Don,

That "hanging around the water cooler" chatter is *exactly* the reason some of us prefer to work at home ... I get *much* more work done at home than at the office. The office has way too many interruptions (and I work in a small shop ... besides me, there's only one other programmer, our boss, a tester and two "marketing guys"). Unfortunately, I have to be in the office 3 days a week, but I know that I get way more done in the 2 days at home than I do in the 3 days at the office.

That said, a lot depends on the person. Some people are like me ... others need the structure of working in an office and get little or nothing done at home. As far as measuring productivity, I agree with Michel ... you manage the work the same as you would any other project. Just make sure there's plenty of communication, perhaps weekly status reports from your employees would help too.

~~Bonnie


>Good evening all.
>
>I am increasing working with folks who work at home or at least work outside of our office. If someone works in the office, you have a general sense of when things are going well and how fast an assignment is getting completed.
>
>It's different when someone works outside the office. Communications are much less frequent and there is not any of the "hanging around the water cooler" chatter that gives you a sense of where things are.
>
>I was wondering how other shops handle the issue of measuring employee productivity of those who work outside of the office? Are there any rules of thumb, or other guidelines? Do you have any business rules that work without pi**ging off the employee?
>
>Subcontracting is not really an option. The folks working outside of the office are people we know and like and who know our customers and our business. Subcontracting would waste huge amounts of time because the scope of every task would have to be explained.
>
>Thanks
>Don Lowrey