What’s so great about working from home?
By Nicole Kobie in Editorial
Posted in Uncategorized on
Working from home is for some reason being pushed by many as the new world order for business — this time, at a Citrix event I’m attending today.
Apparently, knowledge workers no longer need to go to the office — they can access their desktops anywhere, so they may as well stay home.
And on one hand, it’s easy to see why. With near-ubiquitous broadband, we can technically do it. And it means we can all have nice work-life balances, getting our kids ready for school rather than spending 40 minutes commuting.
But then what? Then we sit in our kitchens with our laptops, on the phone all day, sending emails and fiddling with video conferencing and dialling into conference calls. Whee?
Sure, I can do my laundry during the day, but that benefit gets old fast.
Really, the benefit goes to CFOs. If you can shift workers out of the office, it saves cash off the bottom line. You need less office space, fewer desks – hell, think of the annual savings from on toilet paper alone.
And, if people are working from home, they’re possibly even using their own broadband, their own PCs, and doing their own maintenance and troubleshooting. Think of the savings…
Don’t get me wrong. It’s nice to be able to work from home to wait for a delivery, to see your kids, to avoid a nasty commute, to have a change of scene.
Working from home should be an option – it already is for many. I can already work from home. It’s not some crazy future system, like flying cars. It’s already here and it doesn’t require any shiny new tech. We’ve all been working in a mobile way for years, haven’t we?
But I like my office, even with the florescent lights and noisy open plan crowded seating. There’s stable, quick internet. There’s IT staff if I need help. There’s a constant supply of tea. There’re co-workers I can chat to, bounce ideas off of, have fun with. There’s a pub across the street, and people to go there with. I can easily get to events and meetings.
And yeah, meetings. Meetings are better in person — all that team work, communicating better with people, having fun getting to know people. There’s a reason offices evolved: bringing people together to work together has benefits.
And if you don’t believe me, just keep in mind that despite having their very own conferencing system, Citrix flew me to Budapest to meet with me…
Rated: 90% (2 votes)
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Comment by William Langford - November 13, 2009 on 12:56 pm
Working from home works well for me - most of the time. There are those times when human contact over the age of 16 is necessary. I deal with this through networking groups, usually a breakfast group.
It seems to me that working from home and on line conferencing have a lot in common. Both are doable but both lack the human interaction necessary for a stable, close relationship.
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