Offtopic: June 2006 Archives

An article in the San Jose Mercury News reports that HP is cutting back on telecommuting within one of its divisions. This is seen by those discussing the article as a man bites dog story. They ask how could any company be backing away from telecommuting? After all, the federal government is doing all it can to encourage telecommuting to ease traffic congestion.

The answer is found within the article. For starters they are banning full time telecommuting, not telecommuting in general. It sounds like you can still telecommute multiple days per week. It seems that what started as an incentive program to keep valued employees was now seen as an employee right. The head of the division felt that it is important to build teamwork, and that only occurs when you actually work together. The younger workers needed to learn from the older workers, and that doesn't occur when everyone is at home working in their PJs. It is those moments of downtime around the water cooler that provides bonding and creates corporate culture.

tip of the pen to Rod, saw this article linked from his blog.