Working from home vs going to the office – pros and cons
The old at-your-desk-from-nine-to-five blueprint is being eclipsed
TECHNOLOGICAL advances have enabled us to work form just about anywhere, at any time.
The idea of working from home may conjure up idealistic pictures of yourself sprawled on a cushy couch, churning out work with ease.
No traffic jams! No sniffling co-workers! Paradise, right?
Yes, the new-age digital office means staff can get more done without the distraction of ringing phones and constant interruptions from colleagues.
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It also promises greater flexibility and will save them precious hours and money, usually spent on commuting to and from the office. This translates into improved employee morale, productivity, and lower overheads for your business. But you need to make some considerations before completely forsaking the traditional office.
Offsite work is not ideal for every kind of employee all of the time. Just think of your HR manager; can they really obtain the level of trust the role requires from staff, while still providing adequate support from miles away?
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An entirely remote model of work may also put your business at a disadvantage from a technological standpoint. Applying updates and adding new software could become a complex process when there is no common space from which to deploy them.
Finally, there’s nothing like a little face time to stimulate collaboration which in turn fuels progress.
It’s clear that there are pros and cons to both the remote and traditional approaches. So the question should not be which is better. It should be how best to combine them, to achieve the perfect balance.
Allowing employees to tackle the bulk of their work independently at home may enable you to whittle down the number of workstations to just a few principal offices and desks. This will ultimately save you space and money in terms of leasing, or at least leaves you with lots of room for a redesign.
While the old at-your-desk-from-nine-to-five blueprint is being eclipsed, the future of the modern workspace lies not in the choice between two forks in the road – either in-office collaboration or the convenience of remote working. Rather, it’s about forging a new path that facilitates both.
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