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Commentary
Jack M. Nitles
Many people see the recent advances in microelectronics, tele-
communications and computer technologies, and their applica-
tions to working at home as the coming of a new, bright age, the
age of the electronic cottage. Others see these technological ad-
vances as forerunners of the return of old forms of repression,
exploitation, and losses of individual freedom in a new variation,
the age of the electronic sweatshop. Which will it be?
The underlying technological change is rapid and intense. Since
the late 1 960s the cost of raw computing power has been dropping
at an annual rate of 25 to 40 percent. This trend is likely to con-
tinue at least into the m~-1990s before its rapid pace diminishes.
Personal computers, which first appeared as commercial prod-
ucts in 1975, now outnumber other general purpose computers of
aD types by ~ to 1. The turn of the century could see general pur-
pose computers of significant capability in at least 80 percent of
U.S. households and almost aB U.S. businesses, regardless of size.
A "significant" computer has the ability to perform most routine
and many specialized information processing tasks of importance
to a business or a family. Unlike today, most of those future com-
puters will be connected, or connectable, to digital telecommuni-
Jack M. Nilles is director of the Information Technology Program, Center for Fu-
tures Research, Graduate School of Business Administration, University of Southern
California, Los Angeles.
133
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134
THE FUTURE
cations networks dominated by the telephone system. The accel-
erating development of this computer and telecommunications
infrastructure provides the basis for several changes.
One such change is working at home, generally with the aid of
computer or telecommunications technologies, telecommuting.
The basic technologies are largely available; the systems technol-
ogies need further development for many applications. But a vari-
ety of other factors continue to affect the growth and acceptance
of workstations in the home.
DEMOGRAPHY
Specific figures vary, but experts generally agree that nearly
half of the U.S. labor force comprises information workers, those
whose income clerives primarily from creating, assembling, ma-
nipulating, storing, and disseminating information, or operating
information processing machines. There is less agreement on the
future growth of this sector, particularly as the influence of micro-
computers is felt. In the past, the net effect of the introduction of
computers has been a substantial increase in the number of infor-
mation jobs and a smaller decrease in the number of manufactur-
ing jobs.)
It is not at all clear that this growth relationship will continue,
particularly since business uses of microcomputers are likely to
cause shifts in the types of jobs available, emphasizing cognitive
skills and Reemphasizing dexterity. In short, managerial and pro-
fessional jobs are likely to become more complex, analytical, and
diverse. Secretarial and clerical jobs as we now know them will
diminish in number and become more routine. Text processing
and other traditionally secretarial tasks already are being per-
formed by microcomputer-equipped managers and professionals.
Data entry clerical tasks are being performed directly by cus-
tomers as electronic funds transfer and other network informa-
tion services proliferate. If these trends hold, they will have im-
portant consequences for telecommuting and, especially, for
women in the work force.
Almost all secretarial and clerical positions, one-third of the to-
tal jobs, are held by women. These generally low-paying informa-
tion jobs appear to be most threatened by computer technologies.
On the other hand, a large and growing fraction of the new com-
puter programmer work force is comprised of women. Computer
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COMMENTARY
135
programmers constitute a large proportion of contemporary tele-
commuters, but they are still a small proportion of the total work
force. Also, most part-time workers are women. Many of these
women work part time because there are not sufficient day-care
facilities for their young children.
According to U.S. Census data, there is a long-term population
trend away from the cities and into rural areas.2 Skilled informa-
tion workers, managers, professionals, and technicians constitute
a disproportionate share of those people choosing to leave the cit-
ies. Most of the managers, professionals, and technicians are men.
The nature of managerial and professional jobs, i.e., the need for
periods of solitary thought and analysis, is often conducive to re-
mote working. Men seem to enjoy working at home, according to
the evidence presented in this volume. Women may be less enthu-
siastic, looking to office situations to escape from their tradi-
tional distaff roles.
Ambiguity characterizes most statements about computer
work in the home. We simply do not know the details of what is
happening to information jobs, nor does anyone seem to be sys-
tematically collecting the information. It is clear, however, that
change is occurring at an accelerating pace.
