Advantages of Work from Home initiative

 

Figure 1- work-from-home

Work from home (WFH) initiative means work remotely from the office complex which gives the employee to decide his work station physically. This concept is in the society over the years which will be proven by the below mentioned comments of researchers;

·         Permitting employees to work from home may even reduce firms’ costs for office space and furniture (Peck, 2015)

·         Workers’ well-being is found to increase through work-at-home arrangements, indicating that employees may be willing to accept reduced pay when permitted to work from home (Beauregard, 2011; Edwards and Field-Hendrey, 2001, 2002)

·         Employees choosing to work from home are often more productive than they were in the office (Bloom et al., 2014)

However, WFH concept attract the attention of the corporate world dramatically with the wide spread of Covid 19 pandemic. In this scenario organisations implemented WFH initiatives at different scales according to their requirements where some of the companies shifted to fully WFH concepts and some others turned to Hybrid system which has both office and WFH activities.

Advantages of having WFH feature in an organisation.

Figure 2- Work from home – WFH- Meaning, Importance, Steps & Example

Savings

The employee could save time and costs involved in transportation when carrying out their duties on WFH basis. Even they could save expenditure on office wear and other related expenses as well.

Not only the employee also the employers are benefitting from WFH such as reduction of maintaining infrastructures and carbon foot print at office environment.

 

Work Life Balance

Employees are not restricted to an office premises hence they could freely engage in their office work using WFH facility. Further they have more time to be with family from this option and it will create proper work life balance. Also, WFH offering flexible working hours to employees which increase the quality of work life balance.

Motivation

When you have the proper work life balance it makes the pathway to increase motivation among employees. Also, group chats and video conferencing methods help employees to have interactions with other employees to a certain extent as well. Further employees are not disturbed when they engage in WFH when it compared to make lot of efforts to reach the office and get back to home in order to perform duties at office. These factors enhance the motivational level of employees in a greater way.

 

Job Retention.

Majority of the ladies are tending to leave their employment due to strict working schedule to be with their children and family. However, if employer preferred WFH facility to these employee base they could retain their talented work place. In addition to that considering the cost effectiveness/convenience in engaging WFH, other employees also would retain with the employer.

 

Productivity.

If you have a team of motivated and experienced staff with you definitely your organization will increase the desired return on investment. Further institutions could optimize their costs involved in maintaining physical offices, telecommunications and stationary etc. from this initiative which will add further boost to the productivity of the company.

 

Flexibility.

In WFH there are much flexibility in completion of assigned work rather than in an office environment.

 

Conclusion

Considering the above facts, it is understood that WFH is positively impacting both the employer and employee. However initially employer has to invest heavily to provide WFH facilities to their employees. This will also be off set by increasing of productivity of the organisation due to WFH arrangement over a period of time.

 

 

References

Figure 1 – online available at : https://www.cxtoday.com/wfo/work-from-home-quotes-to-keep-you-positive/

Figure 2- Work from home – WFH- Meaning, Importance, Steps & Example ,online available at : https://www.mbaskool.com/business-concepts/human-resources-hr-terms/16870-work-from-home.html

Peck E. (2015) Proof that Working from Home is Here to stay: Even Yahoo Still Does It, http:// www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/03/18/the-future-is-happeningnow-ok_n_6887998.html.

Beauregard T. A. (2011) ‘Direct and Indirect Links Between Organizational Work–home Culture and Employee Well-being’, British Journal of Management 22(2): 218–237

Edwards L. N. and Field-Hendrey E. (2001) Work Site and Work Hours: The Labor Force Flexibility of Home-Based Female Workers, Kalamazoo, MI: Graduate Center, CUNY: 251–291. Edwards L. N. and Field-Hendrey E. (2002) ‘Home-based Work and Women’s Labor Force Decisions’, Journal of Labor Economics 20(1): 170–200

Bloom N. et al , (2014) ‘Does Working from Home Work? Evidence from a Chinese Experiment’, The Quarterly Journal of Economics 130(1): 165–218.

White D,2018 ; Agency Theory and Work from Home, online available at : https://www.researchgate.net/publication/327694436_Agency_Theory_and_Work_from_Home