The Invention of Telecommuting

The authors wrote that “either the jobs of the employees must be redesigned so that they can still be self-contained at each individual location, or a sufficiently sophisticated telecommunications and information storage system must be developed to allow the information transfer to occur as effectively as if the employees were centrally collocated.” We know, with the benefit of hindsight, that both changes took place.

The Internet and the personal computer transformed the workplace, creating new jobs while rendering others obsolete. Nilles’ team predicted this, noting that new technologies “have the potential for acting as catalysts that could radically change the structure of American society in much the same way that the automobile acted as a catalyst on our way of life during the first half of this century.”

But way back in 1973, they couldn’t see exactly was coming—and some of their loftier projections for the impact of telecommuting reflect that. In a chapter on the indirect impacts of telecommuting, the authors posited:

“With a decrease in commuting time and distance individuals would be able to spend more time with their families and friends and use healthier means of getting to work, such as bicycling and walking.”

The number of Americans walking and biking to work has increased in recent years, and telework can increase job satisfaction and employee loyalty in some cases. But working from home also erodes the barrier between work and life on the whole, obligating employees to stay connected and available at all times. That “always on” mentality can take a toll on worker health as well as business outcomes. But some hold out hope that this flexibility can benefit working moms and even help to close the tech gender gap. Nilles and company:

“The existence of local offices could, with the schedule flexibility afforded by interactive computer networks, allow much more part-time job mobility, as discussed earlier. A reduction in human frustration with traffic congestion could have beneficial effects not only on the temperament of employees but also on their productivity.”

Jobs have become more mobile, but they’ve also become more unstable. Just look at the ongoing court battles over worker’s rights in today’s so-called “gig economy.”

The authors of The Telecommunications-Transportation Tradeoffacknowledged even then that some of these notions were “quite speculative.” But they were right on a number of crucial points, anticipating the rise of mixed-use developments—which they called “rural cities”—and the political difficulty of building new transit systems. The team’s forecasts for the future of computing were “rosy” and “right in general,” Nilles says. Indeed, the book opens with a visionary look at E.M. Forster’s science fiction story “The Machine Stops,” in which human life is sustained by a vast telecommunications machine. “At the time the story was written,” the authors note, “such technological wonders were fantasy; today, they are becoming accepted as commonplace by many Americans.”

Nilles realized early on that “technology was not the limiting factor in the acceptance of telecommuting.” Instead, he says, “organizational—and management—cultural changes were far more important in the rate of acceptance of telecommuting. That was the case in 1974 and is still the case today. The adoption of telework is still well behind its potential.”

Some studies have shown that telecommuting can contribute to a significant reduction in vehicle miles traveled—and, consequently, in greenhouse gas emissions. But it’s difficult to quantify the effects on traffic and energy usage, the forces that directly inspired Nilles’ book.

Whatever the ultimate impacts of telecommuting, the authors were right in recognizing the need for action. “Until the early 1970s, the United States’ economy was operating as if expansion of the automobile industry and increasing dependence on the automobile were destined to be continued indefinitely,” they wrote. But the Arab oil embargo and ensuing energy crisis exposed America’s dependence on finite oil reserves. Forty years later, their words still ring true:

We are now at a decision point as a society; we must decide whether the way of life made possible by the automobile since the turn of the century will (or can) continue, or if we should consider alternate or modified modes of working, communicating, and living.

(Top image via Apostolos Mastoris/Shutterstock.com)