I own a business that has a heavy online presence but also a brick and morter. I do allow all of our online sales reps as well as our HR/PR/dispatch to work fully remote if they want. They also have access to a private office at our brick and morter.
On a positive note for me, as the employer, the remote workers typically work more oddball hours, aka, answering emails or phone calls after hours or weekends.
On a positive note for the employees, they are flexible to run errands, doctors appointments, and other activities during normal business hours and that’s totally fine. They are still averaging around that 40hr/week mark, but more sporadic hours. They are much happier with this arrangement.
On a negative note for me, as the employer, the remote workers are significantly less focused on the job at hand, and drop the ball much more often than when they worked in the office.
On a negative note for the employees, they are now expected to answer calls/texts/emails “after-hours” because their flexible hours are not defined, and therefore they are expected to take care of limited “after business hours” support for the trade off. The side effect to this is the work-life balance is much more vague and thus it’s very difficult for them to find the “line in the sand” between at work and not at work. Sound confusing? I’ll explain:
When your going into an office say… 8am-4pm you can lay all your work life troubles there at the table at 4pm and let it go and enjoy your home life. When you work from home, your bringing the work stress to the house and your not able to separate the two so easily. This is a trade off for the work from home atmosphere.
I own a business that has a heavy online presence but also a brick and morter. I do allow all of our online sales reps as well as our HR/PR/dispatch to work fully remote if they want. They also have access to a private office at our brick and morter.
On a positive note for me, as the employer, the remote workers typically work more oddball hours, aka, answering emails or phone calls after hours or weekends.
On a positive note for the employees, they are flexible to run errands, doctors appointments, and other activities during normal business hours and that’s totally fine. They are still averaging around that 40hr/week mark, but more sporadic hours. They are much happier with this arrangement.
On a negative note for me, as the employer, the remote workers are significantly less focused on the job at hand, and drop the ball much more often than when they worked in the office.
On a negative note for the employees, they are now expected to answer calls/texts/emails “after-hours” because their flexible hours are not defined, and therefore they are expected to take care of limited “after business hours” support for the trade off. The side effect to this is the work-life balance is much more vague and thus it’s very difficult for them to find the “line in the sand” between at work and not at work. Sound confusing? I’ll explain:
When your going into an office say… 8am-4pm you can lay all your work life troubles there at the table at 4pm and let it go and enjoy your home life. When you work from home, your bringing the work stress to the house and your not able to separate the two so easily. This is a trade off for the work from home atmosphere.