Rule of the day: Working from home is great but…
The rule of the day relates to working from home. Working from home is a dream that many people have and often wish it was something they could do. Perhaps you know people who work from home every day or one or more days per week and wish you were in their position.
Other than eliminating the daily commute, working from home can certainly have a number of benefits namely flexible hours, no office politics, no distractions from chatty co-workers, and things of that nature.
Having said that there are also things to consider if you work for a company and either have the opportunity to work from home or are considering asking if you can:
You might be expected to produce more: Working from home means that you are going to have to be self-motivated and self-disciplined that goes without saying. If your firm has a policy like most do where people are expected to show up at work each day in person, if you’re the one person working from home you might be expected to produce more to compensate for the fact that they’re letting you work home. At a minimum, it’s likely that you’re employer will want to ensure that you’re actually doing your work and producing as you would in the office.
Some jobs aren’t conducive to working from home: If you’re in a job that requires frequent interaction with others or where you need quick answers normally achieved by walking into someone’s office and asking, this is clearly going to be different once you start working from home.
Some people get lonely: Some people are social animals and like the idea of being in an office, seeing people, hearing other people’s voices, etc. Being at home by yourself is totally different and some people can’t adjust and find it lonely.
You might find yourself out of the loop: Since you’re not around in the office as much if at all, you might find that you find yourself losing track of what’s going on in the company and might find that you need to do a better job of keeping up to date which all the news and rumors that you’d otherwise hear about had you been in the office. You might find that your profile in the company is lower too since you aren’t actually going into the office.
Distractions might be more than you can bear: Kids, the tv, your phone, your cellphone, instant messages from friends, social networks. These are all distractions that you’ll be facing if you work from home. Sometimes you need to shut some/all of these distractions off and concentrate on work and often it can be difficult.
Tags: Rule of the Day, working from home
