Where Thought Leaders go for Growth
Where Thought Leaders go for Growth
In this article, we detail all the advantages of telecommuting, for both employer and employee. Spoiler alert: there are some disadvantages too.
What are the advantages of telecommuting? Since working from home has become widespread during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, its advantages are regularly highlighted in the media.
This new way of working, made possible thanks to the digitalization of tools and processes, offers employees working from home the possibility of carrying out their missions outside the traditional office given they have good internet access.
A better work-life balance together with health and safety are not the only benefits of telecommuting.
Having business premises and ensuring their maintenance generates significant costs for companies especially as rents are constantly rising!
Many companies, particularly when not open to the public, would therefore make significant savings by considering teleworking, even on a part-time basis.
Bad traffic, public transport strikes, bad weather. All these events affect the daily life of companies by causing absences and delays. Employees working at home are not affected by this type of incident.
And of course, we cannot omit to mention the example of the recent Coronavirus pandemic, which forced the confinement of entire countries. Thanks to the introduction of remote work, many companies have been able to maintain their activity.
Telecommuting offers flexibility and a better work-life balance and job satisfaction for employees. It also proves to be a marker of trust towards them.
As a result, teleworkers feel more considered and motivated, which increases their productivity and their commitment to the company.
Some profiles are difficult to recruit. There is even a shortage of applications in some sectors such as IT. It would therefore be a shame to deprive yourself of certain talents, as you would not be able to accommodate them on the company's premises. Some examples are:
One candidate seems perfect for your company, but the problem is that he or she lives 500 km away and is not planning to relocate. Why not offer them a full remote contract?
Teleworking remains one of the best solutions to enable certain disabled workers to work in optimal conditions.
Working from home contributes to enhancing the employer brand. It reveals:
Enough to attract and retain the most demanding talents, especially those of Generation Y!
When the issue of home-office is raised, the flexibility it brings to each team member comes up regularly. But let's not forget that the company is also gaining flexibility and mobility!
For example, if for strategic or economic reasons it is necessary to change the location of its head office, remote working allows teams to avoid a relocation that can sometimes be a source of worry and stress.
Reducing the time spent in transport and extra minutes of sleep. Time-saving is often the main motivation for employees seeking to work remotely.
In addition, motorists save on fuel and vehicle maintenance costs, which can sometimes be considerable!
A remote employee generally enjoys greater flexibility in terms of his or her hours and daily organisation.
They adjust their schedule according to their constraints, but also to the times of day when they know they are most productive. As a result, they are better able to reconcile their professional life with their family life, their leisure time and their own rhythm.
With the growing use of open space, employees suffer from noise and other permanent disturbances.
Teleworking ensures that the professional can focus on tasks requiring intense concentration without suffering from noise or unnecessary exchanges between colleagues.
Crowded public transport, traffic jams... all this can be avoided thanks to teleworking.
On the other hand, the deleterious atmosphere which unfortunately reigns in some structures proves to be a source of stress. Working at a distance allows you to get away from this environment and reduce contact with potentially harmful employees.
Teleworking means taking responsibility for your daily organization and the way you approach work.
It results in a real feeling of freedom for employees:
No more oppressive formalism in the corporate world. Long live well-being at work!
But beware, some pitfalls sometimes blacken this pretty picture. There are also disadvantages of teleworking.
What are the pitfalls of telework and how can they be avoided?
Some employees experience isolation with working from home, which can have a negative impact on their well-being and performance.
On the other hand, some structures suffer from the lack of a link between the remote teams and the company, and this climate affects team cohesion and corporate culture.
💡 Solution?
It is advisable to plan meeting times between employees, such as afterworks, in order to strengthen team spirit. Other employers opt for mandatory face-to-face days, either on company premises or in a coworking area.
Telecommuting creates another problem: difficult communication within projects outside the office space. How are they progressing? What are the tasks being carried out? Who is working on what? Etc.
💡Solution?
The companies that manage efficient telework are the well-equipped and digitalised companies. They are, for example, using video conferencing software. And to increase their remote performance, they also use collaborative platforms.
The teleworker is even more exposed to IT risks (phishing, ransomware, etc.) than the company employee. And for good reason, home networks are often less protected than professional networks.
💡Solution?
For the safety of your data, it is advisable to use any possible measures. For example, you and your employees can use a password manager such as LastPass that encrypts and manages all your passwords and stores them online. With LastPass, you don’t have to worry about safety as it operates on a zero-knowledge security model. The bonus is that you don’t have to remember all your passwords anymore. The software is accessible from the browser as well as from smartphone.
Not all employees are housed in the same place. Some feel more lost than others when their manager is not with them to support them.
💡Solution?
Discipline remains the key! Why not plan a detailed and well-defined schedule of your working day? For greater efficiency, this programme should take into account moments of optimal concentration, but also small slack spots (e.g. working on more technical subjects in the morning, setting aside specific times to deal with one's e-mails, etc.).
For a better time, task and project management, there is a tool named monday.com that automates all your workflows. It will help your teams save time and increase productivity. With monday.com you can assign tasks, prioritize them, follow the execution process using customizable dashboards and KanbanKanaban view. All this will help your teams stay efficient even working from home.
For telework to succeed, the company must be able to maintain a certain control over the employees, in order to fluidify the general organization and maintain cohesion between the teams.
💡Solution?
It is recommended that remote working should be framed to a minimum, to avoid excesses, but also to avoid sources of confusion for the employee.
This requires the establishment of rules (through a telework charter or a collective agreement, for example): how many days per week are allowed to work remotely? During which time slot should the employee be able to be contacted without fail? Which communication channels should be favoured? Etc.
As we have seen, thanks to telecommuting, employees are better able to harmonise their work and private life.
However, many of them deplore the fact that the boundary between the two tends to become narrower when they work from home. The results: concentration problems, overtime that accumulates or lack of "disconnection" with the company.
💡Solution?
Once is not customary, the employee must impose discipline and rigour on himself. Hence the importance, as we have already mentioned, of imposing real, well-structured working hours, during which he or she remains 100% focused on the tasks that fall upon him or her. In the same way, it is important to set up (if possible) a dedicated workplace within the home and to establish rules with those close to you so as not to be disturbed.
In conclusion, setting up telework is a win-win for both the employee and the employer.
However, in order to get the most out of it, it is necessary to proceed in the right way, to anticipate. This is why some "failures" linked to the distancing forced by the confinement should not mar this beautiful picture: most structures and employees were not prepared for it.
But with its democratisation, and therefore better-defined frameworks, there is a good chance that telework will win the hearts of companies.
