English
Arabic
Hello, my name is Peter Carr and this talk is about about working from home.
I have divided this talk up into a number of parts so that you can just watch the parts that you’re interested in and not the other bits. The parts cover things like the benefits of working from home for you, for your employer, and for the community, as well as the downsides. And very importantly, how to do it really well! You can find the links to the other parts here…enjoy.
Part 1 – the benefit to businesses of staff working from home.
Today I am talking about the benefit to business of employees working from home. What have been my experiences? Well firstly about 10 years ago I had a number of team members working for me in another country in an office. Some issues came up with the landlord and it became complicated and I thought “oh I just don’t need this headache”, so I thought I’ll try getting them to work from home. So I said to each team member “pick up your computer and your mobile phone and work from home from now on. They were pretty happy to do that!
So what was the effect on on my business? Well firstly I saved a lot of money! I didn’t have to pay extortionate rent any more for this office! But you know what about getting the work done? Well the interesting thing was that productivity actually increased! And that did surprise me at the time. But now it’s pretty clear to me the reasons for that. And let’s think about the reasons for that. Most people if they work in an office, what is their day like? They get up at the crack of dawn they have to get ready. They shower, some people put on their makeup or shave and dress up. And then fight their way through some horrible public transport into work, or drive, in horrible weather and basically get to work having wasted a couple of hours of their day, And they are already pretty stressed out. And they sit down, they need a coffee. Pretty soon they’re stressed out from the office politics. they go to lunch and come back, and they do some work and then they spend a couple of hours fighting their way home again so that in total it’s been about 13 hours of the day working for you.. in one way or another. They’re exhausted they have a bit of time for themselves if they’re lucky and then they go to bed and they get up tired the next day, and do it again.
So because of these situations, 13 hours with a lot of horrible travelling time, getting up very early, they’re tired they’re not very productive, and a bit less motivated. And it’s more difficult for them to focus. Research indicate well that they’re probably doing four or five hours of productive work of day! So you’re paying them for full-time job but they’re only doing four or five hours of productive work! Now I am not pointing a finger at anyone! This is just a typical scenario for many people. So what happens if they’re working from home? Firstly, instead of having to get up at the crack of dawn, they can get up at a more comfortable hour, because they don’t have to waste hours getting ready and traveling in to work. They can get up in a relaxed manner. They can do their job in a relaxed environment where they’re comfortable. With their family nearby, so they can chat to them they don’t have to spend a lot of time on Facebook or LinkedIn trying to work out what their family is doing, because they’re there! If they’ve got kids they can drop them at school and then be much more productive. So they’ll get more work done, and the work will be of a higher standard than if they’re working in the office in the middle of the city.
Now some people say to me “well those people working from home are not going to do any work!” Really? Are you going to pay them if they do no work? Of course not. Most people have KPI’s or targets that they have to meet in their job. Most of the time you won’t be watching them anyway in the office, you’ll just be giving them jobs to do and then waiting for that job to be completed, and you’ll get an email from them telling you that they’ve finished that job. So it’s the same if they’re working from home. They’ve got KPI’s. They’ve got targets. They’ve got assigned work that they need to get the work done. Then it’s up to them when they do the work. In most cases, as long as the work is done, it doesn’t matter to you.
So what’s the outcome? Firstly, you’ve saved a lot of money because you haven’t had to pay rent for office space for these people. You didn’t have to buy the furniture that goes with that, and the upkeep, cleaning and so on and so forth. You don’t need so many managers to walk around making sure that they’re doing their job. So you will probably save on a few high salaries there. You still need to ensure that the work is being done, but it’s probably less management time than the scenario in the office. So basically you’re saving a lot of money. And the work that’s being done is probably of a higher standard because the staff members are less stressed, less exhausted, and more motivated! They will be much happier, so staff retention will be much easier, and you’ll have a lot less staff turnover, and save a lot of money in constantly re hiring people.
So that’s just something to think about, the next time you’re trying to think about how to make the business more efficient and how to cut costs…think about telling all of your staff to go home! And work from home. I am confident you will be satisfied because you’ll have a much more productive team.
Please feel free to contact me with any questions, my contact details and video links are below. Have a great day!
https://www.linkedin.com/in/peter1carr/
Tel: +61 (0)491350732
www.maximumm.com
peter@maximumm.com
www.maximummtech.com
The related videos include:
Work from home – Part 1
Work from home – Part 2 – benefits for your business