Out of sight, out of mind

TELECOMMUTERS fall into two camps. Some slouch on the sofa watching daytime soaps, pausing occasionally to check their BlackBerrys. Most, however, do real work, undistracted by meetings and gasbag colleagues.

In the future more people will work from home. With office space in London and New York so costly, many firms save money by encouraging staff to work in their pyjamas. Instead of having to bury their noses in strangers’ armpits on crowded trains, they can work via e-mail, Skype and virtual private networks.

Yet Daniel Cable of the London Business School finds that companies still reward presenteeism. In research published in MIT Sloan Management Review he shows that telecommuters are less likely to be promoted. In one experiment subjects were asked to judge scenarios in which the only difference was whether the employee was at his office desk or at home. Managers rated those at the office to be more dependable and industrious, regardless of the quality of their work.

Visibility creates the illusion of value. Being the last to leave the office impresses bosses, even if you are actually larking around on Facebook. Oddly, this holds true at firms that explicitly encourage staff to work from home. Mr Cable studied attitudes at Californian tech firms. Many asked employees not to come to the office too often; yet bosses unconsciously penalised those who obeyed.

Remote workers understand this. Many barrage their bosses with progress reports to prove they are on the job. A fifth of the workers in the study admitted to leaving a canny e-mail or voicemail early or late in the day. Still, many are not as smart as they think. Some choose a Monday or Friday to work at home. That, says Mr Cable, makes others think they are keen to extend the weekend.

A culture of presenteeism hurts working mothers most. Many women (and some men) work from home to allow themselves the flexibility to pick up kids from school. That need not mean they produce less; only that they do it at a time and a place of their own choosing. Some firms, such as Best Buy, an electronics retailer, recognise this and try hard to evaluate staff solely on performance. But this is not easy. Intangibles such as teamworking skills matter, too. Mr Cable thinks homeworking will lose its stigma only when most people do it. Or perhaps when the boss—like the editor of this article—is telecommuting, too.