Six Reasons Why Employers Dislike Working From Home

There are many employees who prefer working from home. Why not? They can save their money when it comes to commuting, it frees up office space and improves employees satisfaction and the list goes on. According to research, 4.1 million Malaysians could fully work from home in a few years. But many employers are sceptical to let their employees work from home. What gives?

Here are the six reasons why an employer may be suspect of remote employees:

 

 

Trust issues

For employers, working from home is a privilege that employees must earn. If their staff consists mostly of new employees that have not proven themselves, an employer may prefer to observe them in an office environment to determine if they are worthy of this privilege.

For example, if an employer sees that a new employee is always late, takes long breaks, and leaves early, then all signs point to the employee being unable to work unsupervised.

 

A Matter of Fairness

Some employees can be trusted to work from home, and others cannot. So how does an employer let some of their staff work from home making others stay in the office? The problem with this policy is that it will cause divisions amongst the staff.

Those who have to work in the office will become resentful of these privileged employees who get to work from the comfort of their homes. There might even be a mutiny, which would be bad for productivity.

For employees, working from home is a privilege.

Too Big of a Change?

If an employer already has a functioning office in place, complete with workstations, desks, breakrooms, etc., then it would be a major undertaking to allow your employees to work from home. It might be too difficult for the employer to make a change this big, as they have spent years developing the office and setting up everything exactly how they want it.

Though, a counterpoint for this is that employers could save money on some aspects, such as rentals if they let their employees work from home.

 

 

Lack of Control

Just like trust, control is a major issue for employers. It is much more difficult to control employees that are not in the office. Many office managers prefer to make sure all employees are at the office as a way to keep them motivated. 

Since everyone works in the same building, it is easier for a manager to control their staff by walking from desk-to-desk, looking over their employees and making sure they are staying on task. With this hands-on approach, employees will think twice about wasting time if they think that their boss is always watching them

 

Missed Opportunities for Collaboration

Nowadays there are new technologies such as video conferencing and instant messaging that lets remote workers stay connected to the office and each other.  But it is still different from having a team work together in the same room. When employees need to spend time around each other, they learn to communicate in deeper ways than remote technology allows. 

When the employees work together in the same room, they get to learn each other's quirks and gestures. This makes it harder to fake disapproval and easier to share ideas.

 

Bad for Repetitive Tasks

For some employees, working from home improves productivity for jobs requiring creativity (beware, employees could still suffer from burnout while working from home!). But for others, it hinders jobs that are repetitive in nature such as data entry. The home is known for harbouring many distractions, such as television, video games, pets, and kids. 

Workers who are required to do repetitive jobs are more prone to being distracted by the comforts of their home. 

 

As an employer, it is your decision whether or not to allow your employees to work from home. Your employees' morale may improve if you allow them to work from home, but they might be bummed out if you deny them this privilege. 

Let your employees know why this is a privilege and not something to be taken for granted. Entrust them with this privilege but be ready to expect some of them might need to return to the office if their productivity is low. 

Source: Pace Technical

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