Working from Home Turns Employees into Unhinged Psychotics

Cloud computing can provide your employees with the option to work from home. Working from home has been shown to increase both employee satisfaction and productivity and it's good for the environment by saving on commuting. Is working from home right for your business?

There's a big difference in how an employee gets work done from their own home compared to how they accomplish work at the office. The office is an environment designed for workers to collaborate with others and feed off the energy of the company. The home, on the other hand, is a place where an employee has conditioned themselves to not think about work. Additionally, an employee's home lacks motivational amenities like fluorescent lights and water coolers, which may make the home environment too comfortable to get any real work done.

Few workers will admit it, but many of them need the office to be productive. They need the constant presence of a supervisor standing over their shoulder in order to do quality work, and they need the incentive of a raise based on interacting with you to take a shower and put on clean clothes. Without these incentives found only in the office, an employee may have little reason to get out of bed, and may even try to accomplish work from the bed. In fact, when surrounded by the comforts of their own home, an employee may be transformed into a completely different person, unrecognizable from the faithful worker you hired. They may even display symptoms of acute mental illness; this according to a recent study from The Onion.

Do you want someone like this working on a project for your company? If the comforts of home have the power to transform a good worker into a bumbling idiot, then you may want to reconsider allowing your employees to work from home. After all, you don't want an employee rambling incoherently over the phone when talking with an important client, or participating in a video conference in their skivvies. While nobody enjoys getting out of bed and going to work each morning, it seems like this routine is required to produce work the meets your company's standards of "not crazy."

It's interesting that advancements in technology like cloud computing and mobile devices make working from home more convenient, yet many businesses are taking away work from home privileges. This was the case last February with Yahoo! when CEO Marissa Mayer axed her company's popular work from home policy and required all employees to return to the office. This was a controversial move because web companies are known for their flexibility, but Mayer explained her decision by saying, "People are more productive when they're alone, but they're more collaborative and innovative when they're together. Some of the best ideas come from pulling two different ideas together."

If lack of innovation is what's holding your company back, then bringing all the homebound workers into the office for some face-to-face meetings is a good idea. If on the other hand, you can't seem to get ahead with the workload, then you will want to take advantage of cloud computing from Computerware and let your employees finish up their projects from the comforts of their own home.

Before allowing an employee to work from home, consider how much you trust them. You may have a few good workers in your midst that won't succumb to the plushy temptations of home, and they have what it takes to get work done on the couch while retaining their sanity. Getting to know how trustworthy an employee is will require you spending extra time getting to know them. This means looking at an employee's character and work ethic and seeing past the flattery shown to you because you're the boss.

Computerware can set up your business with cloud computing so that employees can access the company network from their home PC, laptop, or mobile device Unfortunately, for employers, however, there's no solution on the market that will automatically tell you if an employee can handle the awesome privilege of working from home. Although, we can provide you with communication solutions like video conferencing and instant messaging to help you stay in touch with employees at home so that it will feel like they're still in the office. To learn more about what it takes to work from home, call Computerware at (703) 821-8200.