Keeping Home Workers In The Loop

Working from home can have many advantages: save on start up costs, as you do not need premises; save time that would be spent on looking for suitable property; avoid becoming tied into long tenancy agreements; arrange work around family commitments; get help from family, e.g. they may help you with filing or general administration tasks; save on time and money spent travelling to work; and avoid noise, distractions and smelly colleagues in the workplace.

However, there are disadvantages from home working too. You may find you have trouble with: separating home and work life; the initial expense of setting up; domestic distractions and interruptions; and going stir-crazy (take my word for it!). Fear not anti-commuters, BT Business is here to help. It has launched a new ‘how to’ guide, the ‘Remote Manager’s Toolkit’, designed to help close the gap in skills identified in new BT research showing that the majority managers have never received training on how to manage remote workers and are not familiar with their IT requirements.

Many businesses currently offer their staff the opportunity of remote and mobile working, but this is set to increase in just eight months time, with an extra 4.5million staff in the UK gaining the right to request flexible working under plans released in May by the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform. The lack of management expertise risks promoting feelings of isolation amongst remote workers and encouraging the culture of ‘presenteeism’, the long-hours culture, where staff feel that coming in early, staying late and battling on when they are ill is expected.

Though many employees are concerned that colleagues will accuse them of skiving if they work from home, workers are more fearful of missing out on the camaraderie, gossip and banter of the office, even though most are probably more effective when they are working from home. And many probably lack the IT support to work from home effectively.

Work is no longer a place you go, but something you do. Information and communications technology has provided the means for most of us tied to a desk to work remotely. We’ve all seen huge benefits from remote working for many years, so hopefully BT Business’ ‘Remote Manager’s Toolkit’ can help businesses enjoy the benefits of remote working, while overcoming challenges such as team collaboration, performance monitoring and worker isolation. The management guide was produced in conjunction with a panel of flexible working experts, and written by the Centre for Future Studies.