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SO YOUR WORKERS WANT TO TELECOMMUTETracey Curvey had enough to worry about when Fidelity Investments asked her to manage a whole new group of people in an entirely different business unit in 1996. The last thing the marketing executive wanted to deal with was the five telecommuters she was inheriting among a crew of 40. ''Was I willing to continue that situation?'' she wondered. ''Was I willing to take that risk?'' The answer, it turned out, was yes. But it took hesitation, anxiety, and--crucially--a lot of talking and listening before Curvey was won over. Her tale is a case study for managers who must learn to cope with telecommuting workers, as well as for what workers should expect of a boss who is still getting used to the concept of the virtual office. The unit Curvey led serves employers who contract with Fidelity to run their 401(k) and other retirement plans. Among other functions, Fidelity provides them with materials such as videos to promote worker participation. ''This place moves very fast. You get a lot of demands from your clients,'' explains Curvey, daughter-in-law of Fidelity President James Curvey. ''Sometimes, when they want something today, they want it today.'' Curvey was not sure telecommuters could meet those demands. BUILDING TRUST. So what did she do? Before agreeing to continue the remote work arrangements, Curvey asked around to gauge how valuable each telecommuter was to the business. ''I then sat down with everybody and said: 'O.K., how do we want to work this?''' Curvey insisted on nailing down in writing when each telecommuter would be in the office and available at home, how company-related travel would affect schedules, and how deadlines would be met. ''Writing it helped us make sure we were all on the same page,'' she says. Getting a detailed agreement was a key to building trust and easing her employees' anxiety, too. ''One of the people only wanted to be in the office two days a week because of a long commute,'' Curvey says. ''We needed to make sure that six months from now her direct manager wouldn't say, 'I want you in here five days a week.''' That telecommuter, Assistant Vice-President Lorna Mackey, confesses to having been worried on Curvey's arrival. When Fidelity moved her operation from downtown Boston to suburban Marlborough, it turned Mackey's one-hour commute from Plymouth by train into an hour and 45 minutes by car. Would the new boss put Mackey back behind the wheel five days a week? Talking with Curvey helped, she says, and ''it became a nonissue very shortly.'' After getting over the hump, Curvey began monitoring progress. Her main concern was that business get done. So she watched for regular participation in conference calls and frequent contacts by telephone and E-mail with colleagues in the office. ''It was great to hear people say: 'Oh, yeah, I talk to this person two or three times a day.' It just seemed like business was happening as usual,'' Curvey says. She also didn't want to penalize the telecommuters because they weren't always on site. She kept everyone informed and handed out plum assignments evenly. When it came to assigning offices, ''we had to make sure that even though a couple of folks were only there four or three days instead of five, there wasn't an implicit assumption they were going to be stuck in a corner somewhere.'' Even though that didn't sit well with some office-bound workers, she concluded that the telecommuters deserved ''the same kind of treatment when they're here in the office.'' If it sounds like Curvey's view of telecommuting turned 180 degrees, it did. Early this year, Curvey was promoted out of the retirement services group, where she was a vice-president, to senior vice-president in Fidelity's retail division. Shortly after starting in her new post, she learned her assistant was looking for another job to avoid a long commute. Without hesitating, Curvey offered her a flexible schedule with fewer days in the office. For Curvey, telecommuting has come to be a solution, not a problem.
By Robert Barker RELATED ITEMS
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Updated Oct. 1, 1998 by bwwebmaster
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