What does this have to do with telecommuting? All of the tech-
nological and demographic trends, insufficiently documented as
some may be, point to an increasing predisposition of workers,
particularly managers and professionals, toward working at or
near home. This predisposition, together with the technological
trends, provides necessary but not sufficient conditions for wide-
spread home telecommuting. A further requirement is that tele-
commuting be attractive to employers. Evidence presented in
this volume indicates that this is so.
To some extent there is bias in the evidence presented here by
organizations experimenting with telecommuting. In all of the
cases studied, the home telecommuters were volunteers; all had
personal reasons for preferring to work at home at least part time.
None were forced or otherwise pressured to telecommute. Most
were managers or professionals. Nevertheless, for the reasons
just stated, this group may be entirely representative of the ma-
jority of telecommuters in the coming decade. The only group not
represented here is the set of independent telecommuters—those
who have initiated telecommuting as individual entrepreneurs or
as employees of organizations that have no formal telecommuting
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136
THE FUTURE
experiments or operations in process. This latter group, consist-
ing of a mix of full- and (mostly) part-time telecommuters, now
numbers from 20,000 to 30,000 individuals.
When ~ first began studying telecommuting in 1971, before
coming to the University of Southern California, and during the
next few years of research on the topic, ~ believed that there were
a number of possible barriers to the acceptance of telecommuting.
These included employees' fears of change, computers, personal
isolation, career arrest, threatened job security, and exploitation;
and employer's fears of lowered productivity, increased turnover
rates, decreased ability to react to change, any warnings of exploi-
tation by organized labor. While these fears still exist, the reali-
ties are much less forbidding than the apprehensions on both
sides. Nevertheless, the fears and expectations may be much
more important than the realities in affecting the growth of
telecommuting.
PRODUCTIVITY
The dominant fear expressed by managers, upon first hearing
about telecommuting, is that their employees wiB slack off and
become less productive, given the least opportunity.
In a more sanguine frame of mind, in 1971 ~ anticipated that
productivity would increase for information workers using com-
puters in environments more isolated than the average office. Ex-
periments in 1973 in the insurance industry supported my as-
sumption; productivity of clerical workers and underwriters
increased 15 percent in a remote office situation.3
Evidence presented in this volume indicates productivity im-
provements for home telecommuters of at least 20 percent in aU
cases, with several claims of 50 percent or more for some workers,
managers, professionals, and clericals. Even though universally
acceptable definitions of productivity are as rare as unicorns, the
evidence is distinctly positive. For the skeptics, many reasons can
be found for these improvements: more actual work time per day
due to fewer interruptions; longer hours in compensation for elim-
inated commutes; increased quality due to fewer distractions,
greater concentration, and work hours modified to suit individual
metabolisms; and stronger work incentives due to a greater sense
of "being in control" or to piecework payment systems. All but
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COMMENTARY
137
the last of these items seem unthreatening to the remote
employee.
The durability of these productivity estimates is evidenced by
F International, with its 20-year history of growth based on the
competitive advantage of part-time telecommuters, even without
sophisticated home terminals, in the United Kingdom and
Europe.
Our initial expectations were that turnover rates would be re-
duced mildly. The 1973 insurance company experiments showed a
drop in turnover rate from 33 percent to zero. The experiences of
other authors in this volume lead to the conclusion that turnover
is substantially reduced, almost to zero; however, no program has
been running long enough for any long-term statistical conclu-
sions to be reached. (The longest trial reported ran about eight
months.) As with the productivity issue, the "Hawthorn Effect"
may be a factor in these studies.*
The fear of "out of sight, out of mind" can be strong for employ-
ees and employers. Employees fear that the boss won't remember
them at promotion time, and the boss has nightmares about key
telecommuting employees running off to, or becoming, competi-
tors. No evidence of either phenomenon has turned up in the cases
presented to date. On the contrary, anecdotal evidence gathered
at the University of Southern California indicates that organiza-
tions with good internal communications systems that include
the remote employees, through electronic messaging for example,
induce stronger feelings of identification with organizational
goals.4 Of course, the evidence also shows the greater importance
of good communications between an employer and an employee
working in a remote situation.
