Working From
Home can Benefit Employers as much as Employees
There are two
camps when it comes to working from home. One group usually thinks that people
will get nothing done and the group that believes workers will be happier and
more productive. Chances are, your answer greatly depends on how you personally
fare when working from home. While some people swear by 40 hours a week in the
office, there is growing support for the second camp of workers who find they
are more productive working from home.
Recent
studies have supported the idea that working from home – for the right people –
can increase productivity and decrease stress. Research also suggests companies
that encourage and support a work from home protocol actually save money in the
long run; an added bonus on the employer side.
The tech
industry is well known for its flexible schedules and telecommuting
opportunities. Which makes sense considering most tech companies are web based
and that technology is the greatest resource when working from home. With video
chats, conference calls, VPN networks, and wireless internet, we can constantly
stay connected as though we were sitting in our office rather than at home.
Tech is also
experiencing a shortage of talent for a number of jobs, and hiring remote
workers opens the talent pool for companies seeking STEM workers. Boris
Kontsevoi, founder and president of Intetics Co states, “In the tech sphere
majority of the work happens on the computer and online. As a result, the
location of the person is no longer as important, as long as they have a
reliable Internet connection.”
Nature of
Tech
While remote
workers can be found in a number of different industries, it’s more prevalent
in the tech-sphere. It could be due to the nature of most tech jobs – especially
jobs such as developer and programmer – that require a strong attention to
detail and long hours of focus. Working from home can reduce the amount of
distractions these workers face, allowing them to get more done during work
hours.
“As a programmer,
I need large chunks of time to really make progress on a project,” states Ann
Gaffigan, CTO of Land Pros Systems, Inc., “In an office, there are so many
potential distractions, with people knocking on the door or customers stopping
in. This way I can control when I answer calls and emails and when I 'go
silent' to get some work done.”
For employees
who can’t afford to be distracted a number of times a day, having a controlled
environment can be key to their productivity. Working from home can allow workers
to minimize distractions and increase the time they spend focused on a project.
It stands to reason that, in the end, companies benefit from these remote
employees by getting projects completed faster with fewer mistakes.
One Size
Doesn’t Fit All
When it comes
to a company’s work from home policy, everyone is different. Your productivity
and overall success as a remote employee depends entirely on your preferred
work style. That’s also the reason it’s hard to find any solid data on whether
or not people are more productive at home. Anecdotally, it seems to boil down
to personality type and the job you do. We’re all different, and some of us
can’t fathom getting work done with a TV nearby and all our comforts of home
surrounding us, while others find it a struggle to stay focused among office
chatter and other distractions.
Your success
in working from home might depend on the type of work you do, as discovered in
a study by University of Illinois. The study found that telecommuters performed
as well as their in-office coworkers. Phil Cicioria, Business & Law Editor
at University of Illinois states, “According to the study, telecommuters want
to be seen as “good citizens” of the company in order to justify their flexible
work arrangements.”
Employer Benefits
Employees
aren’t the only ones who benefit from working from home; a company can benefit
just as greatly from a remote employee. “For employers telecommuting can limit
absences, increase productivity, and save money. This is most common in the tech
sphere because tech companies have the infrastructure to maintain remote
workers. With telecommuting the idea of the office space is changing but many
are saying that it is for the better," states Ari Zoldan CEO, Quantum
Networks, LLC.
Simon Slade,
CEO and co-founder of Affilorama has experienced first hand the benefits of
having remote workers at his company, “By allowing employees to work remotely,
you can hire the best of the best while not limiting yourself by geographical
restrictions. At Doubledot Media, 19 of our 28 employees work remotely, and I
have seen no difference in job satisfaction or work performance. If anything,
my remote employees' production rate is higher because they are better equipped
to avoid distractions.” The benefits also extend to his bottom line,
“telecommuting saves me money because they pay for their own computer,
electricity and other utilities.”
In fact,
opening the talent pool seems to be one of the biggest employer benefits when
it comes to a work from home policy. Jessica Greenwalt, Founder of Pixelkeet
and Co-Founder of CrowdMed states, “Pixelkeet has been able to attract very
talented designers and developers who want to live the freelance lifestyle
without having to fish for work on their own. It's also been easy for us to
work with clients from around the globe because we have a team member in a
timezone convenient for communicating with most clients.”
