As office rental start to rise and public transport are increasingly unreliable, organizations are starting to look for alternative ways to remain efficient and competitive. Employees spent substantial amount of time commuting from home to office. Office rentals have headed upwards and with labour cost ever increasing and the government’s tighter control on work permits for foreign workers, organizations are starting to feel the squeeze.
Teleworking, also referred to as telecommuting, basically allows employees to work from home and have remote access to the office network. Your desktop or laptop will appear as it does at work. Some employers also provide employees with laptops, mobile phones, and tablets to facilitate a more portable work environment. Employees also communicate through email and teleconferencing.
Working from home would be an alternative and a way forward. As technology becomes more sophisticated, it is an alternative towards making the best use of it. Most productivity gains are through technology, and it continues to evolve, providing untapped opportunities. Although working from home is nothing new, most organizations have yet to fully embrace it. Using technology makes working from home tick.
Most employers I spoke to have their concerns. Discipline and loss of control over the employees is their main concern. However some companies are beginning to see the benefits of having its employees work from home. For one, they are able to retain top performing employees who may have quit, had there not been an adjustment in flexi work arrangements. These employees have had their priorities rearranged and had to make sudden changes…like an executive having a newborn, but no one to turn to for help, or an elderly in the family suddenly falling ill. Such concerns of employees are not invalid. They are suddenly faced with a dilemma of resigning to address a new concern or go on working while trying to ‘fix’ a new undesired situation. By showing sympathy and flexibility in allowing the employee to work from home, the organization could retain and earn loyalty from the employee in such a predicament. This obviously strengthens the psychological contract.
Companies are apprehensive whenever they are unable to see, what the employees are doing. On many occasions we share information of what other companies have done to successfully implement working from home for some of its employees. It is obvious that not all jobs can be done from home. Most work that could be done from home usually involves white collar jobs that use IT to telecommute.
Companies are encouraged to set specific datelines and implement a better evaluation process if they are afraid that the employees may not be disciplined enough to work while in the ‘comforts’ of their own home. Quantifying work outputs and setting clear targets/goals would minimize any misunderstandings pertaining to how and when should the work be done. We also suggested that there should be at least one meeting per week to ensure that there is some form of contact and face to face social interaction. It’s all about implementing and amending the systems to be in sync with corporate goals and at the same time taking into consideration each employee’s personal priorities. Companies need to change their mindsets and embrace work from home as an alternative to reducing overall cost and seeing it as a retention tool to reduce turnover.
By Martin Gabriel, Senior HR Consultant, HRmatters21