ATTRACTIVENESS
Our initial opinion, in the early 1970s, was that home telecom-
muting would not be attractive to many people, primarily for so-
cial reasons. People would want to remain in the office environ-
ment for its social contacts. Yet a primary motivation for
*The Hawthorn Effect was first noted in a series of experiments at Western Electric.
Production increased when illumination either increased or decreased. The workers
were responding to management's interest, per se, in their welfare—ed.
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138
THE FUTURE
corporate home telecommuting experiments is the ability, by
means of telecommuting programs, to attract or retain key talent.
The ability to work at home is seen as an inducement that is more
powerful than salary considerations. The telecommuting environ-
ment allows flexible hours, casual cress, decreased stress, and
economic benefits. These factors can act as powerful motivators.
Social contacts can be maintained by frequent, but not daily, trips
to the office.
COSTS
When we first evaluated telecommuting in 1973, before the ad-
vent of microcomputers, we concentrated on the capital, real
property, and operations costs. At that time telecommuting
looked attractive to employers on the cost basis alone. As central
city property costs have escalated over the last decade, and as
information technology costs have plummeted, the advantages
have become even more striking. As V. S. Shirley of F Interna-
tional puts it, indirect costs of telecommuting consist primarily of
management and communications, not facilities. Added to this
are the reductions in training costs produced by lower turnover,
in travel where telecommuting or teleconferencing is used, and in
staff requirements (or greatly increased income) resulting from
productivity improvements. Some cost increases may result from
the necessity to train managers, employees, and coworkers in the
finer points of telecommuting. These are expected to be more than
offset by the benefits.
Cost benefits on the employees' side include reduction in cloth-
ing, food, and transportation expenses, the latter possibly offset
if the employee buys the necessary equipment and services, such
as extra telephone lines, answering machines, and copying equip-
ment. Drawbacks are largely related to the need to usurp part of
the home for a workplace, or add to the size of the home. If fears of
exploitation are realized in the future, then the costs of decreased
job mobility and reduced income may well offset any gains for the
affected employees.
MANAGEMENT ISSUES
One general conclusion emerges in this volume: There is no sub-
stitute for good management. Telecommuting provides some ad-
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COMMENTARY
139
ditional challenges in this respect. An underlying issue is the ad-
versary relationship between managers and employees that
seems to be characteristic of organizations in the United States
and Europe. When present in a telecommuting situation, this re-
lationship can be particularly counterproductive. A typical fear
expressed by managers who are first exposed to the concept of
home workstations is that their subordinates will take advantage
of their invisibility and productivity will plummet. Experiences
related here indicate the opposite. Still, the fears remain. Positive
experiences are all the result of the development of a high level of
trust between manager and employee, augmented by a carefully
thought-out system of performance measures to bolster that
trust. Good managers should do well in telecommuting situa-
tions. Bad managers will founder more quickly than in a tradi-
tional office.
As further indication of the need for active management, al-
most all of the corporate experiments discussed here were the ef-
forts of individual managers. Where the experiments have stag-
nated or simply stabilized, it is because the responsible individual
has left the scene. It is important that the spirit of the experiment
be sustained, particularly in situations where there are changes in
corporate structure.
Employee selection also plays a vital role. The most important
attribute of a prospective telecommuter seems to be inner-
directedness, the ability to start and complete a task under one's
own steam. High achievers probably would make good telecom-
muters. According to the authors here, prior familiarity with com-
puters does not seem to be a major consideration, nor does prior
familiarity with company practices and procedures, provided
good communications between managers and telecommuters are
maintained. Handicapped individuals with limited mobility may
also be exceptionally motivated candidates for telecommuting,
since it gives them a special employment opportunity.
Three groups might benefit from training specifically oriented
to telecommuting: managers, telecommuting employees, and the
office staffers who work with the telecommuters.
Managers need to develop project status reviews, message-
based communication techniques, and methods for coping with
the unusual working hours of some telecommuters. Managers
also need to develop methods for appraising employee perfor-
mance, compensation and benefit plans, career development tech-
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140
THE FUTURE
piques, and termination criteria to match the new environment.
