Allowing your employees to be working from home may, at first, seem like the easy option for them and not necessarily beneficial to you as their boss. However, it has been proven that working from home just two or three days a week, can have many benefits.
First of all, they’re in their own environment, which of course makes anyone feel better when they are comfortable in their own surroundings. If they have an efficient working space in their home, it is just like being in the office away from any background noise created by other colleagues.
A recent poll carried out through onepoll.com, found that 30% of people find it easier to get all their work done whilst being at home. Of course, being at home means you have other distractions around you such as quickly cleaning up around the kitchen, sorting the laundry out, and the TV! But even being in an office environment you’re surrounded by distractions of their own. For instance, making the whole office a round of tea and coffee, quickly stopping to catch up with a colleague who has recently been on holiday, or checking in with the boss to ask questions. Working from home has a similar amount of distractions, just different ones that are your choice.
To prevent the above distractions, the poll research showed that more than one third believe that having a dedicated space to work from, i.e. their own office and desk space, is highly important when it comes to working from home. 35% of people also said that having a tidy house helps to focus.
Whether your business is set in the countryside or in a busy traffic-filled city, commuting to work can quite often be stressful for employees. Especially being in a busy city like London, your day can start badly due to tube delays, crammed public transport and rushing through the packed streets just to get into work on time. When your day starts like this, you’re not going to be working to the best of your ability straight away due to the stress of the commute. Giving your employees a couple of days where they have no need to worry about the commute to the office can relieve them of some stress and start their working days off with a positive and energetic mindset.
So, if you believe that your employees could use some ‘flexi days’ working from home, then allow them to do so. If it doesn’t fit alongside your company’s policies and you realise it may not work out, you can always change your mind being the boss; but it is worth a try to see if their workload improves whilst being in the comfort of their own home.
If you need any help setting up a remote home office, give us a call and we can ensure that your home-working employees have everything they need to get the job done.
If you would like to hear more about your staff working from home give us a call. We’ll be happy to discuss working remotely using Office 365 in clear easy to understand language.
Call us on 0345 450 7876 or use our contact form here.