Travails and treasures of telecommuting

Following is a response to the ‘My View – Humane Results’ column by Dr. Ajantha Dharmasiri published in the Daily FT on Monday, 28 February:

By Amal R. Dias

I could not agree more with Dr. Dharmasiri mainly on the factual points he has elaborated which clearly puts in perspective how appropriate telecommuting or ‘working from home’ or in reality working from any place for that matter is in today’s context. Coffee shops seem to be a trend now.

In a short note I wish to add to Dr. Dharmasiri’s theory on the ‘enablers’ of this concept and what should be available to make this concept a success.

In my view, we have reached the environmental conditions and the mindsets of the people to achieve this stage. However, success would be determined by having the right technology including the applications that would make this task a less painful experience.

As much as employers and employees enjoy the idea of the flexibility granted, hence expecting to enhance work satisfaction through which expect to achieve higher productivity, it is extremely important to keep abreast of the ‘really’ required technologies including applications that would fulfil to the highest level the expectations of the employer and the employee.

The internet plays the key role here but the speeds of which is the first and the biggest concern. Secondly the other underlined infrastructure such as security to a great extent been well covered but still is a concern looking at the scary flows exposed in bigger institutions and countries.

The next point is although the technologies may be available, are they being fully utilised? For example, to what extent is broadband, VPN, etc., being properly utilised to ensure an overall pleasant working experience not only from out but for that matter even while working within an office?

Diverting a bit, again my view is that the portal concept is brilliant but so underutilised, while it is not that difficult to enable. I mean a proper portal and not just a set of information that is been centrally stored and made available.

Portals can be customised to individual preferences depending on the type of work that one does, accommodating a few personal preferences. For example, if a person working in a finance division of an organisation, information and access would be based on the core functions. Also if the same person is a cricket fan, his desktop could have alerts on the major events happening similarly in any other area such as the stock market information to the weather or horoscope.

All internal support applications and functions can be a click away on the desktop. This all is possible to be enabled on a great portal. Imagine the extent of satisfaction one would get by having one’s life put at absolute convenience.

This, plus other appropriate applications that would enable a better user experience, is what will make this concept of telecommuting a success.

Appropriate applications would also help to extend this concept to a wider area such as the covering the suburbs in a country like ours extending opportunities to major contributors such as farming, fisheries, etc.

I don’t intend to give another lengthy example but would be easily enabled, very efficiently for the buyer and the seller to meet as well as make decisions and carry out business ‘on the go’

In the more city-driven, commercial organisations, the other aspect for great consideration is mobile enablement; today it is equally important to take forward the concept of ‘telecommuting’.

 Getting back to the original discussion, it is important to ensure that all these applications are robust not just to run and function without crashing but providing optimal throughput with much less support.

Slow connections, crashing applications, insufficient and/or overload of information (data) can create an imbalance to achieve the desired results.

Do not forget, put into true use for the intense user, this concept of telecommuting literally makes one a loner having minimal support when you are out there.

The younger tech savvy individuals may get through with instant technical issues, but from a corporate perspective that is not the approach that should be encouraged in order to ensure proper process and tracking mechanisms are achieved.

These are other practical aspects that would require to be seriously addressed if this concept is to be a success. Proper support mechanisms should fall in place with global contracts and realistic SLAs not just internally but across the value chain from partners to solutions and service providers.

There’s a human touch aspect that needs to be given at least a little consideration. One would be isolated from colleagues and may not be abreast of all activities within the company, which may also probably have a slight dent from a social view point.

Video is one such technology/application that can bring the real world much closer to each other but amongst all other factors that need to be considered, video right now is only an overhead that would take much longer to mature for it to be put to proper use.

The big question really is: Is the world ready to take this concept forward full-blown? My view: Not really. However, it is noteworthy to mention that the first steps towards this certainly can be taken and some already have, which will hopefully be a stepping stone for a more methodical approach that would truly benefit both the employer and the employee in all aspects.



 (The writer is a technology enthusiast and can be reached on [email protected])