subject: What If Your Manager Works Remotely? [print this page] Remote work is growing everywhereRemote work is growing everywhere. A recent poll Ipsos/Reuteurs showed that that 20% of global workers are telecommuting on a regular basis, with nearly 10% working remotely every day. The same poll showed that 34% of the surveyed workers would like to telecommute full-time on a daily basis.
The reasons for the success of remote work are well known. Workers enjoy working from their home environments and avoid the commuting time with research showing that telecommuters are happier and more productive that those that work in the companys offices.
But is it for everyone? How about those in managerial positions? If managers are telecommuting and their workers arent then there might be some problems, says a recent Human Relations report.
According to the Does it matter where your manager works? Comparing managerial work mode (traditional, telework, virtual) across subordinate work experiences and outcomes report conducted by Timothy D Golden, traditional workers managed by remote managers feel that they receive less professional development, less feedback, have a more unbalanced workload and that have less power than their traditional counterparts.
According to the report this happens because virtual work relationships tend to be less rich than on site working relationships since it lacks the face-to-face component of the relationship, with interactions being more tasks driven and lacking spontaneity. This deficiency in personal interaction also affects mentoring and professional development.
On the other hand, the report also shows that when both managers and workers work remotely then these feelings disappear, which might mean that employees working from their offices dont like the idea that their bosses are working from the comfort of their homes.
Nevertheless, the report stresses that these negative effects are small when compared to the big picture. Remote work is expected to continue to grow exponentially over the next years and remote working solutions, like RHUB 6-in-1 TurboMeeting appliance, are expected to be continually adopted by companies all over the world. The RHUB appliance provides six real-time collaboration functions: web conferencing, remote support, remote access, video conferencing, audio conferencing and webinar.
