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Chapter 16 - Working Together by Working Apart

Kathryn L. Fonner

Synopsis

David and his teammates at Deltiva have been working toward the launch of a new line of athletic gear for competitive triathletes. They are making progress, but the team is frustrated. In particular, David is overloaded with information, feels stressed due to meetings and interruptions, and is working evenings and weekends in order to keep up. His team decides to adopt remote work as a potential solution to their work frustrations. Despite their initial hesitations, they find that there are many benefits associated with working from home. However, working remotely also presents unique challenges related to managing the boundary between work and home.

Keywords: Telework, Boundary Management, Interruptions, Work-life Conflict

Key Takeaways and Take a Stand Form

Key Takeaways

  1. Working remotely can help alleviate some of the challenges employees deal with in the face-to-face work environment, such as interruptions, information overload, office politics, and work-life conflict.
  2. Teleworking removes some of the temporal and spatial boundaries associated with a traditional face-to-face work setting (e.g., defined work time and space). Teleworkers may need to construct their own physical, mental, temporal, technological, and other cues to manage the boundary between work and home.
  3. The flexibility of telework can offer many benefits, such as less work-life conflict and greater control over when and where work is accomplished. However, too much flexibility can present new challenges for employees, such as distractions or tendencies to overwork. Teleworkers (and their supervisors and coworkers) must negotiate and manage this balance between flexibility and structure.
  4. In order to maximize the benefits of telework, maintain desired work-home boundaries, and achieve team efficiency and productivity, it may be useful for teams to agree upon guidelines and expectations regarding remote work. These should focus on maintaining the flexibility and autonomy of individual teleworkers but also support the communication needs of the team.

Take a Stand Form