The disadvantages or working from home

As a result of the pandemic many offices across the world are still enforcing a company wide work from home policy. Flexibility, no commute and the ability to hire the best talent regardless of location… These are just some of the benefits we have seen over the last few months. However, some businesses are starting to report on the negative effects of working from home, and as time goes on we will likely see longer term effects.

Lack of Community

Without actual face to face communications, business owners are concerned that company culture will be poorly impacted, especially for new recruits.

“Face-to-face interaction is generally lost, and there’s no substitute for this during some activities, especially those more collaborative in nature. Video conferencing can sometimes offset this, but it’s not a perfect replacement.” (Source)

When every employee is working from home there is little opportunity to create small but meaningful interactions, whether it’s an impromptu meeting, stopping by a new team members desk to say hi or making your colleague a cup of tea many of us are accustomed to this and hugely notice the difference it makes, now that it’s gone.

Diverse & collaborative work spaces used to see the benefit of ideas generated by conversations across the office, now we have to rely on video chats to inspire and unite our teams – is there a better way?

• Host (socially distanced) meet ups once a month/quarter, social events or problem solving meetings to keep your team engaged.
• Promote company values, don’t just sent out an email that says you value trust and innovation – embed your values into your leadership team do that they genuinely filter through the business.
• Create an online suggestion box, allow staff to anonymously offer solutions to any issues they may personally be facing due to the lockdown.

Feelings of isolation

A recent study has revealed that remote workers are more likely to feel ‘shunned and left out’ than employees who work from the office. Humans are social creatures, and working without seeing anyone can make employees feel cut off. Without face to face contact employees are likely to struggle with anxiety around their performance, especially as life is still yet to return to normal, many workers aren’t as busy as usual – this could lead to over working out of fear they aren’t producing enough results.

The key to overcoming workplace anxiety is to build genuine trust through open communication, it is up to line managers to make an extra effort to ensure team members feel included and have realistic expectations of what should be achieved while working from home.

Maintaining accountability

Many companies have installed tracking and productivity tools to ensure remote workers are as productive as you would expect them to be while sat in front of their boss, however there are various concerns around these types of softwares – it breaches privacy and doesn’t help to build a culture of trust.

Regular contact, especially in early stages, will put you/your line managers minds at ease that employees are still working hard. Once that confidence is in place set specific targets to ensure work load is manageable and employees know exactly what they are accountable for.

Lack of motivation

It can be hard enough to inspire motivation in an office based team, especially in the current climate! Managing productivity and keeping motivation high within a remote team can be a challenge, there are countless distractions at home and you likely don’t know if your employee is working from a quiet study or their sofa with Netflix in the background.

“Working from home or a hotel: little to no oversight as to what an employee is doing during the day or how distracted they are. Fine for self-starters and responsible folks; not so great for junior and/or unproven teammates.” (Source)

The number one way to avoid concerns around motivation is to get your hiring process down, hire go-getters who don’t need hand holding and constant support. Include more ‘Why’s?’ in your interviews to understand if someone solves problems that are brought to them, or if they actively seek out problems to solve.

Encourage transparency among your team, we all have bad days sometimes even bad weeks – if your team members feel comfortable confiding in you they will let you know when things don’t go as planned, rather than trying to hide it which could potentially affect the wider business.

There are a number of reasons why businesses have traditionally avoided hiring remote teams, however the global lockdown caused by COVID19 has forced us to find solutions. There will always be a place for office working, but candidates in 2020 and beyond will expect some level of flexibility when accepting a new role.