Pros and cons of work from home

There was a time when taking a leave of absence from work, for personal reasons, was a frowned upon thought, especially when the team was working towards tight deadlines. You would then report to office in two minds, which in turn, would affect the outcome of your work.

However, with the changing face of India Inc, this situation no longer persists, because, today, all you have to do is speak to your manager and seek his/her permission to allow you to take the leave and finish work at the same time, without hampering the outcome of either.

As the corporate world is increasingly becoming concerned about the productivity and work life balance of their employees, they are bringing in several initiatives to enhance it. Providing the option to work from home or anywhere outside the office for their employees is one such initiative.
There are many reasons why many organisations are letting their employees to work from home. A facility which was enjoyed mostly by women is now a favourite among men too.

“As commuting is getting increasingly difficult day by day, we realise that many of our employees spend quite a bit of their productive time travelling, to and fro from office. This is one of the reasons why we are looking at “work from home” as an option for our employees,” says Sudeesh Venkatesh, Head HR, Tesco HSC.

“At present, about 150 of our employees have opted for this. And we are looking at extending this policy to a larger group, based on the feedback and suggestions we have received,” adds Venkatesh. “At Cognizant, several people globally avail the facility to telecommute. Most of these are managers and above, who are required to travel frequently to different parts of the world,” says T Sridhar, Chief People Officer, Cognizant.

“Apart from managers, in a new initiative, we are providing the flexibility of telecommuting on need basis to some other people engaged in production support activities. For example, around 50 people across levels, who are engaged in production support work in India for one of our clients, have been provided with laptops and the necessary access over a virtual private network so as to enable them to service our clients during particular hours or over the weekends with the client’s permission,” explains Sridhar about the telecommuting initiatives at Cognizant.
Today, technology has also made telecommuting a viable option. Virtual private networks, more secure connectivity, instant messaging software, remote access tokens etc are making telecommuting much easier.

“Nortel is exploring a concept called ‘unified communications’ to make telecommuting a hassle free experience,” says Sukhvinder Ahuja, Director, Unified Communications, Nortel.

“Using this technology, we can converge video, voice and data into a single platform. So when you are at home with your laptop, you have seamless access to your office phone and data. For all practical and business purposes like attending a video conference or sharing a file with your colleague, you are virtually sitting at the office desk. We secure the system by running a security tunnel,” explains Ahuja.
Telecommuting has a lot of benefits. Experts say that telecommuting has increased flexibility among employees, thus offering them a more balanced life.

According to Sridhar, it is beneficial for the employee, the employer and the community at large as it alleviates traffic congestion and its stress-induced health fallouts on commuters, enhances productivity of employees, reduces costs both for employers as well as employees, gives discretionary time back to the employee, improves the attractiveness of an organisation, broadens the labour pool, reduces fuel consumption and improves air quality.

But as it is said, every coin has two sides, telecommuting also have certain challenges. There are many things that the employer and the employee must consider before going for it.
Band width constraints, data security, creating an office culture open for telecommuting etc are key concerns for many organisations. “One could lose on the work culture, if he/she is working from home. But if one can strike a balance by working for a few days from office and few days from home, you can overcome this,” opines Ahuja.

“Managers are accustomed to managing by observation and by supervision. This mindset could be a major setback,” opines Venkatesh.

“Also, employees need to develop a more disciplined way of working and the ability to work without supervision. Also, it’s important to have clear performance goals and evaluation processes before considering this option.

The employee must have the ability to manage things independently and must be able to maintain an excellent working relationship with his/her colleagues and peers. It is important to maintain a high degree of self-discipline in order to keep productivity high. Also, when you work from home, there is no restriction to the number of hours being put in so you could end up being more stressed than before,” adds Venkatesh.
Shilpa Bhardwaj, Director, People Success, Sapient believes, “Working from home is a wonderful opportunity with a little bit of juggling and effort to create a distinct working mindset. Employees can also feel isolated in some ways which might effect their day to day interactions. Connection to the team or company can also be a challenge. But with the regular team meetings and conference calls, one can overcome this.”

“Allowing people to work from outside the office is bringing in very positive outputs. So we are encouraging the concept of going to work rather than going to office,” concludes Ahuja.

So, if you are in a situation of spending time with your guests and working at the same time, fret not. All you have to do is speak to your employer who will give you the option of doing both, all from the comforts of your own home.

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