Home Office Space

Sometimes it does take a rocket scientist to get things done. Former rocket scientist Jack Nilles, President of JALA International, Inc. and author of Managing Telework, is internationally known as the father of telecommuting. He recalls the moment the potential of remote work dawned on him: “Part of my job was trying to apply some of this nifty technology to the real world, and I happened to be in Santa Barbara ... talking to one of the regional planners there. He looked up at me and said, ‘If you guys can put a man on the moon, why can’t you do something about traffic?’ I thought, why not?”

Nilles discovered that the primary source of roadway congestion was from people traveling between work and home. He then examined what people actually did upon arriving at work and discovered that the labor force spent much of its day on the telephone. To Nilles, this seemed a waste of time. Why not cut out the middleman and connect workers directly to their work without the commute? Of that revelation, the terms “telecommuting” and “telework” were born.

Telecommuting had already existed in some form since 1877, when a Boston bank president required a work-at-home arrangement to care for his bedridden wife and had a direct telephone line to his office installed. With the aid of in-home personal computers, Internet connections, cellular telephones, and fax machines, telecommuting has expanded far beyond what was possible with just telephones and mail service. According to a March 2002 U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics survey, one in seven American workers worked at home once per week during 2001. Access Markets International Partners, a New York based telecom and internet research group, predicts that more than half of the U.S. workforce (approximately 67 million people) will telework in some form by 2006, bringing this alternative work option into the mainstream.

It turns out telecommuting has a modest effect on traffic, but it may have far more profound effects on American cities and suburbs. By disassociating housing choices from work locations, telecommuting could fundamentally change the structure of communities. But different telework experts see telecommuting’s effects differently–some as a driver of sprawl, some as a shaper of a new kind of balanced, urban lifestyle.

THE MARKET FOR TELECOMMUTING

The traffic problem that Nilles first identified continues to worsen. The Texas Transportation Institute estimates that commuters spend an average of 27 hours stuck in traffic each year, a number that continues to increase. But for some, telecommuting has actually, as Nilles envisioned, reduced commuting time. It has reduced driving-related stress, given workers more flexibility in balancing life and work, and even enabled businesses to keep going during otherwise disruptive weather events like snowstorms. It has also produced substantial non-transportation-related benefits in enticing workers, enhancing productivity, and improving morale. A 1999 Telework America survey discovered that companies in which employees telework can save up to $10,000 per year in reduced absenteeism and retention costs.

Still, according to Professor Patricia L. Mokhtarian, who directs the Telecommunications and Travel Behavior Research Program at the University of California, Davis’s Institute of Transportation Studies, telecommuting is not for everyone. “Many people just don’t have the drive to telecommute,” she says. “The natural level of telecommuting in the workforce is relatively modest. The real barrier is usually something institutional or social or psychological.”

Some teleworkers miss the “water cooler”–the personal connection with co-workers–as well as a certain level of comfort from face-time with their managers. Managerial attitudes toward telework are slow to change because they fear the unmanageability of unseen workers. Moreover, there are multitudes of jobs that simply cannot be done remotely.

“Opportunity for people to work in different locations has not grown to where we hoped,” says John Niles, President of Global Telematics in Seattle. Niles points out that although technology now allows us to work in many more places, telework has not dispersed central offices. “We have people that work together in new ways, but a lot of the old ways have remained resilient. It has created diversity in organizational form.”

Mokhtarian suggests that many people with some willingness to telecommute would take the plunge if there were “dramatic increases in the cost of traveling.”

Still, Mokhtarian maintains that commuting itself will never become obsolete, and that telework plays only a minor role in solving transportation problems. “I think [telework] is making quality of life better for the people who can do it, and want to do it… so I think it makes sense to promote it,” Mokhtarian says. “I just think we should be pretty clearheaded about its role in solving transportation problems. That role is pretty modest and probably only detectable side-by-side with packages of other solutions.”

SPRAWL DRIVER OR URBAN OPPORTUNITY?

Some believe that telecommuting, by liberating telecommuters from having to think about traffic when buying a house, encourages suburban and rural sprawl that is environmentally destructive and harmful to older cities. They point to the 2000 Census, which showed a six percent growth in rural areas, partly due to telecommuters and to companies who relocate in order to save money. Of course, not everyone thinks that such sprawl is entirely bad; many argue that it provides lower-cost alternatives to crime-ridden, over-populated, and poorly serviced urban centers.

Mokhtarian does not believe telework is affecting sprawl one way or another. “Are they telecommuting [to avoid] that already long commute … or do they start to telecommute and then get that bright idea of moving far away to get the high-amenity location? Studies seem to pretty firmly suggest that it’s the former–that they’re already moving for other reasons.” In that case, telecommuting is an after-effect of sprawl, as Mokhtarian puts it, “a facilitator, not the driver.”

Some older cities and planned communities are even trying to use telecommuting to stem the tide of out-migration and attract new residents.

Ed Risse, a Virginia-based urban planner, has found success promoting strategies to reshape communities through telecommuting. “In the Washington-Baltimore New Urban Region there are over 50,000 citizens who live and work in places we planned, designed, implemented, and managed. In each one we tried to find ways to improve the design and function by moving work to people rather than people to work.”

Walter Siembab, a developer and entrepreneur looking for ways to reduce society’s dependence on oil, among them telecommuting, has participated in several innovative community projects to use telecommuting-friendliness as a community amenity. These projects are often developed in conjunction with transit systems in order to further reduce need for automobiles and provide an attractive urban living option.

In Compton, California, Siembab’s firm, along with the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the City of Compton, and the Drew Economic Development Corporation, built the Blue Line Televillage, at a cost of only $659,000, to bolster economic opportunity in an otherwise depressed area. Adjacent to a 26-mile light rail system, the televillage attempts to reduce community reliance on automobiles by providing virtual services, like ATM access, through interactive kiosks. The televillage also incorporates community meeting room, a state-of-the-art computer center, video conferencing facilities, education programs, and telecommuting workstations. The modest participation fee, no more than $10 per family per year, and the walking distance to most local residences ensures community-wide accessibility.

By marrying technology and old-fashioned community planning, Compton proves encouraging for future projects. Riverdale, located just outside Chicago, is a 110-year-old Frederick Law Olmstead-designed village in need of economic redevelopment. By this fall, Siembab says, the village will begin its transformation with a network station and e-Village.

Telecommuting may play a significant role in creating more communities with what Risse describes as “a relative balance of jobs, housing, services, recreation, amenity.” Such communities, by reducing travel times, fostering economic stability and a better quality of life, and promoting environmental sustainability, can provide attractive alternatives for many people, whether they want to live in city or country.

Jack Nilles says we should be patient. Telecommuting has come a long way in just thirty short years. “Social change takes fifty years, so we’re sort of ahead of the curve.”