For some
companies, work from home can be a matter of more hours in the day. This is
especially true for small businesses and new companies where they can’t afford
to waste even one minute of the workday. “Being a small startup, every hour of
the day is important,” states Tim Segraves, cofounder and CTO of Revaluate, “If
we all spent an hour of day commuting, that would be almost 20 hours a week
that would go to commuting instead of building out our product and business.”
Companies
might also retain more employees if they enact a work from home benefit.
Stanford professor, Nick Bloom, conducted a study to evaluate the benefits of
working from home. He found workers were more productive, got more done, worked
longer hours, took less breaks, and used less sick time than their in-office
counterparts. These employees were also happier and quit less than those who
went into the office on a regular basis. He estimated that, on average, the
company saved around $2,000 per every employee who worked from home.
Health
Benefits
People who
work from home have an easier time eating healthy and striking a manageable
work-life balance. Eating healthier and having more time to spend with your
family can help you feel less stressed, which will make for a happier more
productive workday. A 2011 study from
Staples found that employees who worked from home experienced 25 percent less
stress. Employees also reported that they were able to maintain a better work
life balance, as well as eat healthier.
Cofounder of
SimpleTexting, Felix Dubinksy, notes the health benefits of being at home,
“It’s much easier to keep a healthy diet while eating at home. You save a lot
of stressful hours that would have been spent commuting. You can construct a
comfortable work environment for yourself. Spend more time with family.”
It’s a common
answer when you ask people why they like to work from home. Most will respond
that their flexible work environment relieves the amount of stress in their
lives and gives them a healthier work-life balance. Today, our offices are
constantly on, it isn't the same as it was decades ago, when you left the
office and work actually ended. Today, most of us can work at any hour wherever
we are located, so it makes sense that the line is starting to blur between
work and life. But it stands to reason that working from home can help redefine
-- or at the very least, rebalance -- that line.
Alessandra
Ceresa, Marketing Director of Greenrope, finds he can balance his work and life
much easier when he works remote, “Because much of what we do is not
constrained within the hours of 9-5, I am able to go to the gym in the middle
of the day, take a walk, do errands. When I take these sorts of breaks, the
moment I sit back down to work I am focused. My life is balanced, because I get
all of my work done, and have time to actually live my life.”
Maybe you
have a commute that makes you frustrated before you even hit your desk and all
you can do while you drink your morning coffee is fantasize about what you
could buy with all that gas money. For employees that work far from the office,
cutting out the commute can make a world of difference for their stress and
overall health. For Charlie Harary, CEO of H3 & Company and professor at
the Syms School of Business at Yeshiva University, cutting down on how many
days a week one of his employees needed to commute allowed one employee to get
more done in her working hours. “I have an employee that has a two hour commute
to the office each way. Once day, she mentioned to me that she had to leave early
to get home in time to make a family obligation. I asked her why and she
detailed out her daily commute. I was shocked by the sheer difficulty it was
for her to get to the office each day.”
He
immediately proposed a work from home option. At first, the employee wasn’t
sure how well working remote would work for her or her boss, but after coming
up with a suitable arrangement, both Jeff and his employee were happy to see
how well it worked. So happy, in fact, that she now works from home twice a
week.
The future of
work from home
Companies are
certainly catching onto the trend, and most have the flexibility to work from
home, if not at all the time, at least when needed. It’s changing the way we
work, especially in the tech sphere. And while it may not be for everybody,
employers may find they can save money and increase productivity for some
workers. And for some employees, work from home benefits may be the difference
between an enjoyable and stressful work life.
Clayburn
Griffin, a digital marketer who finds remote work suits him best, hopes more
companies see the benefits that can be gleamed from remote workers, “I really
hope employers start to realize this and offer more time to their employees to
work from home. I think they don't because they're afraid of abuse and because
it feels like there is no oversight. You can't see what an employee is doing,
and that feels like giving up some control. All that should matter, though, is
that they're getting the work done.”
If working
from home sounds like it would be a great fit for your personality, check out
openings on Monster to find tech companies hiring remote workers.
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