One of the most sensitive issues may be appraising performance
without the use of surveillance.
Employees need to develop self-reliance and an awareness of
the increased need for quality communications with their supervi-
sors and each other.
Office workers who interact with telecommuters need to de-
velop a better understanding of the changes in working patterns.
This latter group is the most often overiookecl in many company
test programs.
In designing telecommuters' work, the characteristics of the
telecommuting environment and of the ideal telecommuter indi-
cate the need for task flexibility and employees' control rather
than the rigid systems imposed in some work environments.
Tasks should be well specified to minimize the loss of time due to
misunderstandings.
Managers also may be concerned about computer misuse and
crime. Clearly, there is greater risk of equipment loss and informa-
tion leakage when the information system is physically distrib-
uted over a wide area rather than concentrated at a single work
site with access control.
EMPLOYEE ISSUES
Issues of fair employment practices, led by concerns about vari-
ous forms of exploitation of workers, are a major component of
this volume. Particular attention was directed to nonexempt
workers as the most likely to be exploited; the evolution of ex-
ploitative situations in the nineteenth century in manufacturing,
particularly in the garment industry, and the potential for repeti-
tion of these scenarios in information work, particularly secretar-
ial and clerical jobs; and the effects of those clevelopments on
women in the work force. The AFL-CIO is sufficiently concerned
about these issues that it has issued a provisional ban against
working at home.
The AFL-CTO position typifies the adversarial relationship be-
tween labor inch management that is common in many U.S. orga-
nizations. The AFI,-ClO has taken a preemptive stance: although
there is no known exploitation of telecommuters, the best way to
prevent exploitation is to avoid future situations in which exploi-
tation could occur. In my opinion this is utterly unrealistic. Infor-
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COMMENTARY
141
mation workers wid on their own begin insisting on telecommut-
ing arrangements. Managers impressed by the benefits of
telecommuting wiB accommodate these desires. Managers with
long-term views of their own success will not engage in exploita-
tion. Others win. It is to these "others" that labor groups should
direct their attention.
Is piecework inherently exploitative? Margrethe H. Olson
points out that exploitation tends to occur with piecework, or con-
tract work, in a condition of oversupply of labor. The greatest
near-term possibility for oversupply of information workers is in
clerical and secretarial work, for just these reasons. At present,
the demand for managers and professionals with computer com-
petence is far in excess of the supply. Whether this wiB be the case
10 years from now is less certain.
One interesting result of a ban on home telecommuting for cleri-
cal workers is that telecommuting may produce "telescabs." Jobs
may be exported to the Caribbean islands, India, and Korea, for
example, via telecommunications satellite, resulting in an abso-
lute job loss for U.S. workers.
Exploitation in piecework most often takes the form of demand
for excessive rates of production in a situation that is not easily
monitored, such as the home. Computers can effectively monitor
work rates and performance. They can serve as watchdogs as wed
as tools, provided that the work records are available to groups
suspecting exploitation.
Thus far, computers cannot distinguish between an adult
worker performing a job and a child using the same equipment as
an aid to parents. It is not difficult to imagine children as informa-
tion workers in situations that violate child labor laws. But is the
situation really the same as those against which the laws were
written? New, innovative laws may be required to guide employ-
ers and parents and to protect children.
OTHER LEGAL AND SOCIAL ISSUES
Overlaid on the problems of unequal pay and unequal upward
mobility for women are the social customs that still require
women to be full-time housekeepers and child-rearers even
though they also have careers outside the home. Can telecommut-
ing have any effect on this situation? Picture the dilemma of the
woman telecommuter: At last she can have a career and care for
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THE FUTURE
her smallchild~ Realistically, however, she cannot do this without
day care or by shifting her work schedule to hours when the chil-
dren are asleep. It is not possible to use a microcomputer that
lacks voice input while holding a small child in your lap. The day-
care help may be an older member of the family, such as a grand-
parent, creating other consequences for the nuclear family. The
shift in work schedule may mean that the telecommuter con only
work part time. Many contemporary telecommuter mothers are
part-time workers who would be unable to work at all without
telecommuting. In short, woman's lot is still not perfect in to-
day's work force, but women telecommuters seem to have more
options than nontelecommuters.
