Working from home
This is a topic near and dear to my heart.
I've been a remote worker (officially) for a little over a year now, and unofficially for quite a few more. And what I can say about it is this; under the right conditions it can be one of the most beneficial things possible for both the company and employee.
There are some caveats, of course. And I think most of them can be addressed. I think the single most important is also the hardest to enforce. And that, having a dedicated office space. Without it, it takes a lot of resolve to be an effective at-home employee. The first job which allowed me to work from home, I actually needed to stop doing it so regularly as I was falling behind. And I can now rather squarely pin the blame on my work environment. I sat down on a futon in front of our TV in a shared living area.
I think that just about everything else can be dealt with in two easy steps. Video conferences and daily meetings. Daily meetings provide management with updates and provide the employee with accountability. It just needs to be a quick 15 minute team meeting (like a daily scrum for developers). Get the whole team on a call once a day for a quick chat. Find out what they're working on, what they're struggling with and what they're planning on working on. It keeps them engaged and makes it harder to slack off.
Video conferences are useful in two ways. It does a lot of the stuff that a daily meeting does (and can in fact BE the daily meeting as well), but video chats also provide a potential way to verify that the employee actually has a home office. It also gives the employee a reason to get dressed and maintain their hygiene. One of the things I learned over the last few years is that, if you let yourself get TOO complacent at home and stop doing basic things for yourself, it can actually hurt your motivation. It also means that you're less likely to be waking up at the computer.
But beyond that, the benefits to the company are actually quite massive. Back when I heard rumours that HR was planning to kill off working from home I had seriously thought about switching jobs. I wasn't getting paid the industry average at the time, I had years of experience from working there and I could likely have found another job easily where I'd also be forced to go into the office, but get paid more to do so. And when that threat passed, the motivation to seek other employment passed as well.
I KNEW I was being paid less than the industry standard in my area. But, I was willing to stay for the ability to work from home. Compensation is about more than just money. Time is a huge one. And, working from home actually translates into money indirectly. Driving or commuting some other way is not cheap. I lived an hour away from the office. It was $100/week in gas, and it increased my service maintenance on my car from once every 3 months to once a month. I often bought lunches at work. And so on. So, while I knew my pay was below average, I also knew my compensation was well above average. And that bonus compensation which kept me employed there... cost the company $0.
In fact, it saved the company as well. Firstly, the obvious. If I quit, they would likely need to hire someone at a higher rate to fill in my position. And secondly, as the company grew, the increasing number of people who worked from home meant that they didn't need to move to a bigger office.
The other way that the company benefited was that I was more productive and more willing to work late as needed. An office is a very distracting place. Lunches with co-workers take up a lot more time than lunches by myself. Getting a coffee almost always resulted into bumping into a coworker and talking for 15+ minutes. Co-workers stop by my desk and ask me about my day, my family, and so forth. I'm frequently fussing about when I get out of the office to make the most of the traffic situation. Those interactions are valuable. But, when they happen every single day, they are a massive drain on overall productivity.
And, as I said, I didn't mind working late or early any more. And, if I needed to have meeting with someone in another office, in another timezone, I could simply adjust my work day for the day. The 40 hour work week is going to be hard for most people to deal with. You leave after a rushed breakfast and you rush home to be there in time for dinner. Unless you live and work in a smaller city or live REALLY close to the office, you KNOW how true this is. Having my commute be down a hallway is INCREDIBLE. You need me early? I can take a break and grab breakfast after the meeting. You need me late? I can grab dinner early or do the meeting after I've even. Or, if it isn't a video call, I can even eat during the call as long as I'm not the one driving the whole meeting.
The other huge thing of course is, my 40 weeks... are 40 hour weeks. When I was commuting to the office, it was at least an hour each way. Which meant I spent more than extra work day's worth of time each week simply getting too and from. I had thought about maybe moving closer, but when I asked co-workers how long it took them to get in... most were not that far off of my commute time. Realistically... most people live and work in larger cities. Those that commute from out of town stick to highways most of the way in, so they cover distance faster. Whereas those living in town take more city streets, which in a busy city is SLOW. I was blown away to find that while I lived 2-4 times away from the office than most others, my hour long commute was probably only 15 minutes longer than the average commute time in the office.
Now, like I said, there ARE benefits to going into an office as far as getting to know your co-workers and developing stronger bonds that way. The benefits (in my opinion) though drop off very quickly when done too often. But, there are ways to address that too. Split the office into multiple groups which come into the office on different days. Share desks, and split into enough groups that you can have multiple groups in at a time and mix them up over time.
