Yesterday yet again I overheard somebody expressing about “Working from Home”. I wonder is it really very beneficial to work from home. What all we gain from that but for the few obvious things. So I thought to give it a critical examination. Here is what I think. (Again standard disclaimer applies. The opinion here is mine and arrived with my limited knowledge in the area)
Lets start with the individual. It is advantage for him as he can maintain work life balance. Can save on the commuting time (thus reducing the dear earth from pollution :-) )
Advantage for employer is that less load on the infrastructure and other related things.
Lets look at the disadvantage factors. Have you ever stuck up with the work and not able to crack, then you just swivel your chair and call your colleague and ask him to peek into your system? He does and tells you the solution or other ideas. Do we not miss this we alone at home (of course can call them, but then not very effective, right?)
As it is established fact that productivity is more when we work in a team. So does that means when we work from home productivity is impacted? May be. Knowledge increases when it is shared. Yes..yes..agreed it is available on line and we can have whenever we want to..but again being in the action is more effective than remotely gaining it.
And now let say you are manager and don't you think that your subordinates expect you to be approachable. Well you can say they can always give a call. Again let me quote; in communication, body language speaks more truth than the vocal language.
Well to make a long story short..my personal feeling is that, working from home is useful when there is a crisis and you need to constantly attend that..else being in where action is, is more beneficial.
What do you say?
1 comment:
Very true. Working from home is becoming popular in the US and promoted by giants like IBM/Motorola etc. IBM is going big on this and they have something like Work Kiosk at strategic points - kind of mini office with all facilities; you just need to plug-in your laptop and thats it..However human touch is essential and WFH (as its called here) is more during critical time periods and not on regular. But it can work IT industry like for example - support and maintenance staff who are expected to be glued /monitoring their systems continuously!..
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