|
Q
I'm trying to negotiate a telecommuting
arrangement with my employers. How do
I convince them? -- Mandigo, Makati
City
R.A.H.
Elbo
is
the managing advisor of Kairos Management
Technologies, a consulting and training
company in the field of human resources,
and acting president of the Kaizen Institute
of the Philippines, which specializes
on product improvement. Contact Mr.
Elbo at consultant@trabaho.com.
Senders' identities will be kept in
the strictest confidence.
CAREER
Q&A ARCHIVE |
|
A
A
common refrain from some management skeptics
who are aping the dinosaurs, and often repeated
by armchair executives state that telecommuting
will not succeed in the Philippines because
Filipino workers can't be trusted when they
are out of the office.
I
disagree. In the first place, trust is not
a major issue in telecommuting. We can allow
telecommuting when its benefits to the organization
far outweigh the cost of implementation. Let
me explain through another consultant.
Florence
Stone, author of the book The High-Value Manager
(American Management Association, 1995) wrote
that we should "see telecommuting not
as a benefit but as a solution to a business
problem: that problem is the growing cost
of office space combined with the difficulty
in finding highly-qualified staff who are
affordable on a full-time basis.
"Where
telecommuting is a cost-effective solution,
then it is a viable option, and successful
managers adapt their office situation to it."
Ascertain
also, whether the work you are about to take
on can be effectively accomplished through
telecommuting. You may suggest ways by which
quality control can be monitored by your superiors:
maximize the various communications available
to you. And be prepared to prove that telecommuting
is cost-effective to both you and your employer.
|
