Telecommuting: The employee's perspective

Available telecommunication technology enables the substitution of commuting by “telecommuting”, or working at home, for a wide range of white collar occupations. Research on the potential of this phenomenon along with some ongoing experiments point at an array of social and personal benefits that may be realized by this working arrangement. An assessment of the possible implications of work-at-home on the individual employee indicate that the burden on him or her may be greater than the benefits accrued and, therefore, the journey to work may be a more desirable act than traditionally perceived by transportation planners. This paper focuses on two aspects of the work-at-home arrangement. Previous research on the sociology of work as well as preliminary empirical results indicate that 1) social interaction at work and 2) the need to separate home and work roles are important elements for the individual worker. The fact that work-at-home will affect these attributes, is likely to discourage wide-scale transition to this arrangement, despite the availability of the technology. Most research published to date on the subject is qualitative in nature, as only little empirical evidence is available. The objective of this paper is to stress, based on a wide literature review, the need for a thorough behavioral evaluation of the available technology to provide a sound basis for decision making on implementation of the technology.