Telecommuting: the good, the bad and the unknown.

No one said designing a telecommuting policy was easy.

Flexible workplace arrangements win favor with employees who tend to like the flexibility and autonomy. Corporate budget crunchers often credit flexible schedules with real estate savings.

Meanwhile, many managers say the

An examination of 20 years of research by Pennsylvania State University investigators suggests that the evidence is tilted, albeit slightly, in favor of telecommuting.

An analysis of 46 studies of telecommuting involving 12,833 employees, conducted by Ravi S. Gajendran and David A. Harrison, professors in Penn State's Department of Management and Organization, shows that flexible schedules offer managers more positives than negatives. Their study was published in the Journal of Applied Psychology in November 2007.

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Contrary to popular belief that face time at the office remains essential for good work relations, said Gajendran, the evidence shows telecommuters' relations with their managers and co-workers did not suffer.