One of the hardest challenges we all face every morning is having to drag ourselves from the comfort of our homes to embark on the commute to the workplace.
However, it’s infinitely easier to do this if you actually enjoy your job as much as we like to hope that you do.
As office design specialists, we firmly believe that employers should do all that they can to ensure the maximum comfort of their staff to improve workplace wellbeing.
While the last few years have seen a rise in the trend of remote working, where employees are given the option to do their job at home, recent studies have revealed that this may not be the most effective option.
Home sweet home
The over-riding question most businesses have is; does remote working lead to increased efficiency?
Depending on their situation, working from home could give workers the incentive to concentrate in a more comfortable environment with fewer distractions.
But for every study that states remote working increases productivity, you’ll find one that claims it can lead to a slump in productivity.
For certain individuals, it can lead to procrastination.
It could also be argued that it can lessen the opportunities for chance encounters which are vital to encouraging communication and collaboration.
Working 9 ’til 5
While none of us enjoys a long commute, working from an office does have certain benefits which remote workers often miss.
By interacting with fellow employees and building relationships, we’re far more collaborative, which leads to increased creativity.
A company that manufactures headsets for call-centre and office workers conducted a survey about remote working,
They discovered that one in three home workers felt that, compared to their office-based peers, remote working hindered their career progression due to a lack of visibility.
Similarly, home working brings with it an often unjustified level of mistrust.
The study also revealed that 13% of people believed that home workers didn’t work as hard or were undertaking personal tasks during work time.
However, the reality is that remote workers often feel compelled to overwork and are in turn more likely to be flexible and answer emails outside of working hours.
Finding the balance
Ultimately, it will be up to the business as to whether it offers remote working to staff.
While it’s important to remember that employers should always strive to be as flexible as possible, like most things, it will only work when a healthy balance is maintained and both parties are equally flexible.
For whatever reason, when remote working isn’t possible, simply offering staff a more comfortable working environment can offset this.
If you want to make your employees feel more at home in the workplace, get in touch to see how we can help.
