Busy working: five individuals sit in an internet café in Jakarta working on their laptops. JP/Ricky Yudhistira
During her last months of pregnancy, 29-year-old interior designer Enira Arvanda felt good about saying goodbye to her office in South Jakarta’s Sudirman area to work from home.
Despite her being physically absent from the office for health reasons, Enira felt she worked more
efficiently than ever, armed with her computer, internet connection and the usual creative perks the design world offered her. She’s still on her firm’s payroll, as a full-time employee.
“I spend 12 hours a day working with the time saved from driving to and from the office,” the mother of one said. “These days, with emails and online chats, you can basically do anything, anywhere.”
Bye bye, office cubicle! Hello, telecommuting!
Since the rise of the virtual world, work has been redefined. It’s an activity, not a place. Nowadays, when we’re saying that we’re going to work, it can simply mean sitting in a dedicated corner of our homes or even in a café.
Coined in the 1970s in the US, the term telecommuting was introduced to Indonesian professionals some two decades ago. Back then, it was still limited to privileged ones with internet connections at home.
But, today, check out the cafés providing free Wi-Fi connection on a working day. Yuppies are no longer just sipping coffee; they’re most likely busy with their laptops. OK, some of them might just be checking their Facebook account, but others are actually working on something.
“I have to finish this presentation and meet a client at lunchtime. Rather than doing it at the office or at home and being stuck in traffic making my way to the meeting spot, I prefer working on it here early in the morning,” said 34-year-old web designer Prathiwi Janthiarti, who was already busy with her MacBook at 8 a.m. in a South Jakarta café.
By lunchtime, she’d most likely be pitching her presentation to her client instead of fighting mid-day rush-hour traffic from her office in South Jakarta’s Warung Buncit to her meeting place.
“They say we have to work smart. I’m doing it right here, right now,” Prathiwi said.
While Enira and Prathiwi cited traffic and health as the main reasons for telecommuting, online game maker Wandah Wibawanto opted for telework – a broader concept of telecommuting – to overcome geographical boundaries. The 26-year-old has been doing it since he was a college student.
While he was finishing his undergraduate studies, Wandah was still working remotely. A company based in Dubai would email him specifications for a game; he would develop it over a week, then email it back to the head office.
He was also freelancing for another company in the industry of game making.
Creative minds: Nowadays, when we’re saying that we’re going to work, it can simply mean sitting in a dedicated corner of our homes or even in a café. JP/R. Berto Wedhatama
Of course, not all kinds of work can be done remotely. Web designing, copywriting, translating, accounting and programming are some of the jobs suited to telework. Most of the jobs suited to telework were the first ones to be outsourced or offshored.
That’s how it works these days in some lines of business. Some companies will emphasize results rather than hours clocked in the office – be it the number of projects completed or how many clients a sales person has lured into the company.
“It’s a good idea indeed. What we need is a different work culture that depends heavily on IT,” telecommuter Gatot Mardianto said in an online forum.
“I work with a large multinational telecommunications company based in Bandung and I used to work like that. My boss is in Sydney, and my colleagues are in Bangkok, Jakarta, Singapore and India. No need to be in the office. The company pays for the IT connection. Most of the things like travel approval expense claims, virtual meetings and documents sharing are done electronically,” he explained.
Clocking in and clocking out at the office has become irrelevant for telecommuters.
Sitting in one’s cubicle doesn’t guarantee productivity, does it?
Having an office without borders also offers a few benefits to companies.
While outsourcing isn’t new, the rapid increase in the number of remote workers is. According to WorldatWork, the number of telecommuters in the US increased 39 percent, from 12.4 million in 2006 to 17.2 million in 2008.
Though no statistics are yet available for Indonesian teleworkers, a growing number of employees are working away from the office.
An important prerequisite for telework is a good, reliable and affordable IT infrastructure, and a Virtual Private Network (VPN) that gives teleworkers access to a secure organizational network.
But there are also downsides to this kind of work arrangement, which include reduced office influence and social interaction that can lead to social and professional isolation for the teleworker, states the Canadian Telework Association.
“I feel a bit distanced. There are no actual face-to-face discussions with colleagues except for video-conferencing. No dropping by at another cubicle just to discuss ideas. It’s been replaced by visiting each other’s blogs,” web designer Akhmad Deniar said.
The feeling of professional isolation, as Deniar said, is only one the personal downside of teleworking.
Indonesia Islamic University’s Graduate School of Economics lecturer Suhartini has written about the dangers of becoming a workaholic.
‘Macet’ again: Many employees chose to telework or work away from the office, to avoid wasting time commuting during Jakarta’s notorious traffic jams. JP/Nurhayati
“Those with workaholic tendencies can end up not actually benefiting from the reduced traveling time [from commuting to the office daily]. Instead of using the time saved to be with their family, they work non-stop,” she said.
“There’s also more possibility for distractions as their family members, friends or neighbors don’t realize they’re supposed to be working. Thus, telecommuters should design their working place to minimize this kind of interruption,” she went on.
Telecommuting doesn’t suit every job in an organization. Some may have jobs that enable them to work remotely, while others will invariably be stuck in their cubicles as a result of their work requirements, or because they simply don’t have access to a good internet connection other than in the office — no matter how widely available it is.
Another hurdle management experts have identified with implementing telework practices in an organization is the jealousy and tension arising between those who have the ability to telework, and those who have to clock their time in the office.
This was also the reason why Enira chose to go back to her office despite her claiming to have benefited from telecommuting.
“I didn’t feel right as my colleagues still had to go to the office. They’d still think I was not working although I was completing projects,” she said.
That’s why perhaps teleworking in this country is largely the domain of freelancers, those who are not actually attached to organizations.
Office managers are also likely to encounter challenges when it comes to supervising teleworkers or providing training, coaching and feedback. Managers’ mindsets need to shift.
“It has the potential of disrupting team work if the management does not fully support telecommuting [across the organization],” said Paul L. Tobing, founder of the Indonesian Knowledge Management Society.
“Some companies still apply a command-and-control style of management. Supervisors have this psychological dependence on the actual physical presence of subordinates in measuring their creativity and productivity,” he added.
Some experts have suggested company managers thinking of rolling out telecommuting should shift their mindset toward a management-by-objectives approach, using outcomes to measure the productivity of employees.
Management by objective is based on an agreed set of plans, standards of results and deadlines, Tobing explained. It’s basically the commitment that binds managers and workers.
An employee’s maturity level still serves as one of the key factors in telecommuting, he added.
Workers with low work discipline or those who still feel the need for constant face-to-face interaction with co-workers will find it hard to telework.
So, are you ready to telecommute?
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