Telecommuters work hard to protect this dirty little secret

Working from home has much appeal in the war for talent, and law departments succumb at times (See my posts of Oct. 19, 2005 on obstacles to telecommuting; Sept. 25, 2005 and Oct. 18, 2005 on survey data; Dec. 4, 2005 on ways to bend the work rules; and Dec. 10, 2005 on cost and productivity savings.). Law departments would come up short, and general counsel would ban work from home if this quote, from the NY Times, May 27, 2006, at C5, came to their attention (and were true): “When office employees say they are working at home for a day, 25 percent actually work less than one hour.”

The Times drew this quote from Health magazine and called it “troubling.” Drolly, the Times added a second thought: the other magazine “did not ask how long those people actually worked when they went to the office.”