When working from home just doesn't work

 Once a year, leaders of Community Options come together from its 35 locations for a retreat. The nonprofit organization runs a variety of entrepreneurial ventures that create job opportunities and provide housing for people with disabilities.

At the most recent summit, the chief financial officer was bemoaning the wasted flowers at the organization's New Brunswick, N.J. floral store, due to the inevitable difficulty in managing inventory to meet customer orders.

Listening in, a graphic designer from Community Options' Daily Plan It, which rents shared office space and provides support services such as document shredding, thought they could use the dead, unsold flowers to create potpourri. As a result, Community Options is now launching a line of potpourri, which will be packaged and sold by people with disabilities.

"It's all because a group of people got together and came up with this idea," says Robert Stack, founder and chief executive of Princeton, N.J.-based Community Options. "People play off each other."

In a world of video conferencing, cloud computing, and shared online workspaces, it's easy to imagine that people can work together from anywhere, just as if they were sitting in the cubicle next door.

It's true that telework reduces pollution, improves productivity, and cuts real estate costs for employers while increasing retention and employee loyalty. But no matter how advanced the technology, something is lost when face-to-face contact disappears.

Indeed, a new report found that the number of teleworkers declined in 2010 for the first time since data collection began nearly a decade ago. While there's no denying that telecommuting can provide tremendous benefits, organizations are finding that virtual collaboration has its limits.

"We've tried the cloud stuff; it's good. We've tried the Skype where you have four or five people on the screen. It ain't the same thing," says Community Options' Stack, who holds quarterly in-person meetings for each region in addition to the annual summit. "Collaboration and cross-pollination of ideas doesn't happen by me sending you an email and you sending one back."

When face time trumps convenience

WorldatWork, a human resources association, found that the number of people who telecommuted at least one day a month in 2010 dropped to 26.2 million, down from 33.7 million in 2008, in a report released earlier this year. Even with the drop, teleworkers represent 20% of the working adult population.

WorldatWork argues that the uncertain economy has heightened employees' fears that they risk losing their job if they are not seen. "We found that teleworking went down during the most recent economic downturn, more due to a mindset than to an organization's change in policy," says Rose Stanley, work-life practice leader for WorldatWork.

To be sure, a slight majority (54%) of the decline in remote workers is attributed to a rise in unemployment levels over the past few years, according to WorldatWork's survey; the remainder was attributed to factors such as employees' fear of retribution and increased use of independent contractors by employers.

The association recommends that employees who work remotely visit their home office at least once a quarter. "You have to put in place ways for that employee to reconnect to their co-workers," Stanley says.

Peter Wride, 27, understands well the limits of telecommuting. He was hired to manage a sales team for an online school based in Texas -- when he was based in Utah. Aside from an initial week in Texas, he relied on quarterly in-person meetings with his staff and other colleagues.

"It became hard to deal with different people in the company who I was meeting for the first time over the phone," Wride recalls. "I'd show up in person and spend a week putting out fires or trying to meet people so the next time I had to call them, I had a bit of a relationship with them."

Under his leadership, his team boosted profits at the school by 200%, but he felt cut off and unfulfilled by the work experience. "I really didn't feel that I was part of the team," he says.

Inserting community into telework: No simple feat

CUNA Mutual Group is trying to solve the puzzle of how to build virtual teamwork. The company, which provides financial services to credit unions, has about 70 employees across the country working in its lender development program. To help everyone get to know one other, the team uses Web cameras and encourages breakout discussions among smaller groups on topics like a Christmas memory or favorite vacation spot, says Terri Smith, director of product management.

"We take every opportunity to continue to connect our team. If we're doing a team meeting, we're all on webcams, so you're getting that face-to-face interaction," Smith says.

The webcam technology also allows a presenter to see people's faces, so she can stop a presentation to address puzzled looks. The group has celebrated life events like a baby shower or birthday by sending the individual a cookie bouquet or having everyone sing happy birthday via webcam.

State Street Corp. (STT) is trying to unite an even bigger group: its global work force. Last week, the financial services company launched a global Flex Employee Network with, naturally, virtual events for employees around the globe such as a talk about best practices in telework. The initiative is part of the company's new approach to flexible work, which includes technological support for telecommuters, online tools for tracking productivity, and the option to reserve shared office space for those days when virtual workers are on site.

State Street has found that telecommuters enjoy having more moments of serendipitous in-person connection with colleagues because when they are in the office, they may be assigned a space next to someone they previously didn't know, says Maia Germain, vice president of the Flex Program Office. But when a team was recently giving a colleague a gift for a life event, they realized they forgot to pass the collection hat to the people who were working from home. They resolved never to make that mistake again.

"We've learned a lot about virtual teams and connecting the intangible things," Germain says. "We've been able to come up with a lot of needs we'll be focusing on in 2012."

Some jobs cannot be done from home

People who work three days at home are very productive on those days, but they value even more the ability to interact with colleagues in person when they come to the office. Nonetheless, "some of the jobs really, truly can't be done at home. Certain financial services roles can only be done with technology that only exists within the organization," she says.

