Home-working has increased by 36% recently
Studies show home-working is 13% more productive
It’s time to review your home-working policy
Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, employees carrying out home-working was minimal – just over 5% of employed people said they mainly worked from home, and a further 12% said they sometimes worked from home.
The latest statistics produced by the Office of National Statistics suggests that nearly 42% of all employees are now mainly working from home – that’s a huge increase!
A great majority of these businesses have been forced to allow homeworking, even though they may have felt reluctant or uncomfortable doing so. The reasons we are usually given for not wanting employees to work from home are:
- I don’t trust that my employees will actually be working
- Productivity will suffer
- I can’t manage their time keeping and attendance
- I don’t want everyone working from home, it’s not fair to not let everyone do it
- It’s too big a change
- I don’t know how to keep data secure
- I don’t want to provide them with loads of equipment
- I like being in the office
- We’ll lose the team feeling
- There are too many distractions at home
Employers who have already embraced home-working were fully equipped to cope with the changes when the Government announced that everyone should work from home if they could. Those who had not previously considered it, or had ruled it out for those reasons given above, have found it really hard to adapt and have no doubt spent more time worrying about their workforce watching Netflix than actually running their business.
Now is an excellent time to carry out a quick review of how home-working has worked for your employees and your business – what have they found challenging, what have they enjoyed about home working, has all the work been done and to the same high standard?
In reality, there are loads of reasons why you should consider allowing employees to work from home, these include:
- Less time wasted commuting, making that morning coffee, chatting about the weekend or Eastenders, etc.
- Studies have shown that employees who work from home are actually 13% more productive
- Employees will have a better work/life balance – happy employees means happy customers!
- Reduced office costs and overheads
- Access to a much wider talent pool
- Employees take fewer sick days as they’re more willing to work through minor ailments from the comfort of their own home
So embrace the new normal, trust your employees to get the job done, and don’t be too quick to dismiss home-working as an option for the future.
Do you have questions about flexible working?
Give us a call at CUBE HR, we’ll be happy to advise you and we have policies and templates available to meet every HR need.
Why not check out our other blog on the same topic Why is Flexibility Important in the Workplace?
You can also watch a range of other videos on our YouTube channel
