, and she did not have to feel bad about it. It was not considered an intrusion into his private life.
IBM Indonesia is not the only company in the country where working from home has been introduced. In fact, RisTI, the Bandung-based research and development arm of PT Telkom, has been practicing telecommuting even longer than IBM. In early 1998, RisTI, which always puts to good use the technologies it has, set up a satellite office in a location that was closer to where many of its staff lived.
This satellite office on Jl. Terusan Jakarta in Antapani, Bandung, is 12 kilometers away from RisTI's main office, which is located inside PT Telkom's office complex on Jl. Gegerkalong Ilir. Those who have been to Bandung will know that due to traffic congestion in the city, it can take up to one hour to cover this distance.
RisTI staff may work from the satellite office or from their homes. "Several of us at RisTI, including RisTI's chief Pak Suryatin Setiawan, have from time to time worked at home," said Fentiani, RisTI's system development coordinator. Fentiani works a lot on her computer and telephone and is a frequent telecommuter.
"When my two sons have gone off to school, I stay and work at home for half the day until they return home from school. Then I go to the office to continue my work."
This is the kind of flexibility that has attracted millions of people around the world to the idea of working from home. Their work still gets completed, but the telecommuters -- or teleworkers -- have the flexibility to sneak out and do the chores that need to be done. It is an ideal balance of work and family life that is almost impossible to get in a traditional workplace setting.
Hanny Agustine, who worked in a traditional office for nine years -- including several years with the global consulting company KPMG, said: "In the past, it was so difficult for me to take care of family matters because I was supposed to be at the office from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. It was difficult to get approval to stay home when my child was sick, and it was a challenge to find the time to go to the bank to take care of my accounts, and the banks were closed on Saturdays. Only during weekends was I able to do some exercise to keep myself physically fit. Since I started working from home three and a half years ago, however, I have been able to follow my own daily priorities."
On the rise
Telecommuting, whether working from home or from a telework center that is not far from where one lives, was a novel idea back in the early 1980s, when the Internet was not available for public use and having a cellular phone in your pocket was still a vague dream. At that time, people envisioned a workplace at home that was based just on the telephone and the fax -- and the occasional modem-to-modem file transfer.
Today, with the Internet, e-mail and cellular phones having made telecommuting so much easier, the research firm IDC has projected that the number of telecommuters in the U.S. will rise from 8.7 million in 1999 to 11.4 million in 2004. They believe that the total number of U.S. mobile and remote workers, which includes telecommuters, mobile data collectors, mobile professionals and work extenders, will increase from about 39 million in 1999 to 55 million in 2004.
They also have projected the size of the mobile worker population in Latin America and Western Europe will grow 28 percent, from 5.1 and 8 million in 1999 to 17.4 and 27 million in 2004, respectively.
Last October, the International Telework Association and Council released the results of its annual survey. They found that the number of Americans who worked from a remote location -- which the prefix "tele" alludes to -- rose 20.6 percent to 23.6 million in 2000 from 19.5 million in 1999.
There have been numerous debates over the exact meaning of terms such as "home worker", "telecommuter", "teleworker" and "mobile worker".
Some people use "telecommuter" and "teleworker" interchangeably, while others emphasize the fact that the term "telecommuter" focuses on not having to physically commute to the office every day and the word "teleworker" refers to anyone who works from a remote location. Some of these teleworkers may work at home, some in telework centers.
To make things more complicated, those who work at home may or may not be full-time salaried employees. However, basic to all these concepts is that whoever they are, they do not have to be present in an office to complete their work.
More than just flexibility
Besides the flexibility, there are multiple other reasons that make working from home so attractive. First, not having to commute every day means that one is freed from a daily nightmare. If you drive your car to the office, think of the savings in fuel, car maintenance and parking fees. If you take public transportation, imagine avoiding the exhaustion of struggling to catch the bus or train.
Eliminating commuting means you can start your workday with a fresh mind and body. "Driving for three hours a day to and from work really taxes you physically and mentally," said Hanny, who is now running her own home office working on research projects that require her to collaborate with team members in India, Thailand, the Philippines, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore.
"After working at home for three and a half years, I don't think I'll ever go back to the old, traditional workplace," she added.
AT&T conducted a survey in 1999 on teleworking and found that on average a teleworker puts in at least one extra work hour a day because they do not have to commute. This translates into 250 extra work hours -- or six extra weeks -- a year.
In Jakarta, you can easily imagine how many hours could be saved each day if you did not have to travel to the office. In Bandung the situation is not much different.
"Each time I go to the office, I have to spend one and a half to two hours just for the trip," said Fentiani. "At the office, I also have to spend money to buy lunch, and that adds to my `operational costs.'"
Contrary to what a lot of people still believe, productivity tends to be higher when one works at home -- provided that the right ingredients are in place, the most import being self- discipline.
At home, there are fewer distractions from coworkers. In the U.S. workplace, there are expressions such as "watercooler sessions" or "over-the-partition discussions" that aptly describe the threat to productivity posed by fellow workers.
Coworkers may drop by and distract you from your work. Your boss may call you into his office saying, "It will only take a minute," and then spend half an hour showing you the pictures of his new grandson. Instead of soothing, mind-stimulating Baroque music by Handel in the background, you hear the constant ringing of telephones. Add to this the less-than-clean air that most of us breathe in high-rise office buildings. There are certainly fewer of these types of distractions at home.
And people who are sick or disabled can benefit significantly from the work-at-home arrangement. Those with the flu may be too weak to go to the office, but they can still carry on with their projects at home without having to worry that they are spreading germs to other people in the office.
Working from home not only benefits employees, it also benefits employers. First and foremost, numerous studies have shown that it increases employee satisfaction. This means that, with a telecommuting option, companies will be better able to retain their top talent. At a time when IT professionals are hard to find, retaining the ones they already have is a priority for companies.
And, because telecommuting employees do not have to show up at the office anyway, absenteeism is no longer an issue. The main thing is that all the tasks are completed. Telecommuting can also become part of a company's contribution to saving the environment. In November last year, for example, AT&T received an award from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for its telework program, which put fewer cars on the road during rush hours. But most beneficial of all is the increase in productivity, provided that the telecommuters are well managed and supported.
Not for everyone
Clearly, not all types of work can be done from home. Bank tellers have to serve customers from behind their counters. Nurses have to be there in hospitals. Doctors still have to perform surgery in ORs. Police officers cannot keep crime rates down just by using their handy talkies. However, there are a lot of other jobs that can be done from home, especially those that rely on information technologies such as the personal computer. Web designing, copywriting, translating, accounting and programming are just some of the types of work that suit home workers very well.