But also it is the case that if someone is only doing some of their work on a more flexible basis, managers may find that in terms of human interaction it may not be vastly different from dealing with, say, a sales force who are out on the road for much of the time. Personality and telework Recruitment and promotion often involve some kind of psychometric analysis. It is quite natural that HR practitioners may see some merit in applying this to assessing suitability for teleworking. Several chapters in this book examine personal suitability for teleworking. However, this is an area where it is hard to be precise, and once again it is necessary to raise the issue about whether teleworking is for the whole of a job or only certain functions.
Much current advice is simply banal.
To assess the value of such advice, turn the issue on its head. In almost all cases, specified attributes for teleworkers are only what you would expect from the best of your workforce as a whole. And if your are employing people whom you find to be immature, untrustworthy, undisciplined, poor time managers etc, the question arises why you are employing them at all. Unless you are content for telework to be available as a privilege, or as an option for a kind of workforce elite, then the issue is not so much about selection on a personality basis as about how to raise standards and how to prepare people for a different workstyle. Once again, it is difficult to arrive at generic advice, as the devil is in the detail.