Mott was hired by HP last July after previously being CIO at Dell Inc. and Wal-Mart Stores Inc.

The telecommuting changes are being driven, he said, by the aggressive IT plans he has put in place at HP, which has more than 500 active projects that require heavy amounts of teamwork and cross-functional collaboration. In addition, the IT department needs to transform the skills of workers as it adopts new tools, Mott said.

"I really don't view what we're doing to be very different than what a lot of what I would consider leading-edge IT organizations do," he said. "We do allow [telecommuting] where it makes sense and where the jobs and the skills and the individual's performance has warranted it. But in a lot of cases, it certainly benefits both the individual and the business to really put these teams together."

HP has a total of 11,400 employees who currently telecommute, most of them in the U.S., a company spokeswoman said in a written response to questions. She added that HP's overall policy on out-of-the-office work hasn't changed. "The IT organization has made a specific business decision to provide guidelines that locate more team members together," the spokeswoman wrote.

One trend that may help foster further increases in the use of telecommuting is the interest that companies are showing in developing remote work capabilities as part of their business continuity plans, said Phil Zweig, vice president of information systems at The Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Co. in Milwaukee.