Telecommuting may be at risk

HP, one of the first (if not the first!) company to allow telecommuting, just announced that it was wiping out its IT telecommuting!

Most, if not all, of its 1000 persons IT staff around the world will now report to one of 25 offices nearest their homes. In some cases, this may mean quite a move, even thousands of miles.

The standards and practices of some of the telecommuters was less than ideal … You’ve heard of the expression, “One bad apple can spoil the barrel.” Apparently, enough questionable practices surfaced to compel the new division chief, formerly with 2 major high tech companies, to re-examine this practice and eliminate it … at least for the moment.

What impact will this move have on industry in general and on law firms in particular? The debate has festered for years in large law firms, with the desire for telecommuting seeminly winning … HP may be opening the door on yet another movement, this time back to the office where people can physically and frequently interact with one another to make the entire team effort more effective and more productive!

Categorized in: Technology