Work From Home - Advantages / Disadvantages for Employees & Employers

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

·   Dilution of the efficacy of the seniors for mentoring and controlling the employees  

·        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.

The blogger can be reached at gnpatel@gujaratinfotech.com)

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