Should You Let Your Team Work From Home?
From the The Money Files Blog
by Elizabeth Harrin
A blog that looks at all aspects of project and program finances from budgets, estimating and accounting to getting a pay rise and managing contracts.
Written by Elizabeth Harrin from RebelsGuideToPM.com.
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Date
I’ll come straight out and say it: I’m in the Yes camp.
I believe that you should let your team work from home. There are so many benefits for individuals, families and, by virtue of the fact that workers are happier, employers and managers too. Let me explain why I’m a believer in homeworking.
Homeworkers Save Money
When I first got interested in finding out about homeworking I went to an event: The Remote Workers Awards. The awards celebrated companies who let their employees work from home but had a very financial overtone. A presenter explained the financial benefits to his company of having homeworkers and they included:
- Lower costs for office space
- Lower costs for office overheads (think tea bags, toilet paper etc)
- Lower costs for sick pay (as workers didn’t phone in sick as often, perhaps because they weren’t sick or because they could still manage their work from home as they weren’t that sick)
- Lower cost of absenteeism in general.
And I’m sure there were some other things in there that he mentioned that I don’t recall.
As homeworkers don’t need a permanent desk in the office you can have a smaller office. They can hot desk if they come in. With fewer workers on site you don’t need as many resources and the office overheads are smaller. You’ll also find that homeworkers provide some of their own kit – I use my own chair and desk for example, although some companies will pay for this set up for remote workers if it is required.
Homeworkers Work More Hours
A common believe is that if you let your team work from home then they’ll slack off more because they can. A long lunchbreak watching Jeremy Kyle? That’s never happened to me.
No, genuinely, that’s never happened to me.
Work-from-home-rs are more likely to work longer hours because their office is just there. Without the commute you can start earlier and finish later. Overall the time you spend working is often longer because you aren’t leaving the office at 4pm to get home – you can work until 5.30pm and still get home earlier than commuters.
If you work from home I think the bigger problem is knowing when to stop. Still checking and responding to emails from the sofa at 10.30pm? Yes, that has happened to me.
Homeworkers Are More Loyal
The homeworkers I know fiercely protect their ability to work flexibly. It’s a perk so valued that I know people who won’t look for another job because they feel they wouldn’t get the same commitment to flexible working from another firm.
That loyalty and motivation is something that employers value. It’s expensive to onboard a new project manager, and having someone around who understands how things work and who has good working relationships with teams across the business is valuable.
You’ll notice that I haven’t included any links to research studies in here. Over the years I have researched this topic extensively and there is a lot of data out there to back up the benefits of flexible working and results-based workplaces.
There are new studies coming out all the time. If you want to find the data it won’t take you very long to find something up-to-date and probably specific to your industry.
However, there is one living breathing study that I’m part of that I think proves why you should let your project team work from home.
My own personal experiment.
I’m The Proof
I work from home a couple of days a week. I have an office in my garden. It’s far enough away from the house for me not to be disturbed or to be constantly thinking I have to put a load of washing on. But it’s close enough to pop back in for lunch or to take a delivery. And it means my commute is seconds.
The commute being only seconds is one of the hardest things to adjust to as a home worker. If you have had a difficult day, or challenging meetings, then a commute gives you time to unwind, refocus into ‘home’ mode and face the family without the burden of the office on your shoulders. I don’t get that, and I have to switch between ‘work’ and ‘home’ almost instantly, regardless of the time I need to mentally process the day. That has to come later – often much later such as when I am getting ready for bed, and l don’t recommend lying in bed trying to fall asleep while also trying to unpick the office politics of a particular meeting.
So, are you convinced? Or are you doing it already? Let me know what you think about letting your project team work from home in the comments below.
Posted on: April 12, 2016 12:00 AM |
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Comments (17)
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Vincent Guerard
Coach - Trainer - Speaker - Advisor| Freelance
Mont-Royal, Quebec, Canada
Thanks Elizabeth,
You didn't have to convince me. I love it.
One drawback has to do with team building, more challenging. No impromptu meeting at the coffee machine, source of networking and sometime beneficial.
