Telecommuting Died 15 Years Ago
About a decade and a half ago I worked with a number of large clients who were implementing telecommuting solutions in their companies. On those projects I watched the demise of telecommuting. It was disturbing.
We had finally solved many of the technical problems. We could get data into people’s homes with the internet, we could install a second phone line (and even a third) and we figured out how to provide safe remote access through VPN and other methods. It looked like the age of telecommuting had finally arrived.
One of our first shining examples was how we could employ perfectly capable persons who couldn’t come into the office. A pregnant mom, or somebody who was severely handicapped. Through advanced scheduling we could work around their personal needs to see doctors, shuttle the kids, etc. It was an exciting time.
Then, one day a bombshell hit: One of the employees asked us to install a ramp into their home, and they submitted to us a bill for the remodeling of the bathroom in their personal home. To be honest, at the time we were a bit stunned by this. It seemed to be rather “forward.”
We passed the matter along to HR who passed it to legal. Within about a week the company decided to pay the bills. They then informed me that the ADA defined working at home as a workplace and it was, indeed, the employer’s responsible to make all reasonable accommodations to ensure ADA compliance in the workplace. The employee was not an independent contractor, and so their home accessibility was our responsibility.
Well, we figured that this was one isolated, rare exception. It was not. Next came somebody who was in an auto-accident. They first demanded to be able to work at home because of the injury and then they, too, demanded upgrades to their home.
As we struggled with how to handle this, another client I was working with faced a different problem: A bill for overtime pay going back multiple years. The employee claimed that they had done emails from home for several years, handling them at all hours of the day. Yes, it was true that in those days we let people access their work email from home and we didn’t think much of they flexed their time a bit. The problem was, they claimed that they worked an extra hour at home every day for several years and now they wanted almost $30,000. We declined, and were contacted by the employee’s lawyer. He now wanted triple damages plus his own fees paid. The total now came to almost $100,000.
We couldn’t prove when the employee had flexed their time, and so we couldn’t prove they had not worked more than 40 hours in a week.
Our only defense was that the employee was in management and was salaried. That seemed like a good defense. It was not.
The employee worked in Washington State. The unions had successfully lobbied for a law which stated that unless the employee was paid at least $57,500 a year, and was required to have a college degree, and they supervised people they were entitled to overtime pay. Yes, even though they were “salaried” and in management, they had the right to time-and-a-half. The company settled for an undisclosed amount.
It was these two events, plus a few smaller ones which effectively shut-down telecommuting for the clients I was working with. They could now foresee claims for sexual harassment in the homes, liability from slips and falls stemming from the employee’s own negligence, and the impossibility of managing the employee directly in their home.
Those laws still stand in Washington State and in many others. They essentially mean that telecommuting is dead for any company which is being held in strict compliance with the laws.
For a while the work-around was to offer to let the employee become an independent contractor. We worked carefully to comply with federal regulations to define jobs and duties to meet the regs. Then, Washington State’s unions saw the trend and they passed legislation which makes it almost impossible for an employee to be reclassified as an independent contractor. (You cannot manage them, you cannot instruct them on how to do their job, you cannot provide them with equipment, etc.)
A few years later, Boeing moves its headquarters out of Washington State and my other telcom clients discontinued all pretense of flex-time and telecommuting.
Now, in a small company where everybody is friends and where trust supersedes the need for strict compliance with regulations, telecommuting is still done. But it isn’t legal.
I have always felt sad about the demise of telecommuting. it held the promise of allowing people to work only when mutually convenient, to allow single moms to earn money during school hours, and for the disabled to be fully-productive members of society.
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Colin,
Very interesting view of telecommuting legality limitations.
I was very involved with the telecommuting concept in the early days of online computer time-sharing (before the Internet), when an application developer’s wife was bedridden by pregnancy and he had to not only take of her and other children, but also had a deadline to make for his project. When I suggested to our management that it would only cost them a telephone line charge to have him work from home, they questioned how the weekly time sheets for the government-sponsored project (ARPA), could be accurately provided.
I suggested that because of the convenience of remote access, the employee would probably put in more time than the normal 9-5 hour workday. Management agreed to the arrangement and everything worked out successfully as I suggested.
Over the last years, I have been looking at call center agents working from home, and have always asked an agent if they were working from home yet. Most all of the responses were “No, I wish!” Lately, a few responses were “yes” and some were “coming soon for selected people.” In one case, where the application involved sensitive customer financial information, security requirements to prevent copying confidential screen information made it mandatory that on-premise physical supervision of employees be provided.
So, unfortunately, some kinds of jobs just cannot be teleworked, and if they can, the issues you bring up need to be overcome.
I have seen the mental health of employees deteriorate to dangerous levels from telecommuting, while the employer has no idea.
Really! Please expound on such a questionable statement and provide examples.
I’ve seen quite a few docile people turn into monsters while commuting through urban traffic; and I don’t think I have to cite any specific examples.
Totally ridiculous. I have been telecommuting for a major software company for the past 16 years and have worked on COUNTLESS projects and issues of the highest visibility and have done so VERY successfully.
I have no doubt that some have taken advantage of telecommuting and exploited their employers for their own gain. But that is not the norm; at least for the company I work for.
Telecommuting in an age where pay raises are scarce, if non-existent, and when traffic and air pollution are at all-time highs it’s CRIMINAL for employers to not offer telecommuting as a way to attract and retain faithful employees.
The examples you cite are examples of outrageously unethical practices and each company should define the limits that they are liable for BEFORE embarking on a telecommuting program.
Don’t give up on telecommuting. It’s helping families and the planet.