Broken Ladders

As I was preparing for my first quarterly review with the President regarding my telecommuting, I found myself reflecting on the accomplishments I have made in the last four months:

• Successfully, in my opinion, operating the Research Office from 325 miles away
• Competing 65 individual research/data requests (an average of 1.5 each business day)
• Building the beta release of the Workforce Preparedness inventory
• Taking a major role in the implementation of the Informer data reporting tool for Colleague/Datatel

While each of these accomplishments are great and important to the success and progress of the college, I could not help but think about my place among these events; in particular how they impact my relationship with the institution. It was then I realized a significant downside to telecommuting: advancement. Projects requiring large-scale coordination (aka the big projects) will most likely never hit my desk due to the need for personal interactions. I will most likely never rise above the level of Coordinator, even though I have supervisory roles – a major local prerequisite for Directors. If the college moves to having more distance workers, are we creating a class of employees stymied in the career ladder due to their proximity to the rest of administration? I have to admit, there has to be a threshold where yes, one must be on campus to properly assist in the daily operations of the college.

The dilemma I face is a simple one: do I continue as long as I can at my current position, which is a job I can do with a measure of competence while working at home, or do I use these experiences to build my resume and look for local employment? Personally, I would like to work for my current college as long as I can. I know the institution, the employees, and will soon complete work on the SACS re-affirmation as a Core Team member.

I guess I will find out if there are any plans for the future at my review. I will have a report from that meeting, as well as my interview with the President regarding telecommuting in future posts.

A New Boss

My department, which had been directly under the President, has now been folded into a new division of the College: the Division of Information Technology and Instructional Support Services. I am one of four “managers” reporting to an Executive Director responsible for Information Technology, Distance Learning, Library Services, and my department – Research.

To be honest, I was very concerned with how well my working situation would be accepted by someone I had never met. I was pleased to find her to be excited to be working with a telecommuter. For our first meeting we met over video conference, an experience some find to be uncomfortable especially with the bandwidth issues. She was interested to hear my opinions on the new department and my ideas on the community college. We will be meeting each week via video conference, similar to my departmental meetings, and will be working very closely on many projects including SACS.

For the next week, I will be preparing for my first quarterly review with the President. I am not sure if I will be meeting with my new boss from here on out, but for now I am just concerned with getting ready for next week. The President and I will be reviewing her opinion of my work, the “fit” of telecommuting for my position, and reviewing the current research projects. During this same visit back to the college, I will be meeting with our institutional contact from SACS. The representative will be on site to answer any questions and to look over our processes to offer advice.

The cost of travel

As my college and I go through the experience of telecommuting, we learn what works and what doesn’t. After my first trip back to campus, I submitted my request for travel reimbursement, about $280. The following week, the President’s office issued a statement saying they were going to pull the telecommuting policy from the Board of Trustee’s agenda because the college needed to look at the impact of travel on the policy- which had no stipulations or guidelines.

The issue is this: telecommuters are not on campus. The institution has decided to allow this person to work at a location, be it their home or an office somewhere else. In theory, a person who lives very close to the college could telecommuter due to illness or some other event making it unsafe or unwise to come on to campus.

I think the important question should be asked: Why should someone be called back to campus, and is this something that can be done by some other means? I have always been a fan of video conferencing- it’s the Star Trek fan in me. If colleges were a little more creative in planning their meetings, days of travel could be avoided, as well as thousands of dollars each year. When I first started in the community college system, I noticed there were a lot of conferences, seminars, and symposiums. These of course translate to lots of travel. I guess there is, and continues to be a conference culture in the academic world. While I understand the need to physically network with peers, I myself have benefited from the hallway “So what were you describing in the meeting?” conversation, I think a large majority of the one-sided meetings could be delivered in some other way.

We will never get away from the physical meeting, nor will we replace the need. However, if colleges move to distribute the workforce away from the institution, they must be ready to think about the implications of the ad-hoc meeting.

Getting The Wires Crossed

As I have posted about several times now, communication and collaboration are two of the biggest challenges to telecommuting. On a recent conference call, these two challenges became very clear.In a discussion about an assessment process, we came to a point where I disagreed with a few members of the group. Once I expressed my thoughts, and the appropriate time of “group reflection” passed, the conversation continued as if I had said nothing. The observation I made was this: Telecommuters face an up-hill battle when it comes to winning boardroom confrontations, especially in work cultures or with peers not fully accepting of the situation. Where as in a face-to-face meeting you can stand your ground or use your physical posturing to influence the outcomes, the phone is just a little box that crackles to life every so often.

On a much larger scale, this scenario plays out to be very important to the impact telecommuting can have on higher education. If colleges distribute their workforce and only those who are on site weld the real power and influence, those who are forward thinking enough to successfully work remotely will have reduced influence on the institution. Even if the telecommuters can attend the meetings, they lose out because they do not have “boots on the ground” at the campus. As for faculty, this issue is extremely important because it dilutes their input on the operations of the college, a common complaint of faculty who are already on site.

A solution to the phone call show down is video conferencing. Unfortunately, my college does not have the bandwidth to support a two-hour video conference, but there are plans to change that. Currently, when the video conferencing fails to perform it only further taints the opinion of telecommuting to some on campus staff.