Managing employees working from home

Acquiring and keeping staff in today’s tight labour market can mean offering flexible working conditions to match employees’ personal and family obligations.

New technologies make working from home (home workers) an increasingly cost-effective and attractive option both for individuals and the employers.

We are pleased to be able to provide a summary of some of the key management issues that need to be considered when offering staff the opportunity to work off site.

Benefits and risks

The main benefit of working from home is increased productivity, through:

• More efficient use of time.
• For example, fewer interruptions and less commuting time.
• Improved employee retention. For example, helping parents who need to fit in with school-age children.
• Reduced levels of sick leave and stress.
• Improving the chance of recruiting the most able candidates. Potential recruits may prefer the option of full, part-time or casual working from home.
• Control over the office environment, eg noise, heat, ventilation and lighting.

The main problems with working from home are similar to those of running a decentralised business.

Particular risks and problems can include:

• Losing touch with employees and difficulty in arranging ad-hoc meetings.
• Increased initial training requirements and expenditure on setting up home offices.
• Reduced loyalty due to increased isolation.
• Deterioration in employees’ skills and work quality.
• Difficulty in controlling the security of information.
• Poorly managed home workers can lead to confused goals, standards, expectations and systems.

Staying in touch

Keeping in contact is critical in ensuring that off site employees perform to expectations

The telephone and email are the best ways to maintain contact.

• Regular phone calls can replace most face-to-face meetings.
• Frequent short calls can be as effective as long conversations.
• Email does not interrupt work as much as the telephone. You can choose when to read messages and when to respond to them.

Various telecommunication options provide efficient ways of keeping in touch with your off site employees.

• Email is essential.
• Voicemail enables your employees to receive and send messages.
• Telecommunications suppliers can provide a facility which can route incoming calls to wherever the employee is, without the caller noticing.
• Mobile phones are particularly effective for people who travel a lot.

Using technology

It is safer for the home worker’s output to be saved directly onto your systems, rather than on a computer in the home. This reduces the security risk of data lost in transit. It means that ;

• home workers can access any information that they need that is kept on the organisation’s system.
• the information can be accessed anywhere by any computer with web browser software.
• a fast ISDN or broadband line makes it easy to exchange information but will increase your costs. Standard telephone lines can be used, but with significant loss of productivity for the home worker.

You may need to convert paper-based processes into electronic ones.

• It is easy and quick to share electronic files with home workers, when compared to passing around sheets of paper.
• This works best if everybody is using the same version of the software.
• Consider investing in contact management software if you have a mobile sales team or you need to update customer data regularly.

Knowing the pitfalls of technology can help you avoid them.

• There is a danger of people gaining unauthorised access to your systems. Where confidentiality is essential, issue "work only" computers protected with passwords, firewalls and anti-virus software.
• Faster technology costs more money.
• Introducing home workers to new technologies will require training.
• Employees may not use the technology productively.
• Employees may fail to back up information stored on home or portable PCs.

In today’s tight labour market, finding and retaining good staff is difficult. By providing flexibility in working conditions you may be able to address this problem.

Working from home will not suit every employee or every employer. However, if you go down this path remember that you will need to embrace different management styles and probably have to invest in new technology.