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Depends on your business needs: Not every organization can afford to have the popular culture of telecommuting. Sometimes the business need, itself, won’t allow you to implement this culture in your company. Let’s say, you own an Apple Store. Are you going to be able to make your “Genius” employees work from home? Though these technicians can resolve people’s technical issues over the network, it is a strategic disadvantage for them to do so. Apple Store is widely known for its best customer support. And hence, the business need requires their employees to have some face time with their customers and develop that strong customer relationship to promote their brand. It’s not for every company: Some people just can't communicate well over the messenger, email or phone. There can be various reasons for this situation including lack of training, stagnant workforce, availability of appropriate tools, etc. Nonetheless, if your current workforce and your current company culture can’t support the initiative of working from home, then it might not be for your company. If some of your employees are not self-starters, and if they need someone to hold them accountable, and can’t be motivated themselves at home, then they need to work in the office. OR If you have some of those employees in your team for whom ‘work from home’ is the other name for a ‘vacation’, then this is definitely not for your company. You lose the human touch: While communicating over a phone or a video conference provides your team the flexibility to join the meeting from anywhere, it comes with the dual edge sword. With the virtual nature of the communication for a ‘work from home’ team, it becomes challenging to schedule a meeting, since your team member have to wait for other people to come back to their IM client so that they can communicate. Also, written communication over e-mail or the verbal communication over the phone can create many inter-personal conflicts due to misunderstanding, which taking long time to resolve them. With written communication being so inefficient and passive, it might not be a good idea to go with the ‘work from home’ culture, if your employees are not ready for it yet. Can create security concerns: I know, we have the latest technology today with the VPN connection and the secured channel communication. But as the technology advances and becomes complex, it becomes very difficult to address these security concerns remotely. No matter how strong is your office network, if your employees are working from home, your company can be exposed to various security loopholes. If you don’t have adequate IT support to address these security concerns for the people who work at home, then you might want to wait before implementing a ‘work from home’ policy in your company. Internet security is not the only problem. When your employees work from home they are exposed to various other security issues like their laptop getting stolen, having their password getting
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1 Author: [email protected] | Contact information: http://www.BhavinGandhi.com
Why should you NOT let your employees work from home? by Bhavin Gandhi
Marissa Mayer might be under scrutiny by many of her employees due to her recent decision of ending ‘work from
home’ culture in Yahoo, Inc. Though I am not aware of those extreme circumstances under which she needed to
take this drastic step, I can say this for sure….’work for home’ culture is not for every organization. Don’t get me
wrong, I am all for workplace mobility, when required. But some of the organizations are just not made to support
‘work from home’ culture. Thus, in this blog I will provide you few reasons for NOT having ‘work from home’ policy
in your organization.
Depends on your business needs: Not every organization can afford to have the popular culture of
telecommuting. Sometimes the business need, itself, won’t allow you to implement this culture in your company.
Let’s say, you own an Apple Store. Are you going to be able to make your “Genius” employees work from home?
Though these technicians can resolve people’s technical issues over the network, it is a strategic disadvantage for
them to do so. Apple Store is widely known for its best customer support. And hence, the business need requires
their employees to have some face time with their customers and develop that strong customer relationship to
promote their brand.
It’s not for every company: Some people just can't communicate well over the messenger, email or phone. There
can be various reasons for this situation including lack of training, stagnant workforce, availability of appropriate
tools, etc. Nonetheless, if your current workforce and your current company culture can’t support the initiative of
working from home, then it might not be for your company. If some of your employees are not self-starters, and if
they need someone to hold them accountable, and can’t be motivated themselves at home, then they need to work
in the office. OR If you have some of those employees in your team for whom ‘work from home’ is the other name
for a ‘vacation’, then this is definitely not for your company.
2 Author: [email protected] | Contact information: http://www.BhavinGandhi.com
You lose the human touch: While communicating over a phone or a video conference provides your team the
flexibility to join the meeting from anywhere, it comes with the dual edge sword. With the virtual nature of the
communication for a ‘work from home’ team, it becomes challenging to schedule a meeting, since your team
member have to wait for other people to come back to their IM client so that they can communicate. Also, written
communication over e-mail or the verbal communication over the phone can create many inter-personal conflicts
due to misunderstanding, which taking long time to resolve them. With written communication being so inefficient
and passive, it might not be a good idea to go with the ‘work from home’ culture, if your employees are not ready for
it yet.
Can create security concerns: I know, we have the latest technology today with the VPN connection and the
secured channel communication. But as the technology advances and becomes complex, it becomes very difficult to
address these security concerns remotely. No matter how strong is your office network, if your employees are
working from home, your company can be exposed to various security loopholes. If you don’t have adequate IT
support to address these security concerns for the people who work at home, then you might want to wait before
implementing a ‘work from home’ policy in your company. Internet security is not the only problem. When your
employees work from home they are exposed to various other security issues like their laptop getting stolen, having
their password getting hacked due to lose WiFi network key, etc. Obviously, these issues will be less frequent if all
of your employees work in the office, instead of their less secured home environment.
So, what do you think about my argument? Do you know any other situations in which you should not allow your
employees to work from home?
Thanks – Bhavin Gandhi
Bhavin Gandhi | February 28, 2013 at 4:01 PM | Tags: 21st century, Cultural Change, Leadership, Leadership
Failures, Management, Marissa Mayer,Micromanagement, Remote Teams, Virtual Team, Work culture, Work
from home,Work remotely, Yahoo | Categories: 21st Century, Leadership, Management, Virtual Team |
URL: http://wp.me/p103Cm-9I
