This article covers meaning, importance, steps & example of Work From Home - WFH from HRM perspective.
Work From home or WFH is a concept where the employee can do his or her job from home (or even remotely) using company approved assets, policies and tools. Work from home gives flexible working hours to the employee as well as the job for the employer is done with ease. Work from home is helpful to delivering work life balance to the employee, and also parallelly helps the company to get the work done. Nowadays, most of the employers are offering this option to their employees.
Work from home (or Working from home) is a modern work approach enabled through internet and mobility wherein irrespective of the physical location of an individual work can be done. Work from Home is also known as Working Remotely or telecommuting which implies that the employee is working from a remote location usually home.
Work from home as a concept is very important in current times. It helps to keep productivity of the employee same or even better and at the same time supports the employee for being with family or handling some personal work. Also in the case the employee is facing some health issue of self or family, Work from Home (WFH) can be a great tool for helping employee stay at home and work at the same time. in 2020, during Coronavirus (COVID-19) Pandemic, Work from Home enabled many companies to remain productive and keep themselves relevant.
Roles like IT, Management, Designing, Media etc. continued to work with the WFH option.
There are many advantages while working from home.
1. There is more job applicant for a particular job with certain people with location constraint or disabled people can apply for the job. Even parents with children who tend to leave job can be retained for the job.
2. There is more work life balance. Many people claim that a more quieter or friendly atmosphere is found at home which helps to concentrate on the work as well as they can complete the assigned work quickly.
3. There is a lot of savings with respect to cost of office infrastructure like spaces, electricity bills etc.
4. Employees feel motivated as they get a good work life balance, and improves their productivity
There are many disadvantages as well
1. There is always a major problem with monitoring the work.
2. The cost of technological infrastructure that is required for implementing the concept.
3. There is always a security problem with data being transferred and that can’t be monitored easily.
4. All jobs doesn’t is not suitable for work from home concept. Sometimes communication problem between employees makes it problematic for a job.
There are both advantages and disadvantages with this work from home concept. But still most companies are offering this to its employees and this has been a new trend these days. However some people think the ideal way should be splitting the week with some days working from home and other days visiting office, by doing that many of the pitfalls can be taken care of. So this depends on employers which procedure to follow.
The companies should encourage the employees to WFH but should provide certain tips to enable effective Work from Home like
1. Asking employee to work for the hours he/she would work otherwise in office
2. Maintain a proper work schedule
3. If personal breaks are being taken for personal work, proper status should be sent to manager
4. Designate a place at home where work can be done in a professional setting
5. Make sure you have proper internet and mobile connectivity (many companies provide reimbursement policies as well)
6. Have a proper routine with breaks
A company before allowing work from option should be enabled as a mobile organization
1. Make sure that the employees can work from home securely
2. Provide office laptop and hardware if work has to be ensured with proper security
3. Have professional partners for video and audio conferencing
4. Put proper WFH policy in place for employees to follow
5. Make sure you have reimbursement policies in place for internet, mobile bills etc.
Most of the knowledge and technology based companies had started to offer work from home option quite considerably to employees even before the pandemic. Work from Home is offered as a benefit and also it is convenient to the employee. As an example, companies are either offering a fixed number of days per month for WFH or some also offer permanent or temporary work from home option to employee.
Hence, this concludes the definition of Work From Home - WFH along with its overview.
This article has been researched & authored by the Business Concepts Team which comprises of MBA students, management professionals, and industry experts. It has been reviewed & published by the MBA Skool Team. The content on MBA Skool has been created for educational & academic purpose only.
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