Gantenbein, 1999, December, para. 24 Over the long term, though, surveys found that productivity of the teleworker will climb; over two-thirds of employers report increased productivity among telecommuters, according to a 2008 survey.CompTIA survey of 212 diverse employers. October 2008 Traditional line managers are accustomed to managing by observation and not necessarily by results.
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The importance of manager communication with teleworkers is made clear in a study that found that individuals have lower job satisfaction when their managers telework. Managers may view the teleworker as experiencing a drop in productivity during the first few months. This drop occurs as "the employee, his peers, and the manager adjust to the new work regimen".Gantenbein, D. (December 1999).
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Factors that are motivators such as recognition and career advancement may be lessened with telework. When teleworkers are not physically present, they may be “out of sight, out of mind” to other workers in the office. Additionally, telework may not always be seen positively by management due to fear of loss of managerial control. A 2008 study found that more time spent telecommuting decreased the perception of productivity of the teleworker in the eyes of management.
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Remote Control Federal CISOs Dish on Mobility, Telework, and Data Security (2007, Telework Exchange) In other studies regarding Job Characteristics Theory, job feedback seemed to have the strongest relationship with overall job satisfaction compared to other job characteristics. While teleworking, communication is not as immediate or rich as face-to-face interactions. Less feedback when teleworking is associated with lower job engagement. Thus, when perceived supervisor support and relationship quality between leaders and teleworkers decreases, job satisfaction of the teleworker decreases.
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E-professional or "eprofessional" or even "eProfessional" is a term used in Europe to describe a professional whose work relies on concepts of telework or telecommuting: working at a distance using information and communication technologies, as well as online collaboration (i.e. virtual team,J. Lipnack and J. Stamps, 1997, "Virtual Teams: Reaching Across Space, Time, and Organizations with Technology", Wiley & Sons, mass collaboration,Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams,December 2006, Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything massively distributed collaborationKapor presentation , UC Berkeley, 2005-11-09.), online community of practice such as the open source community, and open innovation principles. The American terminology for e-professional is teleworker.
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Teleworking can hurt working relationships between the teleworker and their coworkers, especially if their coworkers do not telework. Coworkers who do not telework can feel resentful and jealous because they may consider it unfair if they are not allowed to telework as well. However, despite fewer interpersonal actions and professional isolation, a meta-analysis of telecommuting did not find support for negative telecommuter-coworker relationships or telecommuter- supervisor relationships. Employers' largest concerns about telecommuting are fear of loss of control; 75% of managers say they trust their employees, but a third say they would like to be able to see them, "just to be sure".
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These locations can be inside the home or at some other remote workplace, which is facilitated through a broadband connection, computer or phone lines, or any other electronic media used to interact and communicate. As a broader concept than telecommuting, telework has four dimensions in its definitional framework: work location, that can be anywhere outside a centralized organizational work place; usage of ICTs (information and communication technologies) as technical support for telework; time distribution, referring to the amount of time replaced in the traditional workplace; and the diversity of employment relationships between employer and employee, ranging from contract work to traditional full-time employment. A person who telecommutes is known as a "telecommuter", "teleworker", and sometimes as a "home-sourced", or "work-at-home" employee. A telecommuter is also called a "telecommuting specialist", as a designation and in a professional context.
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