Today I am working from home. For people in my company this is something quite new. The idea of not having your employees “in sight” scares quite a lot of managers. I believe this is partly understandable. In our office however we implemented some tools that help the employee while he needs access to his systems, information and colleagues but also tools that allow the employer to see what his or her people are working on / have done while working at home and in this way gain the trust wich is usually the missing ingredient.
One of the main advances are the sharepoint project sites we have set-up for each project. We made a small and easy change to the Project Tracking Workspace template. This is one of the 40 free templates of Microsoft. We have linked the actions to the deliverables. This way you can get a very complete project overview Showing the status of the actions per deliverable. This is something we need to provide management on a frequent basis. Now they can stay up to date by themselves.
Another tool is the Time-Tracker. It sounds like common sense to track time worked on specific activities and projects, but in our environment this is not something that is done everywhere, nor with the exactness it requires to obtain valuable data. We have tested the sharepoint Time-card Management template (also part of the Microsoft pack) and it fits the purpose for teams that need to log minimal data. Since I needed some practice for my asp.net course I made a more advanced time tracking application. This allows us to easier backlog entries, add much more detail, and customise the reporting. This for our manager is a crucial tool to justify the physical absence of the members of her team to the higher management.
We are now using these tools for a couple of months and the results are surprising. The people working from home are in general more productive, work more hours and are more motivated. This sounds very logical to me, but still very uncommon in a lot of places.
I can start wearing my pyjamas, and having my coffee while already responding to the first mails. There are no more needs to “leave the office” for a coffee break or a smoke. I have no queue at my desk with people asking questions. Somehow working from home works as a filter, and only the important stuff reaches me. This results in a lot less distraction and a much higher concentration. These are just a few examples of the advantages.
I believe that people like me need to push for this, because I believe a lot of people, especially commuters in the Barcelona area, can achieve a much better Life / Work balance .
Also there is, when well implemented, organised and managed, a clear cost saving for the company too. By hot-desking when in the office, the office has more free seats that have no cost attached. Less hardware to maintain and free coffees from the machine.
Update: you can see a good presentation here. Thanks Rogier!
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