Gordon Brenne, a consultant who assists the Telework Consortium on a number of studies of telework productivity, responded via email to my recent post on Case grows for teleworking :

"I agree generally with the conclusions about measuring performance. Measuring employee performance is critical to success in any environment, and is probably a greater barrier to telework now, than costs which continue to drop, and remote collaboration technology which is becoming more civilized and ubiquitous.

There are two somewhat subtle ways in which I disagree with the article, and a third point about video conferencing which is related.

1. Output measures- these aren't the only way to manage performance, and sometimes can produce sub-optimal results. In fact for all but front line sales staff, the classic output measure of sales per employee just is too remote to be a useful barometer. Many organizations have teams of knowledge workers working together to produce products and deliver services where time to market is more critical. These organizations measure and manage cycle times (percent of times a task, product or service is completed within say 80% of schedule or standard time.) Quality is also important- both internal (conformance to spec) and external (often measured by customer satisfaction). Lastly, overhead costs for space and employee retention are material for many organizations and can be influenced by telework strategies. Tradeoffs between output measures of productivity, cycle time, and quality are common and all three must be in balance to succeed.

2. Broadband access- while it is true that effective access to legacy systems and work flow applications requires a higher speed connection, many teleworkers work off-line less than 5 days a week. For these workers, use of slower speed connections for remote collaboration via email does not inhibit their effectiveness. Certainly, increasing telework adoption rates within an organization, shifting teleworkers to a 5 day week remote collaboration schedule benefit from higher speed connections that employees enjoy in the standard office environment. There is no question that organizations are continuing to roll-out real time applications and that the performance of future teleworkers will increasingly be dependent on higher speed connections, but for now the case is often overstated if there are adequate compensating business processes and controls in place. As for space cost savings and employee retnetion benefits, these can be realized without broadband connections when hoteling and flexible work solutions are implemented along with telework.

3. Video conferencing, performance and broadband- one general purpose application that requires broadband access video conferencing. In many organizations that rely on informal approaches to performance measurement, video conferencing can remotely facilitate the informal and frequent management processes (e.g., management by walking around) that take place in standard office environments. However, the literature and data are still inconclusive on this point, but point towards improved cycle time and quality in high risk projects that require frequent interaction between remotely located staff. The Telework Consortium has a pilot study underway with the Census Bureau to increase our understand of how video conferencing improves performance."

12:58:28 PM    
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In another angle on the EIU study blogged earlier this week, the vuNet.com's Case grows for teleworking By Martin Courtney [22-07-2003] reports that "Technology, productivity and costs now proven, finds survey" but "the main barrier to allowing staff to work from home is the difficulty of monitoring their output".

10:20:10 AM    
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Small businesses not blown over by broadband hype (July 22 2003) from the Sydney Morning Herald reports the results of a large scale study of small businesses and broadband adoption in Australia.  The report, The Broadband Barometer, is intended to be the first in an ongoing quarterly series.

While initial survey results indicate a "ho hum" attitude towards a number of broadband-enabled technologies (less than half anticipated using video, voice-over-ip, and wireless), I expect their outlook to change significantly over time, as people begin to see the possibilities that broadband enables.

On a whim I Googled "The Broadband Barometer"  and found Cisco Introduces Broadband Barometer in Chile. (Feb 19, 2003) Prepared by IDC Chile, the Broadband Barometer is intended to become the official indicator for the high-speed Internet evolution in Chile. This survey looks at the ISP providers, vs. broadband users.

10:14:35 AM    
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