With more and more people choosing to work from home at least some of the time, having a suitable company policy allowing people to work in this manner is more important than ever. Flexible working is a growing trend in the workplace, with a growing amount of workers, young people especially, choosing it.
Allowing employees the option of working from home can be hugely beneficial for both employer and employee. With a workforce that isn’t all always present there is less drain on resources in the office; less space, equipment and power needed. This means allowing employees to work from home can save companies money.
The flexibility created by homeworking also opens the choice of who can be hired even more. Single parents who can’t afford or don’t want to hire a nanny or use day-care regularly are suddenly feasible hires again. Return to work mums offer an exceptional level of commitment and capability given a little flexibility of working patterns and access to a home office. There are those with life affecting illness, or regular hospital appointments can also adapt their work schedule to fit them, after all many tasks in the working day are not time dependant and can be done at any time of day. By opening the workplace like this you can hire great talent that otherwise would not have been an option.
This can be especially true of people with mental health issues. The awareness of mental health is ever growing and there is an increase in those speaking out and getting help for themselves. Work places need to adapt to match this and allow these people room to get the help they need. By taking off pressure to be in public, leave the comfort of their home and be working certain hours creates a more relaxed environment for many which can be helpful, while this is not the case for all it is important to allow people to make the choice for themselves.
There are limits of working from home of course. Some work is too private, requires specialist equipment or limits the ability to share and combine ideas. This means not every workplace can make these changes but maybe a different approach can be employed here to help employees on a case dependant process, perhaps relaxing hours and allowing ‘flexi-time’.
There is a common theme amongst employers in creating a working office environment more in the style of meeting places and social hubs, making the more transient and mobile workforce feel part of the employer’s culture and community when ‘coming into the office’.
At TAaaS we employ a very flexible and dynamic work structure which allows staff to work when suits them, this is hugely useful when you throw in the need to attend meetings with clients and interviews in different time zones. We manage this flexibility by regularly bringing everyone together and catching up on where we are.
How does your company manage flexible and home working, or is it an are you’ve yet to explore? Get in touch and have your say at; This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
