The Work From Home Debate And The U.S. Patent Office Telecommuting Debacle

  |   22 October, 2014   |   812   |   3980

Is remote working no longer working?



Based on recent news stories chronicling major corporations such as Yahoo YHOO +2.29%! ditching their telecommuting policies, the answer is no—not at all.



The remote-working-isn’t-working crowd seemed to gain more steam in August, when a House of Representatives committee launched an investigation into the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s (USPTO) telecommuting policies and found widespread abuse, including over-reporting of hours worked by the agency’s remote workers.



What can we learn from the debacle? That all successful remote-working policies are only as strong as their corresponding performance management policies, said Lisa Horn, director of the Alexandria, Va.-based Society for Human Resource Management Workplace Flexibility Initiative (coincidentally, located just a stone’s throw from the USPTO).