If you were to find a way to retain premier talent, reduceoverhead expenses and punch up sales productivity, you’d likely dosomersaults of glee, yes? One way to potentially achieve all threeis to allow some of your employees to work from home. Take a lookat the following considerations to see if telecommuting workersmake sense for your enterprise.
Here are the advantages:
- Help you retain talent. For many employees, eradicatingthe daily commute and required cubicle time can keep them happyenough to stay with your company long term. The flexibility ofworking remotely can be the difference between keeping and losingyour best employees.”
- Boost productivity. By letting your employees work fromhome, you’re helping them avoid a hectic–and oftendistracting–work environment.
- Gives you access to a larger pool of talent. Setting upan infrastructure to support telecommuting employees allowsmanagers to hire the best person for the job, regardless oflocation. Telecommuting options can also help you retain top talentif an employee needs to relocate.
- Results in overhead savings. Since your employees shouldspend very little time stationed at the office, you can pocketsubstantial overhead savings from letting employees work fromhome.
Here are the disadvantages:
- Isolation. Managers must know each employee’spersonality and how often to keep in contact with that person. Youmight want to use webinars and teleconferences to provideopportunities for team interaction. And have them come in to theoffice occasionally for everything from training to holidayparties
- Micromanagement. Telecommuting can fail if employeesrequire constant supervision, which is much more difficult, if notimpossible, with remote employees. To avoid getting stuck doingmore work with telecommuting employees, beware of hiring anyone whohas a track record of needing constant interaction with a managerin order to get the job done.
- Accountability. The biggest impediment to managing aremote workforce is accountability. It can be hard to tell ifworkers are actually working or just sitting around the housewatching TV in their pajamas. It’s imperative to ensureaccountability by setting up processes to monitor performance,including daily contact and activity reports.
