Telework

by | 23 Aug 2015

In our agency, employees are required to come to office only once in a week, so that their computer can get updates from the agency network. Rest of the days they are allowed to work from remote locations (home, hotel, etc.) which is called telework. I think 1/2 days of telework per week is good but telework almost every day is bad for an organization.

I miss camaraderie of our office because I only see my next cubicle neighbor/colleague once or twice in a year. Most of the time I am alone in the whole row which I do not like. Prior to this big change we used to see almost everyone every day or at least 2/3 days in a week. Now, I rarely see any of my close colleagues. Thus, I think even though the employer and the employees are saving money and time on electricity, travel, gasoline, etc. people are losing human connection. To me human connection is important because humans are social animals by nature.

We used to know employees of different branches and what was their field of work, so for any work related problem we knew whom to go to. Therefore, problems were addressed promptly but now if I face any problem I need to create an issue ticket and wait for someone, who is most likely teleworking, to send me an email with instructions. We are wasting a lot of valuable time because of this new way of working. If this continues for a long time, one day we will know a person only by his/her email or voice (phone call).

I am one of the very few employees who still comes to work 3 or more days in a week. Nevertheless, I think telework is good for few days in a week. This way we know that in case of emergency we will be able to work from remote locations. However, unlimited days of telework is counterproductive and bad for employee morale.

0 Comments

Submit a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *


The reCAPTCHA verification period has expired. Please reload the page.

Other Posts

My Ordinary Life

In my personal life there is everything present for me to be happy. I am happy somewhat but I don’t feel satisfied. My existence doesn’t mean much outside of my family. If I die today I will be forgotten very fast. This world will not miss anything because of my...

No Visa Required

All of a sudden my wife decided to visit her parents in Bangladesh. She would take our little one with her. This is his first visit to Bangladesh, so his passport needs Bangladeshi visa. Fortunately, Bangladesh government provides “No Visa Required” (NVR) stamp on the...

Family Vacation 2022

We (my parents, two brothers with their families and I with my family) went on a family vacation in upstate (Peck’s Lake) NY this year. My only sister and her family live a few thousand miles away from us, so she couldn’t join us this year. The vacation house was...

#whirlpoolsalescrap

Last year when we remodeled our kitchen we bought a microwave oven (over the range), dish washer and a regular oven (free standing gas range) manufactured by whirlpool. Within first week the handle of the microwave was deformed by heat. It had warranty for a year, so...

Singularity

The statistician I. J. Good wrote “Intelligence Explosion” where he suggested that if a machine is created to be more intelligent than humans, it will be able to create a better machine. This process recursively creates an increasingly intelligent machine, which leads...

Gabriel García Márquez

“One Hundred Years of Solitude” by Gabriel García Márquez was one of the novels that we had to read in our undergraduate “classical literature” class (13 years ago). We read this as a class and discussed it. At the beginning, all the Spanish names in the book were...

My Grandmother

My mother’s mother is an unfortunate woman. She lost a daughter at its infancy, a son died at his childhood, a daughter died leaving three little kids – she raised the youngest one of them. Her husband died in her mid forties. Never married again she lived most of her...