The Role of Telecommuting in Productivity Measurements

Productivity measurements have always been important aspects when it comes to the success of any business or organization. However, when you talk about these particular measurements, there is that off-chance that you would hear the subject of telecommuting broached as well. Interestingly, you just might be one of the many people who have heard about this so-called relationship between the two. So, why is there such a relationship between two topics that seem to have just a minor, if any, relationship?The truth is, in spite of the many myths that surround productivity measurements and telecommuting, telecommuting has indeed become quite the focus where productivity measurements are concerned. Through the years, telecommunication channels have experienced considerable improvement. And when you look at the nature of telecommunicating jobs, you would see for yourself how this particular job is far from the typical office job. You just might even find out for yourself how the mere act of measuring productivity can be doubly difficult in the industry of telecommuting. But why is this so?In its most basic form, productivity is the output that is produced within a specific period. This is how productivity is defined in Economics. For instance, a web content writer who works in an office setting is able to complete 3 articles in 1 hour. This would then become the productivity rate for that particular writer. This is easy to compute because the data involved is quantitative in nature. This also provides easier translation. However, when you deal with qualitative data, then this becomes a different story. When you are telecommuting, you actually work from home, and being home-based translates to having your own work schedule. You actually make your own time here. The issue here then becomes the fear that plagues employers, that they do not have any hold in the productivity of the home-based employee because the employee makes his or her own time. This, however, should just remain a popular myth.The truth of the matter is, it is not really that difficult to measure productivity even with telecommuting positions. The rate at which a telecommuting employee works remains the same with just about every project that is assigned. For instance, let us say a medical transcriptionist is able to transcribe 5 files in a single hour. It should not matter how many hours in a work day the MT chooses to work, for the hourly rate would remain the same here. Still 5 files in an hour, no matter what hour of day this may be. With this in mind, measuring productivity should not be that difficult at all.Another popular misconception here is that the employer does not have any say on the work the employee takes on over a set period of days. This is still not true because of the fact that as an employer, you have the power to enforce deadlines. If you give a home-based web content writer a deadline of 3 days to finish 10 articles, then the writer should adhere to that deadline. Of course, the deadline here should be reasonable as well, and this can be determined by observing the ongoing trends in article production.Productivity measurements are still very much attainable in the telecommuting industry. Thus, there should be no reason to think these are difficult to compute at all.