How do you deal with staff working from home?

March 26, 2008 – 5:26 pm

Tricky one in construction!  My experience to date is that most try to avoid it, but is it time to take the bull by the horns? 

Research has indicated that working away from the office has more pluses than negatives for people and the companies that employ them.  The researchers even found that managers who oversaw telecommuters reported that the telecommuters’ performance was not negatively affected by working from home.   BT claim that on average, home workers at BT are 20 per cent more productive and they save BT £6,000 a year each in office and other costs.

The pros (in no particular order):

1. Carbon footprint reduction - commuting accounts for a significant chunk of most construction sector ‘management’ carbon footprints
2. Office space cost savings
3. Productivity improvements when executed well
4. Employee satisfaction increases

The cons (in no particular order):

1. Fear factor - they’ll be getting up late and knocking off early etc.  Ultimately a lack of trust!
2. Management by output and facts - you need to be able to objectively assess performance.  As well as being tough, one size doesn’t fit all, so this could well increase senior management workload.  However, assuming productivity based on time keeping alone is not necessarily a sustainable approach in its own right. 
3. Not suited to all - can create ‘two tier’ workforce if not handled sensitively.  How do you handle the one (s) that want to work from home who you are confident will not pull their weight there?
4. You still need the office - in the research referenced above employees who worked away from their offices for three or more days a week reported worsening of their relationships with co-workers.

The generation thing

For the last fortnight I have kept falling over articles relating generations X, Y and baby-boomers.  I don’t like this pigeon holing of people based on age banding, however many of the trends indicated ring true for various characters I know well!

• Generation Y - born 1980-1995
• Generation X - born 1964-1980 (my pigeon hole)
• Baby boomer - born 1946-1963

Anyone born prior to 1946 and still working would appear to be free to invent their own pigeon hole title.  The fascination revolves around Generation Y who are deemed to have dubious virtues such as: selfishness, high maintenance requirements, lack of loyalty and short term thinking.  One survey suggested 28% expected a signing on bonus upon employment - surely not something you would consider for someone who lacks loyalty?!  For a loyal X Generation man like myself it seems to make a lot of sense ……………..

So how does this relate to home working?  Well to manage this generation effectively if the assumptions are true, companies must accommodate increasingly short periods of employment, provide greater work flexibility and increase their social, ethical and benefit armoury to gain loyalty from the stars among the latest crop.  There is a lot of barking about increasing attractiveness to potential employees, the associated bite will become increasing important to fuel sustainable business success.

Generation X is perceived to be focused on work-life balance and someone dared to suggest that we face a crisis of confidence faced with the upstart Y Generation and associated work place changes.  Outrageous.

What next

If you haven’t already, I would suggest developing a cunning plan to deal with this issue.  Whatever the reasons, there is a diverse workforce potentially unavailable to you if you rigidly demand people are tied to their desks.  To do it properly you need to get to grips with a simple low / no admin way to measure productivity and value provided by employees in the office and anywhere else you may allow them to work.  Only then can you make educated decisions about the right balance for individuals to maximise personal and corporate productivity.