But if you're lucky, nothing untoward will happen until a bunch of are well on their way to requiring surgery.

3. Don't require a separate home office -- leave it up to the employee

Being a benign sort of manager, you certainly don't want to come across as coercive. This is a benefit, after all. If an employee wants to work at the kitchen table, why should you object? It's a free country.

And when, eventually, an important client or a highly placed executive is on the phone with a telecommuting employee and hears a dog barking in the background or a child's voice whining, "Why can't you play with me, Daddy?" -- in fact, you never actually said you thought telecommuting was a good idea, did you?

4. Make mobile phones the work-at-home standard