A new study from no less than the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and powerhouse IBM finds that workers who maintain online connections to their bosses produce more than those who don’t.

The surprise finding: Not only were people who frequently communicated online with their manager more productive, but those who avoided their managers online were much less productive.

The researchers (two of them from MIT’s Sloan School of Management) analyzed a wide range of electronic communication channels, including e-mail, buddy lists and social networking activity of 2,600 workers over 12 months to come up with their conclusions.

Employees who maintained constant electronic communications averaged an increase in revenue of $588 per month over the average; the luddites who didn’t produced $98 per month less than the average.

The researchers concluded that the under-performers probably felt pulled in too many directions with no clear leadership or direction.

As the modern workforce becomes more geographically dispersed it’s become a challenge for workers and managers to stay connected and know each other’s strengths and weaknesses.

Using electronic tools to forge stronger bonds and communicate tasks, objectives and feedback seems to be a key way for companies to keep everyone connected and productive.

To read the details of the MIT/IBM study, visit here.

Have them use instant messaging software on the job.

Contrary to popular belief, a new study finds that workers who “IM” report fewer interruptions than colleagues who do not. At the same time, they may feel more connected at the office.

Using instant messaging led to more conversations on the computer, but the conversations were briefer, says R. Kelly Garrett, assistant professor of communication at Ohio State University in Columbus, who co-authored the study with University of California, Irvine professor James N. Danziger.

Garrett says that employees using IM technology report that they communicate more frequently — with co-workers, clients, and personal contacts — but do not spend any more time communicating overall.

Employees often use the technology as a substitute for other, more disruptive forms of communication such as the telephone, e-mail, and face-to-face conversations, and IM conversations tend to be briefer, he says.

“The key takeaway is that instant messaging has some benefits where many people had feared that it might be harmful,” Garrett said. “We found that the effect of instant messaging is actually positive. People who used instant messaging reported that they felt they were being interrupted less frequently.”

The study involved 912 people from 12 metropolitan areas who worked at least 30 hours per week in an office and used a computer for at least five hours in a workday. The results were published recently in the Journal of Computer Mediated Communication.

These are some tips experts give for productively working from home:

• Have an office. That should be a place where an employee works and nothing else. Using the space for work and non-work purposes can make it hard to be productive.
• Check in with colleagues. Teleworkers should go out of their way to make contact with office employees, even more often than they really need to in order to get work done. E-mail, instant messaging and the old-fashioned telephone are good methods of contact.
• Keep a timesheet. Even if managers don’t ask remote workers to track their time, doing so for their own sake can help them make sure they’re still putting in the right amount of time.
• Show up every now and then. If the employee still lives within a reasonable distance, coming into the office sometimes can help with catching up on stuff that needs to be done in person.
• Pay attention to IT. A company’s IT department should have a solid policy on working securely, but that only helps if employees put in the effort to follow it.