Intranet DASHBOARD, has released research information from its Telecommuting Survey, which shows companies are forfeiting potential telecommuting productivity benefits because they lack trust in their employees. The results from the US-based Survey show 70% of the respondents were restricted from teleworking, and that the major reason telecommuting was not more prevalent in the U.S. workforce was due to upper managements lack of trust in employees and concerns regarding reduced productivity. However, according to Gartner and Deloitte, telecommuting is set to continue to increase with 100 million corporate employees expected to be working from home at least one day a month by 2008.
The Intranet Dashboard 390 person Survey of US executives identified that there were significant savings to be had in infrastructure costs, absenteeism, and productivity. The Survey found 83% of respondents felt that teleworking is considered an incentive or perk for staff, and 65% responded that flexible schedules was more important as an incentive to motivate and retain staff over increased base compensation, monetary bonuses, equity incentives, and rewards programs. This is reflected in a survey by the Information Technology Association of America that found that 36% of respondents would choose telecommuting over a pay raise. However, according to the Telecommuting Survey, managements’ largest concern with telecommuting was lack of employee productivity, while document safety, bandwidth issues, and IT infrastructure costs following as other issues.