Only 14 percent of survey respondents indicated that telecommuting is the norm, down 1 percent since the 2009 survey. The number of survey respondents reporting telecommuting as "forbidden" was down since the 2009 survey, but it was only down by 3 percent.

Such little movement is surprising because in this down economy technologies that support telecommuting such as unified messaging and video conferencing have been seen as cost savers.

"Why the telecommuting adoption didn't meet expectations is hard to conclude," says Baretz. "One assumption may be that coming out of the recession business leaders had a desire to have a more concrete or physical interaction with their teams."

What is clear from the survey is that the bigger the company the more accepting and supportive it will be of telecommuting.