What is “Work From Home”?
Carrying out an economic activity at home is called
Work From Home (also known as telecommuting).
Benefits from “Work from Home”
Benefits to the employers:
· Savings
on cost of infrastructure, overhead expenses and office supplies/consumables
. The
facility could be swapped in place of other perks to reduce the pay roll cost,
if employees agree
· A Non-financial
perk to attract and retain the talented employees
·
Flexibility
in rostering and scheduling the availability of services
·
Continuity
of business in natural calamities
·
Reduction
in Absenteeism
· Reduction
in frequency of availing leave by the employees
· Reduction
in frequency of availing unplanned leave (leave without prior request)
· More
satisfied employees and better perception / Public Review of the Company
· Higher
productivity if proper Project Management Tools, monitoring system, Carrot and
Stick Policy, infrastructure, etc are in place
· More
flexibility in duty hours with extended availability of services attracting
more customers/clients
Benefits to the employees:
. Saving the cost, time and hassles of
commuting
. Better Work-Life balance leading to better
family life and positive perception about the job and the employer
. Higher Productivity if the employee takes
the facility as a responsible employee and proper tools / HR Policy / monitoring
system are in place
. More flexibility in duty hours to adjust with
personal needs for free time
. Lesser need to avail leave, particularly
for small work / errands outside duty hours
. More focus on work (due to less distractions
/ interruptions from colleagues, office gossip/chitchat, office
formalities/etiquettes)
. Sounding the waters to know like what the
home life would be after retirement (if the employee is approaching retirement
age)
. Safe, healthy workplace during epidemic /
infectious disease period
. More friendly to mother of infant, pregnant
woman, persons with restricted mobility and working senior citizens
. Bigger bouquets of employers to choose from
for better job as the distance from the employer becomes irrelevant
Benefits to the society:
. Less air and noise pollution as more
vehicles could be taken off the road
. Saving the scarce petroleum products
. Less crowded public transport
. Better road safety as less vehicles will be
on the road
. Better availability of parking space
. Better inculcation of social values in
children as they will be under the eyes of the parents for more days
A few concerns:
For the employers:
·
Apprehension
of reduction in productivity
·
Risk
of piracy / loss of data
·
Risk
of leakages of data of the clients leading to “Breach of Privacy”
·
Erosion
in Sense of Belonging to the organization
·
Less
flexibility to deploy the employees to cope with absenteeism / work exigencies
·
Limited
use of employees’ talent
· Difficulty
in reviewing the Annual Performance of senior employees (though their performance
can be measured, the overall strength of employees is not “visible”)
· Prevalence
of a haze of unfamiliarity between the employees and the monitoring official as
face to face interactions are limited
· Cost
of providing the tools / Project Management Software / App for online work
·
Communication
gap till the system gets stabilized
·
Difficulty
in inculcating Company Culture and Values in the employees
·
Scope
for misuse of latitude of flexi time inherent under the concept
·
Problems
associated with withdrawal of facility once extended to the employee
·
Lack
of bondage with colleagues resulting into poor team spirit
· Difficulty
in dovetailing the pieces of work done by the employees working at home into an
integrated whole deliverable work to the client
· Risk
of divulgence of critical information pertaining to R&D, tenders, future
plans, tricks of the trade, etc
·
Poor
co-ordination, particularly intra-department
· Loss
of importance of better location of office, ambience, in-office free amenities,
etc in attracting and retaining the employees
· Aversion
of employees towards subjecting themselves to bit stricter monitoring tools and
procedures of reporting.
For the employees:
·
Lack
of socialization with colleagues
·
Poor availability
of help from peers/seniors
·
Poor
availability of hardware in case of breakdown
·
Lack
of opportunity to face to face interact with the seniors
·
Non-availability
of proper space/highspeed internet/reliable source of electricity at home
·
Social
distractors at home
·
Additional
cost on electricity, tea/coffee/cold drinks, snacks, etc
·
Non-availability
of free amenities which are otherwise available in the office
·
Role
confined to limited subject matter which might hamper the progress in career,
particularly for managerial role
·
Breeds
aloofness and monotony in daily life
·
Difficulty
in justifying the reduction in productivity to the monitoring officer even
though the employee is not at fault
·
Risk
of marginalization by the seniors for meetings, consultations, training,
presentations, demo, etc as the employee is not in the office, hampering the
growth of the employee.
·
Developing
a habit of wasting time on internet for non-official matters.
·
Increasing
tendency of working till late night.
How old is the concept?
It is generally perceived that the concept is of
recent origin but it is not so. If you sift through the history of civilization
and economic development of mankind, you would find that the concept is as old
as the beginning of human being’s settled habitat in the form of a village. In
olden days, and in developing countries even today, the artisans and
professionals operate from their home only – front portion of the home is “work
area” (front office!) and the rear portion of the home is residential area. The
carpenters, the blacksmiths, the goldsmiths, the barbers, the weavers, the
tailors, the cobblers, the doctors, the astrologers, the grocers, the money
lenders, etc still “Work From Home”, if at all, they are not wiped out by the
modern economy. The Industrial Revolution (1760 – 1840 AD) has changed the
method of manufacturing and later, the further economic development has changed
the method of delivering the services resulting into “Go to Work” rather than
“Work From Home”. The self-employed individual has now become an employee of a Business
House or such organization. As such, the concept is very old and only new thing
about it is that the monstrous COVID-19 pandemic has brought it in limelight
and sadly enough, spread the concept along with its own spatial spread.
The scope:
The concept can be adopted by many business verticals
– particularly in Information Technology and Service Sector. With the advent of
Information Technology, standardization, productization, online banking,
Corporatization of Public Services, HR Policy, etc, the scope is expanding day
by day. At present the concept is self-driven out of necessity or compulsion of
circumstances. The Govt Policy, in the form of incentives, could certainly provide
impetus for furtherance of the concept. It is reported that in 2019, the
facility of “Work From Home” was being availed by 4.70 million employees (3.40
% of the work force) of which, (1) 44% were availing the facility full time and
(2) 52% were female. On the employer side, 7% employers have extended the
facility to their employees during the corresponding period. During last 5
years the growth rate of employers extending the facility has increased at the
rate of 40%. Understandably, post COVID-19 pandemic, growth rate of employees
availing “Work From Home” would be exponential and would help the concept stand
in good stead. Typically, following sectors are much inclined to adopt the
concept:
·
Information
Technology
·
Data
Entry, Digitization
·
Marketing,
e-Commerce, Social Media
·
Travel
and Hospitality
·
Education,
Tutoring, Training
·
Mobile
Telephony
·
Accounting
and Taxation
·
Financing
and Debt Collection
·
Consulting
·
Sourcing,
shortlisting and interview for fresh recruitment
·
Post-sale
customer services in retail
·
Consumer
Services under Public Utilities (Electricity, Gas, Water, Telecom, etc)
·
E-Governance
·
Audiobooks
and e-books
·
Capital
Market
·
Streaming
Media
·
Content
Writing, Proofreading, Translation.
The future:
Though there are limitations of the concept of “Work
From Home”, it has a bright future and a long way to go. Perception gap between
the employers and the employees about the concept are narrowing down which is
paving the road for breaking new grounds. The emerging technology in the field
of IT, Communication, Artificial Intelligence, Robotics, Data Analytics, IOT
(Internet of things), eCommerce, Business Methodology, increasing cost of
office space, demands for more perks from employees, etc would strengthen the
concept in future as the present scenario has proved that “Work Form Home”
works and it pays to all stakeholders.
(Comments are welcome.
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