A Case for Telecommuting

Today is my last one in Japan and I will head back to Salt Lake this evening. This morning I walked from my hotel to my office and noticed the large crowds on the path from the train station to the office buildings in the area. I thought about how much foot traffic could be reduced by simply allowing all of these office workers to work from home one day per week. Unfortunately that is a near impossibility here in Japan.

Japan has a very strong work culture that will take a lot to break down. Employees are expected to arrive at the office before their boss and remain there until after he has left. When people do leave, the literal translation of their goodbye includes an apology for leaving before those still at the office. Interestingly if you look at what all of those workers are doing while waiting around for the boss to go home, there is a lot of social media and non-work being done.

The same is true in the United States. There are a lot of people who could work from home but are not trusted to do so. It is not because of anything they have done, it is just a general mistrust by those in management. Therefore they come into the office each day so someone can supervise their work even though they might not actually be working.

With all of the advances in virtual and augmented reality, I don't see why we can't create effective remote work environments. I would love the option of putting on a virtual reality headset and save myself a commute. If it could be accomplished for 20% of the workforce, think of how much traffic that would remove from our crowded roads, trains, and buses. We could also reduce the amount of office space and replace it with larger living spaces, especially in places like Japan where there is not a lot of space to begin with. Furthermore we could probably reduce the crowded cities as it would give some the option of moving out to less populated areas.

While telecommuting is something that could help solve a lot of problems, there are a lot of fears associated with it. That is too bad as I think it would result in an overall improvement in quality of life. Isn't that something we are all looking for?