Recently Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer decided to bring work from home employee’s back to the office. Despite this development at Yahoo, there is a growing understanding among business executives in general that having at least some employee’s work from home has benefits for both employer and employee ( Sixwise.com, 2013).
The benefits of working from home from the worker point of view is self-evident. There’s no commuting to the job which means no travel costs associated with catching the bus or gas for a vehicle, or car pooling, not to mention the cost of maintenance.
This writer works from home and enjoys not having to worry about getting dressed for the job and there is no one looking over your shoulder. Then their are tax write-offs available since your working from home that include for instance home office equipment ( i.e. computers, faxes, scanners etc).
One of the biggest benefits from a worker’s point of view is probably for single mom’s who may not be able to afford day care and wouldn’t have to if they worked from home. For married suburban mom’s the choice was usually to some extent work or stay at home to raise the kids. Now they can do both.
With today’s technology a home office can be just as efficient as an employer office. Huge amounts of work can be accomplished from a home desktop computer and then uploaded to a company server or even emailed to a supervisor ( Businessdictionary.com, 2013).
Everything is available to an employee that would enable them to complete tasks. Scanners, fax, laptops, desktops, internet, intranet, email, skype, webcams, instant messaging, iphones, and teleconferencing. Did we miss anything on that train of thought?
Despite this incredible cornucopia of technology empowering employees, only 11 percent telecommute to work on an occasional basis, and a measly 2 percent, that’s right 2 percent do so full-time, according to a National Technology Readiness survey.
However, the number of full-time employees who at least have the option of working from home one day a month has risen 30 percent and now stands at 10 million Americans ( Sixwise.com, 2013).
On the employer side of the equation less over-head costs is a good thing. There are fewer employees in the office, that means lower costs for office materials like pens, paper, copiers, and utility bills, less coffee, bathroom supplies, computers, phone lines, and extensions.
Don’t forget insurance costs, office leasing costs, fire code regulations, health environmental regulations, and unemployment insurance, costs that employers must shoulder. By the way if the employer pays health insurance, according to studies better over-all job satisfaction from employees working from home thus keeping them healthy and lowering health costs. (Businessdictionary.com, 2013).
With all the costs associated with hiring and maintaining personnel business executives should consider being innovative and making that leap into the telecommuter world.
References
Businessdictionary.com
Sixwise.com