Working from home office is not big news. Since middle age small industries and factories used to be built on houses basements. Their owners and staff used to live in the upper levels, or even on the back side of the land. This formula worked until century XIX when industrial revolution and the machines came. They were much more efficient than manual processes and with that they took the workers to the factories.
The remote work model is very common due to some wide advantages:
- Flexibility to the employee on working routines, allowing the employee to have breaks during his schedule, dedicating time to their personal needs and getting back to work when it’s fine again.
- Savings for the company: less spent on the facilities, transport to the employees, cleaning services, etc.
- Life quality for the whole company, regarding everything that may stress the employee whenever they are at heading to, at the, or leaving the office. It avoids wasting a lot of time on traffic every day, and allows them to exercise during more flexible times, feed themselves better, and enjoyning family.
But it also has some disadvantages:
- Social isolation – that may be pointed in some cases even as a begining of a depression-related disease.
- Many extra hours – than it would be if the work was done in the office.
- Lack of support – many people may miss support from co-workers for many kinds of activities.
- Harder career ascention – due to less contact to managers, the ascention plans can be frustrated if not well set.
- Domestic costs rise – since the employee will spend more time at home, it will use more of its own resources to work.
What about when we have colleagues that stay in the office?
A very important group that is directly affected by the home office style, is the colleagues group that have to stay fisically at the company or were forbidden to work remotely by their job/project requirements. They are affected mainly on the interaction with other employees, having more difficulties to manage meetings and tasks. All the communications with the colleagues that are at home must be well programmed to compensate their fisical miss. The frustration may increase when the work load is bigger to the employee who is physically at the company. Even with that, he must fit the home office colleagues schedule, suffering interruptions during his work routine.
Those who work at the company, generally end up gathering more tasks to themselves: take notes for the team mates that are at home; meet customers and take them to the proper solutions without the colleagues; or just finishing daily tasks that may be easier for those who are at the office. They may also get more pressure from the leaders who step by the office to ask for some urgent tasks.
What now?
So why not give it a shot? It can be a home-run to you. The home office must be conducted by mature people on the organization, who understands its behavior, the benefits and its responsibilities. The work load and the dependency on other people must be considered as well. The work routine is something that must be reviewed frequently.