Other issues, including discrimination in compensation, insur-
ance, fringe benefits, and occupational safety and health, are
largely unresolved for telecommuters. Some companies treat
their telecommuters as independent contractors, others as part-
time employees or as employees without the full complement of
fringe benefits given to in-office workers. Other companies do not
distinguish between the two in terms of compensation and fringe
benefits.
A philosophy of fairness would dictate that if telecommuters
are as valuable to a company as other workers they should receive
equal compensation and benefits. The value judgment can include
the marginal costs to the employer of providing telecommuting
capability, provided that it also includes the benefits to the em-
ployer of increased productivity. There is considerable variation,
however, in existing corporate policies. To a large extent these
differences may be resolved in the market. Organizations with the
best telecommuting policies will get the best employees.
Occupational safety and health issues are more problematical.
It is not possible for an organization to control the working envi-
ronments of its home telecommuters. Nor is it clear what the re-
sponsibility of an organization is for the health and safety of tele-
commuters' children who happen to be in the work area. The only
definite statement that can be made at this point is that most of
these issues have yet to come to light in actual cases.
One issue with great local variability is that of zoning restric-
tions on home telecommuting. For many families with a sole, part-
time telecommuter the issue may be moot since detection of viola-
tions of work-at-home zoning restrictions would be quite difficult.
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143
However, one variant of home telecommuting could be the neigh-
borhood telecommuting node (a local family room or garage) in
which a few workers might congregate daily. Here the traffic
might present a clear zoning violation. This raises a broader issue:
If telecommuting is seen to be good or bad for the general public,
how should zoning laws be altered to reflect this judgment?
THE FUTURE
There are now more than two dozen companies and government
agencies that now have, or have had, telecommuting experiments
in operation. In 1973 there was one company experimenting with
telecommuting; most of the two dozen are relatively recent. Pub-
lic and corporate interest in telecommuting is steadily increasing,
as is made evident by articles in the media and by the existence of
this book. The growth in the number of personal computer owners
is astonishing. These patterns are precursors to a steady growth
in telecommuting. As large organizations gain more experience
with telecommuting, the number of home telecommuting employ-
ees win increase. Single-company satellite centers and multicom-
pany facilities operations will develop. Possibly equally impor-
tant wiD be the grass roots advances in telecommuting produced
by individual employees and by small firms utilizing telecommut-
ing technologies. In the near term most of these small firms wiB
likely be high-technology companies. As the systems technology
develops, and as computer literacy grows, the trend will spread to
other organizations.
A broad spectrum of telecommuting modes win be present a
decade from now. Some telecommuters (probably less than 10 per-
cent) win work full time at home. Most will work part time at home
or in local or satellite centers close to home. Some will rotate their
telecommuting, spending a few months or years at it between
tours at the traditional central office.
All of these statements about the future are conjecture, of
course, although based upon our studies at the Center for Futures
Research. For them to come to fruition on a grand scale, many of
the benefits of telecommuting must prevail and many of the draw-
backs must prove to be minor or illusory. Much needs to be done
to improve our understanding of the factors involved before we
definitely will know the value and potential of telecommuting.
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THE FUTURE
NOTES
1. Porat, Marc Uri. The Information Economy. Ph.D. dissertation, 1976. Stanford
University, Stanford, Calif.
2. Long, Larry and Diane De Are. The slowing of urbanization in the U.S. Scientific
American, Vol. 249, No. 1, pp. 33-41, July 1983.
3. Nilles, Jack M., F. Roy Carlson, Jr., Paul Gray, and Garhard J. Hanneman. De-
velopment of Policy on the Telecommunications-Transportation Tradeoff, Final
Report. Los Angeles: University of Southern California and the National Science
Foundation, 1974. Report No. NSF-RA-5-64-020.
4. Steinfield, Charles W. Social aspects of electronic mail systems. Annenberg
School of Communications, University of Southern California. Personal commu-
nication, June 1983.
Representative terms from entire chapter:
information workers
