Why permitting Telecommuting Is (And Isn’t) a good idea

Paul Petrone

February 10, 2015

Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer has become the face of anti-telecommuting. credit score: Magnus Hoij, Wikipedia Commons

In February of 2013, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer made headlines internationally – most of them poor – after she decreed that workers on the fledgling tech firm could now not do business from home.

studies show individuals who do business from home are more efficient, have much less war with colleagues, are happier and so they retailer the company cash on overhead costs. So was once Mayer’s move an “epic fail”?

no longer essentially. There are a number of compelling reasons to let staff earn a living from home and it will have to no doubt be supplied to all workers, as a minimum on a partial foundation.

but there is a real bad, as well: working-from-dwelling can stifle the synergy that comes from having a bunch of good people in the identical location collectively, which in turn can harm innovation. and that’s cause enough to not allow employees to work from home, at the least all the time.

the pros of Telecommuting

From a industry viewpoint, there are a lot of pros in allowing your employees to telecommute. first and foremost, a “flexible work position” is a good way to each attract and keep prime skill.

A recent survey by way of the Society for Human resource management (SHRM) discovered that 4 out of five workers crave flexibility, which incorporates the flexibility to make money working from home. other surveys have found that individuals will work for much less – or are much less keen to leave for a job that offers extra – if they can make money working from home.

Working from dwelling may additionally make staff more environment friendly, particularly if they’re in more course of-pushed jobs like call heart reps or even accounting. One company, Ctrip, allowed its call-middle workers to work at home – an extraordinarily course of-pushed job – and found the employees have been in reality more productive and had been happier.

“The productivity raise, we expect, used to be as a result of having a quieter setting, which makes it more uncomplicated to course of calls,” Nicholas Bloom, a Stamford economics professor who oversaw the Ctrip “test”, informed the Harvard industry review. “offices are if truth be told extremely distracting locations.”

another benefits of allowing your employees to work at home: much less commuting, which means that less pollution; lower overhead costs; and studies convey much less battle between staff. looks as if a no brainer than, right?

smartly, to quote Lee Corso, now not so quick.

The Cons of allowing Telecommuting

So why did Mayer ban telecommuting? right here is her reason, in a memo sent out to all Yahoo workers explaining the decision:

To change into the absolute best place to work, communique and collaboration can be essential, so we want to be working aspect-via-aspect. because of this it is critical that we’re all present in our offices. one of the crucial best possible decisions and insights come from hallway and cafeteria discussions, meeting new individuals, and impromptu group meetings. velocity and quality are ceaselessly sacrificed when we work from home. We want to be one Yahoo!, and that begins with bodily being collectively.

That argument holds water. yes, studies have discovered that workers, particularly employees in process-pushed jobs, are more efficient when working from home. however staff are typically more modern after they work together.

And innovation is where the enormous cash is. think of the ROI of having the ability to course of payroll faster versus growing the iPhone, as an example

For evidence, look no additional than three of the arena’s most modern and treasured corporations, Google, Apple and fb, who all motivate their employees to work in the administrative center, versus at house. the explanation, consistent with Google CFO Patrick Pichette:

The shocking question we get is: ‘how many individuals telecommute at Google?’ And our solution is: ‘As few as that you can imagine’ … there is something magical about sharing meals. there is something magical about spending the time collectively, about noodling on ideas, about asking at the [office] ‘What do you bring to mind this?’ These are [the] magical moments that we think at Google are immensely important in the development of your organization, of your individual non-public development and [of] constructing a lot superior communities.

So What must You Do?

So will have to you let your employees work from home or no longer? neatly, with process-driven jobs with clear measurables – corresponding to call center employees – the answer is most probably yes, because it results in happier, more environment friendly workers and lower overhead.

however how about for everyone else? How about to your standard job, say in advertising, gross sales or engineering?

the answer is a little bit of each. allowing workers to do business from home can make them more environment friendly and means that you can attract high talent. That stated, it is also very important to get all that ability together in the same situation, to allow for that skill to “synergize” and perfect great concepts.

finally, the ROI on gaining efficiencies is dwarfed by means of the ROI on extra innovation. however it’s arduous to get the great talent wanted to brainstorm these nice concepts with out providing a “flexible” working environment.

the ideal answer? Three days in the office, two days at home. obviously, that can fluctuate greatly depending on the job and the employee, however it’s a good rule-of-thumb to live by means of.

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