Home working
Allowing your staff to work from home, either full or part time, can bring a range of business benefits. These can include greater staff motivation, increased productivity and may allow you to use your business premises more effectively. Home working also allows your business to recruit from a wider catchment area, increasing your chances of recruiting suitable employees.You need a virtual private network to allow your staff to log into your Company server, in order that they can access the information they require to do their job. Home working can include using the internet or telephone, and the spread of home working amongst small companies is opening up a whole new range of possibilities for the way in which businesses are able to structure themselves. In addition, homeworking can be a solution to some of the recently introduced flexible working regulations, for example employees with young or disabled children who have requested variable working hours.
Allowing employees to work from home, for some or all of the time, can provide a number of benefits for your business, such as;
- improved retention of employees, eg home working can help retain working parents with childcare responsibilities
- a wider pool of applicants from which to recruit, eg disabled people who may prefer to work from home
- possible productivity gains through staff having fewer interruptions and less commuting time
- increased staff motivation with reduced stress and sickness levels
- savings on office space and other facilities
- its proven that home workers have low sickness levels, due to the fact they can work from home when feeling under the weather, as opposed to their office based friends who when feeling ill don’t feel like driving into work.
A shift towards home working doesn't mean employees have to work only at home. Often splitting time between home and the workplace is the most productive solution and you may want your employees to attend meetings to keep them fully involved and informed.