Remote Work in Usa - a True Blessing

Remote Work - A True Blessing!

Working from home (WFH) has been on the rise in the United States since 1980. With the commonality of the internet and other easily accessed telecommunication technologies WFH has taken a significant upward turn in recent years. In 1980 the US percentage of home workers was 0.75% whereas in 2010 that number had more than tripled to 2.4% (Roberts, Ying, 2015).  A survey conducted from 2012 to 2013 of 3,000 medium sized manufacturing companies in The USA, Germany, and the UK showed that almost 50% of managers at these companies allowed some type of working from home. Surprisingly, despite this surge in telecommuting, several major companies, who previously spearheaded the WFH movement, have shocked the business world by reversing their positions.  In 2013, Marissa Mayer, CEO of Yahoo, enacted a new company-wide rule: all Yahoo employees need to work on premises. (Swisher, 2013) The Yahoo HR Director, Jackie Reses, sent a memo to Yahoo employees stating that “Speed and quality are often sacrificed when we work from home … We need to be one Yahoo!, and that starts with physically being together.” Additionally, IBM announced in 2017 that regional workers must either stop working from home or find another job. (Simons, 2017) Clearly there are different views as to whether working remotely is beneficial to a company. Proponents of working from home have put forth many theories to support working from home; opponents have voiced concerns about detrimental effects. This heavily debated topic must be resolved through evidence-based analysis. This paper seeks to review some of the major theories for and against WFH and present the results of a major meta-study that reviews existing research in the light of these theories. The results of this study are generally in favor of allowing employees to work remotely.

One of the factors that make the case for allowing employees to work from home is perceived autonomy. Also known as self-determination theory, autonomy theory states that giving individuals choice and control over their activities gives them more intrinsic motivation. One of the many studies that supports this theory compared the motivations of paired individuals doing the same task, where one of them got to choose it and one did not. The former person was found to have higher motivation (Zuckerman, Porac,  Lathin, & Deci 2016). This factor is believed to be in favor of telecommuting because telecommuting allows employees freedom, both psychologically and spatially, by removing them from direct supervision. Additionally, the increased flexibility that telecommuting affords employees both regarding time and location, increases perceived autonomy. Studies have shown that perceived autonomy is highly correlated with job satisfaction (Loher, Noe, Moeller, & Fitzgerald 1985). Therefore, if telecommuting can be shown to increase perceived autonomy, then it follows that telecommuting will positively affect the desired outcomes by means of increasing perceived autonomy.If telecommuting increases perceived autonomy.