Working from home

So you are one of those wonderful employers who allows employees to work from home when they want to. That’s great  - from the employee point of view. However, are you really getting the most and best out of your employees when they are working at home? 

There are many reasons to allow employees to work from their home. Convenience for them if they live far away and there is bad weather, or they (or their child) are sick. But how much work are they really getting done? If they work from home regularly, are you certain they are truly devoting eight hours to work? If it’s a beautiful day during the spring, how do you know they are not out planting a garden? Or hanging out at the beach?

Before (or perhaps after the fact now) you make it a regular practice to allow employees to work from home, you need to make some rules clear to them. For instance, checking in, whether it is by phone calls or emails, you need to be able to get a hold of them when needed. You both need to agree on their schedule, whether they will be working mostly during regular business hours or if it will be after hours and/or on the weekend. Both employer and employee need to be on the same page as to what is expected of each of them. 

Having employees working from home can be beneficial for both parties and some occupations can absolutely be done from outside the office. Just make sure you are truly
getting what you are paying for. If you have doubts it never hurts to have the situation evaluated.

-Susan Jones, Owner

JB Consulting