Sujatha PVK Nambiar
Senior Director Program Management| International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI)
West Windsor, Nj, United States
Agree Elizabeth and thank you for the interesting topic. In today''s world we have several project meetings with remote global teams or after office hours which makes being in person in an office setting not mandatory. With the improvement in technology, several project meetings are carried out using web-camera/group telepresence platform.
However as a PM, I prefer to have a couple of in-office-direct F2F meetings during major critical milestones. Not everyone on the team are reliable and some tends to slack when not ''visible''. I agree with Vincent - some impromptu interaction and team building activities are required to ensure project success.
James Sweatman
Sr. Enterprise Project Manager| Mecklenburg County
Charlotte, Nc, United States
Elizabeth, thanks much for sharing. Definitely agree with you on this topic. Working from home allows me to facilitate more productive work since I'm not having to endure the constant interruptions at the office. Additionally, I love the ability to communicate online with various teams thus saving countless travel time to meet in person.
Works for me!!!
fosco frongia
Senior project manager| ENTE PATRIMONIALE CHIESA GESU' CRISTO SUG
Fino Mornasco, Como, Italy
thanks Elizabeth, I agree with you. as commented by Vincent and Sujatha, it is important to have some in office days when ad if it is necessary
Rami Kaibni
Community Champion
Senior Projects Manager | Field & Marten Associates
New Westminster, British Columbia, Canada
This is a very interesting topic and I totally agree with you. Working from home has many benefits to both parties (Employer & Employee) and I am in support of this as I can see myself when occasionally I work from home: Hours are more, efficiency is more and work is being done faster.
I'm a dedicated teleworker also. The benefits to me are numerous, including I'm mentally happier not being in a "cube farm". I believe I'm far more productive than my office-bound teammates because I don't have the distractions they do. It's true I miss out on impromptu meetings which can leave me feeling left out or disassociated from the project work. I try to compensate by reaching out (via IM or email) at random to people on my team, just as I would if I could stroll down the aisle for a visit. But I do that much less frequently than I would if I were on-site, which means I'm heads down on work for longer, uninterrupted periods of time.
Steven Wong
Training Advisor/Project Lead| National Bank of Canada
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Some great points. I certainly don't need convincing to be able to work from home more.
Thanks, everyone! I appreciate you taking the time to comment.
Eduard Hernandez
Community Champion
Product Operations Program Manager
Barcelona, Cataluña, Spain
I concur with most of the ideas and views in the article. The culture of the organization and/or the country are critical; i.e., Spain has a very rigid approach and most companies won't allow Working from Home since they tend to believe that employee is slacking off. In the US or the Netherlands, for instance, is not perceived in this manner.
As a side note, it is good that a PM makes him/herself visible - working too much from home might have a negative impact on team performance
There are certainly a lot of advantages, but I feel that working from home is probably not for everyone all the time. You have to look at the pros and cons and decide if it is right for your organization, your project, and your team
Linda Miller
Project Management
Huntington, Ny, United States
Great piece. I have done both. I think the push back against tele commuting is that managers may feel there is a lack of control. However, the real benefit to me of office based work is as much the social one as anything.
Thusi Hettigama
Director of Business Operations| Lunavi
Mississauga, Ontario, Canada
This is great. I enjoyed working from home and it is very productive. But still there are lots of organizations yet to embark on this. I see some hesitation in the management level on working from home options.
Cynthia Clark
Program Manager| Dish Network
Centennial, Co, United States
I love this article. I've worked for companies that allow me to work from home most of the time, and others where it was more beneficial to come into the office most of the time. Most currently I work for a company that requires I work onsite, even though they have given us WebEx availability for all of our meetings! In my personal opinion, the only time having meetings in person has been a benefit is when we are white boarding out a solution to a problem, and I know there are other solutions to that we could use if the company would get out of the "co-location is best" mode. They would save overhead, and I would love the flexibility.
Great article Elizabeth. I agree with all the points you've raised. I've always felt more productive when able to work from home. Would be interesting to quantify the added environmental benefits of less fuel consumed when not having to commute to and from an office, less emissions, etc. Thanks for sharing this!
Great post Elizabeth. I agree, as long as deliverables are not impacted. I have seen team performing and more productive when allowed.
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