The Globe and Mail

That’s the message of a recent survey about teleworking

“A recent survey finds that workers who telecommute from home or elsewhere, while still a very small portion of the work force, report the highest levels of satisfaction with their jobs and loyalty to their employers,” reports The Wall Street Journal. “In the poll of about 10,000 U.S. workers, 73% of remote and home-based workers said they were satisfied with their company as a place to work, compared with 64% of office workers.”

The survey, conducted by the Kenexa Research Institute, suggests that home workers are happier and seemingly less likely to leave their job.

The survey “examined the impact of an employee’s office location on their pride in the organization, confidence in its future, willingness to recommend their organization as a place to work and overall satisfaction.” In the end, employees working from home “outscored those who work within the bricks and mortar on each of these key indicators.”

"It is clear that with the increase in available technology, a noteworthy number of U.S. workers are telecommuting,” said Jack Wiley, the executive director of Kenexa Research Institute. “Not only are those who telecommute more engaged than those who work in an office, they are much more likely to rate both their senior managers and their immediate managers more favorably.”

Well, how can you not love a manager that gives you the flexibility to work from home?

But it’s not an easy thing to implement. Companies can’t just send workers home with a laptop and expect to reap the rewards. Not every employee can succeed working from home, and not all of them want to try it. Equally, an organization that doesn’t set up its teleworkers for success by establishing clear policies and delivering the necessary support is going to have a hard time managing its workforce.

To illustrate this point, the Journal published an accompanying article that highlights some of the challenges of managing a distributed team. The story is a Q&A with Marsha Sowerby, a manager who has a team of 95 remote customer relations agents.

“All of the employees working from home previously worked [in the office],” she said. “The biggest challenge is adjusting team-building practices from brick-and-mortar to virtual employees. It's a different management style and it makes you question how to successfully implement team building when you manage a team virtually.”

So maybe don’t start sending everyone home just yet.