By CHRIS POWELL
Working remotely by computer, internet, and telephone can make people more productive, sparing them the burden of commuting and the social distractions of the office.
But working remotely can reduce productivity as well. It exposes workers to the distractions of home life, encourages them to slack off, since no supervisors or colleagues are watching them, and forecloses insights gained when work is done collegially.
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Striking the right balance between in-person and remote work is a matter of management, which is why remote work is almost certainly a disadvantage in Connecticut state government, state government having precious little management, with nearly all its nominal managers being unionized and with their union contracts and the state Board of Mediation and Arbitration making dismissals virtually impossible.
A recent report from Connecticut’s Hearst newspapers examined remote work in state government, and some of its findings were disturbing.
At least 248 state employees are allowed to work full-time from out of state, which indicates that their basic loyalty is not to Connecticut, their employer. Are all these out-of-state employees really so uniquely skilled that their work couldn’t be done well by someone living among the people he is supposed to be serving and his colleagues in his agency?
Another 11,500 state employees are allowed to work in large part from home. Even if they seem productive to their supervisors, their supervisors may not have much idea of whether they could be more productive, because the supervisors cannot always see how long the work actually takes.
A spokesman for Governor Lamont explains: “Ultimately managers are given discretion to allow employees to telework at a level that makes business sense for their agency, and, above all else, they ensure work is thorough and completed.”
At least that’s what managers are supposed to do. Do they really do it? A commissioner can hardly check on how well his manager is supervising an employee when neither the commissioner nor the manager can see the employee on the job.
Of course state employees love working remotely. When legislation to reduce telework was proposed in the General Assembly this year, 500 state employees opposed it. Did they oppose it more because they think telework is in state government’s interest or more because they think it’s in their own interest? Do all state government employees place their employer’s interest above their own?
A few days after the Hearst Connecticut report was published, WFSB-TV3 in Hartford called attention to what may be the state government’s most interesting example of remote work. The station reported that Terrence Cheng, the disgraced former chancellor of the Connecticut State Colleges and Universities System, having been removed from that job by the Board of Regents and appointed “strategic adviser” to the board at the same salary and benefits, nearly $500,000, for the year remaining on his contract, seems not to have attended any board meetings since becoming its “strategic adviser.”
Even when Cheng was chancellor the board allowed him to live in New York. He still does.
What exactly is Cheng doing? A spokesman for the board said it’s research.
Of course the regents aren’t supervising Cheng now any more than they did when he was abusing his expense account and giving big raises to crony administrators. His new job is really just cover for fat severance pay, the regents having lacked the courage to fire him outright. But this is still an example of how state government management isn’t conscientious.
So it’s a good bet that state government should be a lot more selective with remote work. But it’s unlikely to do so while the majority political party is controlled by the government employee unions.
It’s also a good bet that the employees of state government’s hospital for the criminally insane, Whiting Forensic, and employees of the state prisons wish they could work remotely. Many have been injured on the job lately for lack of adequate muscle in the wards and cellblocks, another problem the governor and legislators ignore.
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Chris Powell has written about Connecticut government and politics for many years. (CPowell@cox.net)
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Chris Powell column 