Executives Leave Corner Offices Behind

"There are a lot of companies today that don't necessarily have formal telework programs in place . . . yet there are a lot of people doing it," said Tim Kane, who leads the virtual workplace practice at Deloitte Consulting LLP and is president of ITAC. He was speaking from an office in Pittsburgh, where, yes, he teleworks. He splits his time between a home office, an office a few minutes away in the city and the road. "You develop a customer account in a certain area, but you don't have an office there. Do you really want to go in and sign a five-year lease when you don't know what the situation is with the customer?"

A flexible workplace is turning out to be good for companies, not only because employees appreciate it, but also because executives value the ability to telework. They find it helps business in the long run if they allow employees to telework and if they themselves do it.

Bill Tait is chief executive of Mercantec Inc., a software company in the Chicago suburb of Naperville, Ill. He lives in Wisconsin and spends at least two days guiding his company from home. "It allows everyone to start the week without me looking over shoulders. I'm sort of a workaholic, probably like a lot of CEOs who claim to have intense personalities. So both my family and staff like that I'm not around every day."

He does not feel separated from his company. For one thing, he typically travels a lot anyway. And for another, technology makes it so his clients and workers know that he is right there -- wherever "there" may be at that moment.

Tait's experience with teleworking helped him pass it on to his workers. When Tait found the perfect person to be executive director of Mercantec's strategic accounts, he hired him. Despite the fact that the employee lived -- and still lives -- in South Florida.

"Telework gives you the opportunity to have flexible staffing models and flexible location models," Kane said. "So if I am a Silicon Valley company and looking for someone with a particular talent, I don't need to find them in the greater Bay area. You can look for the best and talented person, period."

When that might start happening on a widespread basis is yet to be seen. But the growth of teleworking is apparent. It may be that a decade or so from now, much of the workforce will be teleworking from home, small offices or the local coffee shop -- in the area they want to live, not the area the company dictates.

"It's anticipated that by 2007, almost a third of the U.S. workforce will be working like this," Kane said. "People really want the ability to do this."

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