I've been a remote worker (officially) for a little over a year now, and unofficially for quite a few more. And what I can say about it is this; under the right conditions it can be one of the most beneficial things possible for both the company and employee.
There are some caveats, of course. And I think most of them can be addressed. I think the single most important is also the hardest to enforce. And that, having a dedicated office space. Without it, it takes a lot of resolve to be an effective at-home employee. The first job which allowed me to work from home, I actually needed to stop doing it so regularly as I was falling behind. And I can now rather squarely pin the blame on my work environment. I sat down on a futon in front of our TV in a shared living area.
I think that just about everything else can be dealt with in two easy steps. Video conferences and daily meetings. Daily meetings provide management with updates and provide the employee with accountability. It just needs to be a quick 15 minute team meeting (like a daily scrum for developers). Get the whole team on a call once a day for a quick chat. Find out what they're working on, what they're struggling with and what they're planning on working on. It keeps them engaged and makes it harder to slack off.
Video conferences are useful in two ways. It does a lot of the stuff that a daily meeting does (and can in fact BE the daily meeting as well), but video chats also provide a potential way to verify that the employee actually has a home office. It also gives the employee a reason to get dressed and maintain their hygiene. One of the things I learned over the last few years is that, if you let yourself get TOO complacent at home and stop doing basic things for yourself, it can actually hurt your motivation. It also means that you're less likely to be waking up at the computer.
But beyond that, the benefits to the company are actually quite massive. Back when I heard rumours that HR was planning to kill off working from home I had seriously thought about switching jobs. I wasn't getting paid the industry average at the time, I had years of experience from working there and I could likely have found another job easily where I'd also be forced to go into the office, but get paid more to do so. And when that threat passed, the motivation to seek other employment passed as well.
I KNEW I was being paid less than the industry standard in my area. But, I was willing to stay for the ability to work from home. Compensation is about more than just money. Time is a huge one. And, working from home actually translates into money indirectly. Driving or commuting some other way is not cheap. I lived an hour away from the office. It was $100/week in gas, and it increased my service maintenance on my car from once every 3 months to once a month. I often bought lunches at work. And so on. So, while I knew my pay was below average, I also knew my compensation was well above average. And that bonus compensation which kept me employed there... cost the company $0.
In fact, it saved the company as well. Firstly, the obvious. If I quit, they would likely need to hire someone at a higher rate to fill in my position. And secondly, as the company grew, the increasing number of people who worked from home meant that they didn't need to move to a bigger office.
The other way that the company benefited was that I was more productive and more willing to work late as needed. An office is a very distracting place. Lunches with co-workers take up a lot more time than lunches by myself. Getting a coffee almost always resulted into bumping into a coworker and talking for 15+ minutes. Co-workers stop by my desk and ask me about my day, my family, and so forth. I'm frequently fussing about when I get out of the office to make the most of the traffic situation. Those interactions are valuable. But, when they happen every single day, they are a massive drain on overall productivity.
And, as I said, I didn't mind working late or early any more. And, if I needed to have meeting with someone in another office, in another timezone, I could simply adjust my work day for the day. The 40 hour work week is going to be hard for most people to deal with. You leave after a rushed breakfast and you rush home to be there in time for dinner. Unless you live and work in a smaller city or live REALLY close to the office, you KNOW how true this is. Having my commute be down a hallway is INCREDIBLE. You need me early? I can take a break and grab breakfast after the meeting. You need me late? I can grab dinner early or do the meeting after I've even. Or, if it isn't a video call, I can even eat during the call as long as I'm not the one driving the whole meeting.
The other huge thing of course is, my 40 weeks... are 40 hour weeks. When I was commuting to the office, it was at least an hour each way. Which meant I spent more than extra work day's worth of time each week simply getting too and from. I had thought about maybe moving closer, but when I asked co-workers how long it took them to get in... most were not that far off of my commute time. Realistically... most people live and work in larger cities. Those that commute from out of town stick to highways most of the way in, so they cover distance faster. Whereas those living in town take more city streets, which in a busy city is SLOW. I was blown away to find that while I lived 2-4 times away from the office than most others, my hour long commute was probably only 15 minutes longer than the average commute time in the office.
Now, like I said, there ARE benefits to going into an office as far as getting to know your co-workers and developing stronger bonds that way. The benefits (in my opinion) though drop off very quickly when done too often. But, there are ways to address that too. Split the office into multiple groups which come into the office on different days. Share desks, and split into enough groups that you can have multiple groups in at a time and mix them up over time.
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