Crawling out of bed and walking up to one’s work desk in pyjamas isn’t usually a sign an employee is at the top of his or her game.
But a new study from the Richard Ivey School of Business at the University of Western Ontario shows mobile and home-based workers at Telus (TSX:T) are just as productive as their office-based counterparts.
About 2,000 knowledge workers — those who only required access to a computer terminal and a phone to do their jobs — and their managers at Telus were studied for a year.
The survey found no differences in performances between office workers and at-home or mobile workers.
Furthermore, 98% of mobile employees and 99% of at-home employees said their work duties had just a low-to-moderate impact on home and family life compared with 71% of their office-based colleagues.
Andrea Goertz, Telus’ senior vice-president of strategic initiatives, said the company implemented its Works Styles program in 2006 to reduce office space and cater to work needs expressed by millennial employees.
“We were seeing at the time, people working from Starbucks, people working from hotel rooms and so it seemed like a natural fit that this is where we would be progressing as a culture,” she said.
“I think 20 to 30 years ago we didn’t have the technology and tools to enable this.”
Despite the findings, Goertz said there were still some growing pains that went along with the early stages of the program.
“Sometimes we were going too quickly in terms of space reductions,” she said.
This meant the early process didn’t run as smoothly as Telus had hoped, but the research findings show mobile and at-home workers are actually more loyal to the company.
The study found 100% of the mobile and at-home workers were considered low risk of leaving Telus.
Goertz said this increase in loyalty was likely due to employees finding a better work-life balance
But she added that some of those workers did tend to feel somewhat more isolated, which is why teams have made efforts to have weekly get-togethers to keep everyone in the loop.
