ARE NEW OFFICES NECESSARY?

Everyone says that when business is good, you’re supposed to be able to relax a little. Whoever said that never set foot in the office of your magazine.

When you launched the magazine, the staff consisted of you (editor and publisher), an advertising salesperson (who also handled distribution), an art director, a page designer, and a production director. All writing was by freelancers. As circulation has grown, so have the number of pages in the magazine and the frequency with which you publish issues. That core of six people has quadrupled, causing the space you all occupy to become cramped. At 6,000 square feet, the office is comfortably full with 25 people. Your problem is that you have more work than your 25 employees can comfortably handle, and you need to hire about five more people. Where will you put them?

The way you see it, you have a couple of options. First, you could move. Pack everyone’s desk up, all the equipment, and find a space that will accommodate a larger and growing workforce. Moving, though, would be costly. Companies typically charge upwards of $50 per hour per mover, plus you’d have to get insurance to cover the move. The Better Business Bureau received complaints about companies in over 1,000 industries; the moving industry received over 5,000 complaints, putting them 11^th on that list. Finding a reputable, high-quality moving company could take time away from magazine work. And managing the logistics could be a nightmare. You can’t just shut down, turn off the phones, and move in peace. You’d still have to conduct business, sell ads, edit copy, handle subscriptions, lay out pages, shoot photos, and do dozens of other day-to-day activities. Plus, the sheer volume of paper archives related to five years of magazine publishing, not to mention all the technology hardware, would make packing and unpacking a big endeavor for each of your workers.

The second option: Stay put and let workers telecommute. Although you’d avoid the headache of a move, you’d trade the management of a one-time event (moving offices) for regular management of everyone’s on-site and off-site schedules. Telecommuting is on the verge of being a widely accepted form of scheduling despite the very real danger of work and home life blending into one big pot of time. Already 40 percent of Americans work evenings, weekends, or on rotating shifts, and the numbers of full-time workers who work from home at least one day a month rose 30 percent in a single year, proving the trend is toward working from home. People tend to romanticize working from home, however, and forget that there are real challenges (like not having access to convenient photocopying or shipping, lack of quiet space, not enough space, and, yes, no social interaction).

You’re primarily concerned about a drop in creativity as fewer people are on site to collaborate and give feedback on article ideas, layouts, and other decisions that come up nearly every hour. Statistically, 14 percent of U.S. workers who could telecommute if they wanted still prefer to work in an office. That means you could be left with only four people in the office! But offering telecommuting would let you tap into a larger talent pool and help you retain workers who are looking for flexibility with their schedules and work locations. If your employees could work from home, you wouldn’t lose as much time during inclement weather either—no more snow days.

Even though your choice is between two options—move or offer telecommuting—you also need to consider how involved your employees should be in the decision. Telecommuting affects their work and home lives, but the expense and the responsibility for managing the project will be yours.

Sources: T. Rivas, “Atypical Workdays Becoming Routine,” The Wall Street Journal, 4 April 2006, A19; S. Shellenbarger, “When Working at Home Doesn’t Work: How Companies Comfort Telecommuters,” The Wall Street Journal, 24 August 2006, B1; “Real Estate Exchange,” U.S. Department of Transportation, Federal Highway Administration, available online at http://knowledge.fhwa.dot.gov/cops/rex.nsf/discussionDisplay?Open&id=EF35631CF1E86D918525709200504C4E&Group=Relocation%20Forum&tab=DISCUSSION; M.-Y. Lee, “Don’t Fall into the Trap of Paying Extra Moving Costs,” BuyerZone.com, 15 May 2001, available online at www.buyerzone.com/features/savvy_shopper/ss051501.html.

1. How involved should your employees be in making the decision?

2. Because everyone has worked closely in the same open office, you’ve been able to use an achievement-oriented leadership style. Would a shift to telecommuting require a change in style? Explain.

3. How do you manage space issues as your business grows?