Reverse telecommuting is a new phenomenon where office workers take care of personal tasks during work hours. This is becoming common in jobs with long hours or away from home. Employers should ensure that important job duties are not replaced by personal tasks.
The original teleworking concept allows selected company employees to set up satellite workstations and carry out their tasks from home. There has always been concern that largely unsupervised telecommuters were actually spending much of their time dealing with personal business, such as paying bills, surfing the Internet, and cleaning up email. There is now a new work phenomenon called reverse telecommuting, where largely unsupervised office workers take care of personal business during work time, such as paying bills, surfing the Internet, and cleaning up e-mail. .
Reverse telecommuting brings the employee’s home into the office or factory environment, complete with all the personal activities traditionally done before and after working hours. It’s not unusual to find employees or employers writing personal checks for household bills, making personal phone calls to make medical or social appointments, and playing games or surfing the Internet on company-owned equipment. Arguably, many of these tasks can only be done during normal business hours, and employees who work 8am to 5pm may have to rely on some reverse telecommuting to take care of essential personal tasks.
Some occupations that require long hours or are located away from an employee’s home are common targets for reverse telecommuting. It may not be possible for an employee to take care of all of his or her personal business during a lunch hour or other company-approved break. Many office workers also find that their job offers a significant amount of downtime, which seems ideal for doing routine personal tasks while technically still on company time. As long as the employee continues to perform all of his or her official duties satisfactorily, a number of employers may choose to ignore discrete reverse telecommuting incidents.
While the perceived need for reverse telecommuting may seem clear to employees, it should never be allowed to replace important job duties. A client or customer should never be put on hold while an employee finishes balancing his or her personal checkbook, for example. There should still be clear lines between personal and professional obligations, and those employees who choose to reverse telecommute should limit themselves to any personal activities that cannot be performed before or after normal working hours.
Protect your devices with Threat Protection by NordVPN
