Triumph of teleworking

It turns out that Judy in Accounts loathes Barry in Marketing, and Fadi in HR is sick to death of overhearing desk-neighbour Dawn's personal life in loud, lengthy phone calls. Two of the IT department barely speak to one another after a broken affair, and non-smoker Norbert in Legal is convinced the rest of his group are gossiping about him on their cigarette breaks.

Such tensions and breakdowns in trust and team spirit are inevitable when human beings work in unnaturally close proximity to one another five days a week. Commercial rents rise forcing increasingly cramped, crowded offices. People start the day tense after a nightmare commute. Privacy is limited and concentration often broken by other people's noise, smells and phone calls.

There is a solution to this, a way to give everyone a break: teleworking.

The holy grail for a happy office

Teleworking, where employees work from home or a remote office via the internet, is the saviour of modern office life. Its advantages are numerous. It saves money, health (remember the last time a flu bug took down twenty staff?) and time. It reduces sick days, as most people suffering colds or headaches that make being in an office unbearable can still do some work from home.

It means far more round-the-clock employees: staff are likely to check their work emails at the same time as their personal emails, meaning an urgent, after hours communication still gets read. It means night owls getting sudden inspiration on a key project can burn the midnight oil with all their documents and sources available.

Teleworking also means more tech literate employees. First because they have to be able to use the internet and applications to a more competent degree as there won't be IT department nearby to manually help out. Secondly because having a decent computer and broadband at home means one is more likely to get online for fun, or learn how to transfer and edit digital photos, or figure out how to install anti-spyware software, generally developing knowledge and experience.

Advantages for the Arab world

In the Arab world, there are even more arguments for teleworking. It means that women who are less able to work outside the home can still bring their skills to the labour force. It makes things easier for parents: they may have to pick their children up from school mid-afternoon, but can make the time up later on. While a teleworker would still need childcare for children in the home, breastfeeding mothers could attend to their infants at feeding times, making lengthy maternity leave or awkward expressing machines less of a necessity.

Another issue is accessibility: companies here lag the west in making premises accessible for the differently abled, though it's a worldwide problem. Through teleworking, a less physically-abled person can still hold a job and be productive.

Distance and public transport are also factors: many Middle Eastern countries have limited public transport, or have people living in remote areas that do not want to leave their families and communities for city life. Again, teleworking makes them part of the workforce.

Bosses still resistant

But many employers refuse to countenance teleworking. They imagine that employees will sit at home all day, watching TV. That work won't get done. That productivity will sink. That they can't "trust" their staff.

These are genuine issues, and there are always going to be some people that use home based work as an excuse to slack off. But monitoring an employee's output is child's play. It's presumably happening already for office-based staff, what makes it different for staff based at home? Either the tasks given are getting done or they are not. Software could even be used to monitor activity and uptime in certain applications.

Besides which, just because you can see an employee tapping away or using their mouse doesn't mean that they are not playing Minesweeper. Early Apple computers actually had a application called "Big Cheese Key" - a key that would rapidly bring up a screenshot of a serious-looking spreadsheet just in case the boss walked past your desk while you were playing Solitaire.

While not all jobs are suitable for teleworking - it would not make sense for receptionists, or maintenance staff, or those needing face-to-face contact - the vast majority of roles are. As gridlock grows, work hours lengthen and office space shrinks, teleworking seems the key saviour.