You like Working from Home?

You like Working from Home?

It was the weekend; I dropped my friend off at his place and said, "see you tomorrow"; he replied, "no buddy, see you on Tuesday. I'm working from home this Monday". We looked at each other and burst out laughing. Does that conversation ring a bell? Do you frown or pass jokes on people who work from home (WFH)? Why is it difficult to accept that "work" does not necessarily take place only at the office? As much as WFH has become a norm in many sectors, we still find it tricky to integrate this into our minds seamlessly. Does your employer or boss allow you to WFH? If the answer is yes, then you are lucky. Wait for a second though as I have a few questions for you:

  1. Do you feel a touch shy when you inform your boss and co-workers that you'll be WFH on a particular day?
  2. How do your boss and colleagues react when you or some else in the office decides to WFH on any given day?
  3. Does your organisation have any meritorious metrics in place to measure the productivity of those who choose to WFH for long periods?

Some of my HR friends had the following things to say on Work from Home:

  1. They are ambiguous about any sort of tangible increase in productivity as a direct result of this policy
  2. Organisations by and large have not placed any adequate and measurable metrics in place to measure the effectiveness of WFH
  3. While employees are generally very receptive towards the WFH policy (why shouldn't they?), bosses are displaying mixed reactions more so when their direct reports (DRs) opt to work from home on Mondays and Fridays :) 
  4. Surprisingly, this flexibility has NOT contributed to any significant increase in retention rates.

I receive mixed messages on the utility of this policy as it appears to be too loosely managed internally for its effectiveness to be well measured. And hey, it does not help that every single individual at work wants it for themselves but not for others!

"I'm not sure when she comes or goes. Her response rate has also dropped!" remarked one of my colleagues about his peer who had chosen to work predominantly from home after she had her 1st child. I got worried as she was our top talent and my 1st WFH experiment. Naturally, I promptly asked her immediate boss for some verification of her so-called dip in productivity. "It is the men at work who need to get rid of their chauvinism. We all love to have our wives and sisters given the option of WFH, yet we somewhat have difficulties in accepting the nuances when we don't get to meet our female colleagues at work regularly," he concluded. From that day, I stopped listening to whispers on these topics.

I'm in the opinion that long stints of WFH deprive you of precious personal development opportunities as when we are physically at work, we are continuously learning from the workings of others and not focused merely on "just doing our job." There have been few who have told me that they dislike WFH for these reasons:

  • I like dressing up for work; who is there for me to impress at home? :)
  • It's difficult to focus when there are just one too many things that we do simultaneously while WFH, i.e., crafting an email while watching TV?

Different people have different takes on the WFH concept. Some want it to be viewed more like a leave option; hence why can't we have 7 days WFH/per year similar to 7 days of sick leave/per year?

Managers, on the other hand, refuse to extend the WFH to just about any talent unless it's to a top talent or a high performing teammate; the irony is that somebody who might be struggling to perform at work may benefit the most from WFH. Then there's "manager bias," based on the theory that the performance is not uniform if extended to all. Yet, I can't help but wonder if performance is more consistent when people work from the office?

Do you like Working from Home? Do you think WFH is an additional tool to get the best out of an employee and for the overall good of an organisation?

No alt text provided for this image

 

 Despite my daughter sitting on my head, I was extremely focused on 'work' during my WFH days. It is when she grew up that my motivation for WFH dropped!  :)


First Published on https://kamalkaranth.com/you-like-working-from-home/

Trina Crowder

Healthcare Fraud SME; Master of Legal Studies

8 年

Engaged employees will be productive from nearly anywhere, including working from home. Employees who are not engaged will not be productive from anywhere, including the office. It's about the employee, not the location. Obviously certain professions or tasks lend themselves better to a WFH setting, and it should be viewed as a privilege, not a right. It can be used as a carrot to encourage employees to increase their productivity or as a reward for your high performers. For those with a long (and expensive) commute, working from home one or two days a week can be the equivalent of a pay raise. Management should look for ways to reward high-performing employees and WFH is one method that costs the employer nothing.

Arun Dhawan

Wipro Talent & Change (T&C) | Organizational Change Management | Change Practitioner

8 年

I wonder sometimes what happened to the adage 'Don't bring your work to home

Nichole Withrow

Merchandising Experience

8 年

Robyn Bianchin I'm sure you have some wonderful input on working from home and how people treat you for working from home.

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René I.

Head of Operations

8 年

My company has recently embarked on WFH programme and we have more than 25 employees permanently working from home. Give or take a few teething problems all seem to be going well. Productivity has increased mostly because the outputs can be tracked. Whilst I support this programme it's definenitely not for everyone. Discipline is key.

Wayne Fowler

Project Lead at Aetna

8 年

I work from home currently and have worked in office as well. I am WAY more productive at home as the environmental distractions just are not there at home. I do go in quarterly for FaceTime with folks and interact with other teams. The nature of my work is more supportive of this arrangement as I frequently work with offshore development teams so Skype and telephone are meeting methods regardless. Broad strokes on wfh tend toward stereotypes are probably can only be effectively employed when applied to specific situations with many parameters. The article thus is interesting but I hesitate to agree with sweeping generalizations on the topic. thanks

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