What are the disadvantages [to the employer] of working from home? [closed]

Question

I'm 41 years old. I'm an Australian, and I like things where I am. At 15, I took to software development (computer programming as I knew it then, and as it probably still is now) because it promised me two things: absorbing and intellectually stimulating work and work that could be done away from social intimacy.

I had an accident when I was 12. I sustained an Acquired Brain Injury (ABI) and spent three months in hospital. I also tend toward solitary occupations - this seems to have come further into play after my accident, though as a 12 year-old 29 years ago, my social skills were perhaps just developing.

It wasn't until I resigned my seventh job (with Accenture) because of their refusal to let me work from home that I saw a psychiatrist. Everything fell into place.

Why do employers still refuse to let me work for them from home? I don't have to be in an office to do my work, and I assume it works for them because they don't have to pay for an office to have me.

What are the actual and perceived disadvantages, for my employer, of my working from home?

Answer 1

This is likely to be very opinion based on company specific, and there are many companies like Stack Exchange who embrace remote offices, however the principal reasons often revolve around collaboration.

While this is very possible remotely (and I support this model completely), the thinking is that staff are in close proximity. If they have a question they can just turn around and ask. Also you can't understate the impact of the "watercooler chat" (hence the name of our chat room :) ), where it's often the informal chats getting a cup of coffee or water in a relaxed environment where problems get incidentally resolved.

You could of course say that some organisations just don't trust their staff, and that's entirely possible. But collaboration is why they try to colocate teams that need to work together in the same space.

None of these are insurmountable in the home office, but my experience is that these are the primary justifications for it.

Answer 2

I also dream of working independently and from wherever I want. But there are some things to consider about full-time teleworking:

1. Out of sight, out of mind It is harder to get people to remember you're there when they never see you. You run the risk of not getting promotions, bonuses, and even new project assignments.

2. Non-Verbal cues If you're only a disembodied voice, people may not understand all you're trying to communicate, and vice versa.

3. Camaraderie matters Though you may not value it, many people do. Performance reviews seem to go better when people like you.

4. Availability Impromptu conversations are often needed to resolve issues quickly, and often, great new ideas come up from water cooler chats.

5. Some companies just don't trust teleworking No, it's not fair, and no, it's not even realistic. But it is reality - some managers feel they have to see you working to know you're working.

All of these are able to be dealt successfully with as a full-time teleworker, but it's on you to make it happen.

Answer 3

I work from home periodically and have over the past years. A good list of reasons I've found from my experiences:

• Work/life balance may be harder. Especially if you don't have a dedicated workspace, it becomes harder to separate when you are working/not working.
• Focusing on work is harder. It requires discipline to work from home indefinitely. A few days a week? Pretty easy. But when you have no peer pressure, you need some discipline to do so consistently. This is probably fairly dependent on each person.
• No "water cooler" socializing. I literally talked to my manager about this yesterday, about how important it is to have informal non-work related discussions with coworkers. Some cultures really value relationship over work (India for example) and this is much harder to build remotely. This also affects project work, as all your reminders/questions have to be deliberate and not "we were eating lunch, asked about X" types of interactions.
• Distractions unique to home. You might have neighbors mowing their lawn during a conference call (like me yesterday in a 1/1, that was awkward). Or you might have a bad internet provider. Or maybe you have a family/children in which case you may have constant distractions.
• Visibility is much harder. If you don't put effort into it, you will nearly never get recognized and have visibility for what you are doing. Your boss won't see you working 8 or 10 hours, for example.
• Problems may go undiscussed longer. If your manager is conflict averse, having a remote relationship is likely to make problems be unaddressed longer, as it's really awkward to do negative feedback through conference calls/etc.
• It's easy to be distracted during meetings. Most people won't blatantly not pay attention in meetings in person. But it's really hard to have the same level of care if you can just put your microphone on mute and have no one viewing your screen, etc.
• You might connect through VPN. This will vary based on how network intensive your work is, but for me, many of our applications are so slow through VPN. Fortunately for the key ones they have a Citrix hosting so I can now bypass this problem. But this would have prevented me from working 100% remotely in any sort of effective sense.

Answer 4

Answer from the perspective of the worker:

There is a risk of permanent mental stress possibly leading to something worse.

Permanently working from home over few years can set set up one's mind "this is my workplace". You just see the room or scenery outside the window and your mind and body automatically switches to mode "I am in work now". Once it develops over the time, this cannot be consciously controlled very easily, it has also something to do with subconsciousness. If there comes higher amount of stress in your work, amounts of unfinished work, difficult exhausting project or other factors, you instantly have it in your home. Keep working from that place and you will find that your mind (and your body) will slowly lose ability to stop and relax in your own home. Still keep working from home and you can observe your that efficiency drops over time. After few years going this way, you can be on way to more serious psychosomatic problems.

How this can be mitigated:

• Work from room separate from your standard living area and do not spend time in that room outside of working hours.

• Start going to workplace when there is more difficult or stressful part of project. Do not bring these things home. This also greatly helps other things, like time with co-workers – see other answers.

• Hire small office near your home, go to work there.

This answer applies not only to company employees, but also to freelancers who do not necessarily need to spend time with a team.

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Perhaps many people working from the office can confirm how relieving can be closing the office door when the work time is over. This was my view what comes if you do not comfort yourself with such a (maybe trivially-looking) privilege – leaving everything at the workplace.

Answer 5

It wasn't until I resigned my seventh job (with Accenture) because of their refusal to let me work from home that I saw a psychiatrist. Everything fell into place.

Why do employers still refuse to let me work for them from home?

You are probably choosing the wrong employers, and are getting hired with the wrong expectations.

Apparently, you chose an employer, worked there, and only then decided they should let you work from home. When they didn't you quit. Only you and the company can know for sure why they refused. Perhaps they didn't trust you enough to work remotely. Perhaps their infrastructure or work policies aren't sufficiently developed to permit remote work. Perhaps your role requires your physical presence more than you perceive. Perhaps they just didn't like you enough.

Instead, seek an employer with the specific intent of working from home. Many employers boast flexible work arrangements or work-from-home jobs on their websites these days. As @Shauna adds there are also sites dedicated to remote job postings now, such as weworkremotely.com. Find one of those companies. And during the interview process make sure to specifically ask how it works at their company, and learn if it fits your needs or not.

You can't just go to a company, get yourself hired, and then decide that they should let you work from home. It simply doesn't work that way.

Answer 6

enderland mentioned being connected through VPN and how it's slow. I thought it worth mentioning that working from home all the time also poses the risk of not being able to work if any of the technology that enables this fails. Maybe your work is stored on the company's servers and the VPN goes down, or your personal internet goes out, or what have you. I think it makes people wary when you have to rely on these things all the time to be able to get stuff done, whereas if you work in the office there aren't as many points of possible failure.