1. INTRODUCTION

1.1 Objectives

This interim findings report on the Residential Area-Based Offices (RABO) Project focuses on the measurement of the impacts of telecommuting centers. The survey instruments employed in the evaluation process both measured telecommuting activity and assessed its impacts on work performance, job satisfaction, and travel behavior. The assessment presented here provides valuable information about the effectiveness of center-based telecommuting as a work option and as a travel demand management strategy.

An important objective of the RABO Project was to monitor and evaluate all telecommuting centers in California, both those set up under the RABO Project and those already in existence. UC Davis was tasked with formally evaluating up to five of these existing non-RABO centers (see Table 2-1 for a list of telecenters evaluated in this report). The centers that were opened separately from this project did not necessarily locate near residential areas, a criterion in the siting of RABO centers. As a result, the impacts of these non-RABO centers are likely to differ from the RABO centers in some ways, and these differences are noted where appropriate. In addition to the formal data collection from, and evaluation of, these five non-RABO sites, all known telecommuting centers in California were informally monitored. Periodic status tracking reports on all telecenters are listed in the front of this report among the group of documents produced by the RABO Project.

1.2 Evaluation Methodology

In order to investigate the impacts of telecenter use, a complex evaluation plan was developed that involves the administration of four data collection instruments, three groups of project participants, and three sub-categories within each group (see Tables 1-1a and b). The four survey instruments that are used to measure telecommuting behavior and its impacts are an attitudinal survey, a travel diary, a sign-in log, and an exit interview. The project participants include the telecommuting center users and two control groups: home-based telecommuters and non-telecommuters. In addition, for each group, the employee's manager and household members are surveyed as part of the investigation. As a result, the surveys were tailored to each group, where appropriate. In addition, the attitudinal survey and travel diary were given at two points in time so as to measure changes related to the implementation of telecommuting from a center.

Monetary incentives were offered to motivate the completion of attitudinal surveys and travel diaries. The primary incentive was a drawing for cash prizes of $100, $150, and $250. Two drawings were held: one in December 1994 for before survey instruments and one in July 1995 for after survey instruments. Each attitudinal survey or travel diary returned by a telecenter user, a control group member, or a household member counted as one entry in the drawing. Later in the evaluation process, when recruiting control group members proved difficult, an incentive of five dollars per completed survey was offered to those groups. This stimulated participation somewhat, but control group sample sizes remain substantially smaller than those for center-based telecommuters.

The attitudinal survey is a sixteen-page questionnaire that asks about participant characteristics and their attitudes toward telecommuting. Prior to the commencement of telecommuting from the center, the prospective telecenter user completed the before-wave version of the attitudinal survey. Approximately six months after the start of telecenter use, the center-based telecommuters were again surveyed (a copy of the "after" survey is included as Appendix E). Although the after-wave version of the attitudinal survey contained some new questions about experiences at the telecommuting center, most questions remained the same as in the initial version. Consequently, comparisons between the two survey waves can be used to show changes in attitudes related to work and telecommuting. However, any measured changes are not necessarily caused by telecommuting from a center, but they may in fact be due to other events independent of this project. As a hypothetical example, a negative change in attitudes toward work and productivity may be caused by the downsizing of certain organizations rather than by the ineffectiveness of telecommuting.

To control for these potential background changes, two comparison groups, home-based telecommuters and non-telecommuters, were identified. The control group members (up to six from each of the two groups per telecenter user) were recruited from the same organization and chosen to have a position similar to that of the telecenter user, where possible. While the attitudinal survey was modified somewhat to account for the differences among the three study groups, the majority of the questions are identical or have a parallel structure in order to facilitate the comparison of responses. For the most part, the home-based and non-telecommuters were surveyed at approximately the same time as their associated telecenter user for both administration waves. The data from the control group members provide information on background effects in the workplace. Thus, the changes observed in the telecenter users are controlled for, allowing the identification of the effects related to telecommuting center use. Additionally, the home-based telecommuting group provides the opportunity to distinguish attitudes and impacts common to both forms of telecommuting from those specific to the center-based form.

In addition to the survey of telecommuting employees, a parallel attitudinal survey was developed to measure manager characteristics and perceptions. This twelve-page survey was administered to the manager of each prospective telecenter user and control group member before the start of telecenter use. The managers were again surveyed in the after wave (a copy of the survey is included as Appendix F). A description of the contents and results of the employee and manager surveys for the telecenter users can be found in Chapter 3 of this report. The surveys of control group employees and managers will be analyzed later, as resources permit.

The travel diary was used to record the transportation activities of study group employees and their household members during three consecutive days (a copy of key elements of the diary is provided in Appendix H). All three study groups were included in the sample studied using the travel diary. The home-based and non-telecommuter households serve both as controls for background effects and as comparisons to the travel activities of center-based telecommuter households. The travel diary was also administered in two survey waves, before and approximately six months after telecenter use began. There were no day-of-the-week restrictions for the control groups or for the prospective telecenter users on the before travel diary. However, on the after diary the telecenter users were requested to include at least one telecenter use in their three-day period. The discussion of the travel diary results in Chapter 6 is restricted to the after wave for telecenter users only and focuses primarily on the differences in travel on days they worked from the telecenter versus days they did not work from the telecenter.

The sign-in logs captured the use of the telecommuting centers on a daily basis. For each telecommuting occasion, project participants were asked to sign an attendance log to record their presence. Besides their name, telecenter users were also asked to give the time spent at different work locations and the means of travel to the center (a copy of the sign-in log is provided in Appendix G). The data from the sign in sheets provide a measure of telecommuting frequency, center occupancy, and travel behavior. Chapter 4 covers the tabulation and analysis of the attendance log data.

Finally, those who quit telecommuting from a center were given an exit interview to determine the reason(s) for leaving. The administration of an exit interview is prompted by one of two occurrences. In some cases, participants informed their site administrator of their intention to quit. Other participants were contacted about their project status if they had failed to sign the attendance log for an extended period. The interview itself asks primarily about the motivation for quitting and the current preferences for work locations. Descriptions of the responses to the exit interviews are given in Chapter 5.

1.3 Report Outline

This report is organized into seven chapters. Following the introduction, some procedural issues involved in conducting the evaluation of telecenter impacts are discussed. The third chapter describes the results of the attitudinal and demographic surveys administered to the telecenter users and their managers. In Chapter 4, the patterns of telecommuting use are examined by site and by individual. Next, factors in the retention of center-based telecommuters are addressed. The sixth chapter investigates the travel impacts of telecenter use by comparing telecommuting to non-telecommuting days. The conclusion summarizes the major findings at this point in the evaluation process and outlines further analyses of the data that could be performed.

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