When telework isn't possible, employers should find other ways to be flexible with their workers, Stanley suggests. State Street, for instance, offers five types of flexible work arrangements: flex time (your daily work schedule is flexible), flex place (where you work is flexible), compressed workweeks, reduced hours, and job sharing (you split the job duties with a partner).

Stark agrees: "Flexibility is worth more than money if you want to land the best person for a position."

Army may be the real winner in Egypt

At the end of the first round of voting in Egypt's historic elections, Islamist parties appear headed for a decisive majority in the first freely elected parliament since the ouster of former dictator Hosni Mubarak.

So far, the Freedom and Justice Party operated by the Muslim Brotherhood, the country's largest and best organized political movement, has won nearly 40% of the vote, followed by the ultraconservative Salafist parties with another 25%.

The "Islamist tsunami," as some have dubbed it, has raised eyebrows in the West and raised concerns in Egypt over the future status of women, secular-minded Egyptians and the country's substantial Christian minority.

The Muslim Brotherhood is attempting to reassure anxious Egyptians and foreigners alike and are reframing their imminent victory as a win for Egypt's nascent democracy.

As one Brotherhood leader recently wrote in The Guardian, "There will be winners and losers. But the real -- and only -- victor is Egypt."

Indeed, many democracy advocates inside and outside Egypt had long seen the elections as the surest way to force the ruling military council to cede power to a civilian-led government. While a democratic outcome may still be possible in the long run, for now the real winners may be neither the Islamists nor the Egyptian people but the country's interim rulers, the Supreme Council for the Armed Forces (SCAF).

Once universally viewed as a pillar of stability for a country in transition, the SCAF's foot-dragging on basic reforms and its increasingly repressive tactics against all forms of dissent, including the trial of some 12,000 civilians before military tribunals and the use of deadly violence against young protesters in Tahrir Square in the lead-up to the elections, have convinced most Egyptians of the need to end military rule as quickly as possible.

SCAF has already violated its pledge to hand over power within six months and has made clear it wants to remain the power behind the power. The military says it will cede power to a civilian president by July 2012, but at the same time it seeks to preserve its myriad social, economic and political benefits, including its immunity from governmental oversight and its highly secretive shadow economy, estimated at around one-third of the national economy.

Despite SCAF's attempts to cast itself as politically neutral, it has aggressively manipulated the political scene throughout the transition process in a bid to protect its interests. Indeed, Egypt's military rulers have demonstrated a shrewd, almost Machiavellian, ability to keep the opposition weak and fractured, especially when it comes to exploiting decades-old animosities between Egypt's Islamist and secular forces.

After having promoted the Islamists throughout most of the transition period, the unlikely alliance finally broke down in the weeks leading up to elections over the military's attempts to usurp the incoming parliament's authority in appointing a constituent assembly to draft the country's next constitution. Up until then, both the Brotherhood and the Salafists had been relatively accommodating of the military, largely shunning mass protests and resisting calls for the military to cede power, which further helped inflame Islamist-secularist tensions.

The existing climate of social and political polarization is likely to be compounded by the unrepresentative nature of the new parliament, where liberal forces won only 18% of the vote.

The biggest losers in the electoral process have been the revolutionary youth groups that spearheaded the uprising in January and have been at the forefront of the democracy movement ever since. But they have largely shunned electoral politics in favor of continued street protests. In addition to the marginalization of the youth, much of it self-inflicted, a decisive Islamist majority will probably, as feared, leave groups such as women and Christians severely underrepresented as well.

All this comes at an especially sensitive moment in Egypt's transition.

The Brotherhood's electoral dominance cements its position as the chief power broker of the transitional period. In particular, the process of writing the country's first post-revolutionary constitution will require consensus-building among Egypt's disparate constituencies.

The Brotherhood's ability to forge an alliance with secular liberal parties, which it says it prefers, will prove difficult in light of the deep mistrust on both sides. At the same time, a coalition with the Salafists may prove equally unworkable, if only because it would embody the worst fears of many Egyptians and foreigners alike. An all-Islamist parliamentary alliance could force Egyptian liberals into the arms of SCAF while providing the military with the perfect pretext to put off civilian rule. Indeed, SCAF officials wasted no time in minimizing the outcome of the elections, even suggesting the parliament's role in writing the constitution would be severely curtailed.

Either way, the Brotherhood is likely to preside over a deeply divided parliament with vaguely defined powers. This is also to the advantage of SCAF, as any political stalemate, especially one marked by deepening social divisions, is likely to prolong military rule and forestall serious democratic reforms.

The Islamists' parliamentary victory will no doubt fuel fears of an "Islamist takeover." However, American and other Western policy makers should not lose sight of the big picture.

Although there may be reason to question the democratic credentials of Islamist groups, they have thus far played by the rules. The same cannot be said of Egypt's military rulers, however, whose growing repression and desire to remain above the law pose a far more real and tangible threat to Egyptian democracy. Rather than fretting over an outcome whose implications are not yet known, the United States should pressure the Supreme Council for the Armed Forces to disentangle itself from the political process, respect the outcome of the elections, and return to the barracks as soon as possible.