Telecommuting means working from home, finishing projects and communicating both with the office and with customers from the comfort of a home office setup. This approach has a few solid benefits: it cuts out the commute time, it lets employees feel comfortable and in control of their environment, and it usually means that employees can enjoy flexible hours and could even get shorter work weeks if they produce results.
However, there are some downsides to telecommuting, too. Working remotely has its advantages, but there are certain things that are still best done in a central office.
1. To Promote Work Culture
Different companies have different expectations from their employees. Some might be strict while others are more laid back, some encourage employees to collaborate on each other’s projects while others prefer employees to stay on task. It’s possible to tell an employee about this over text or a conference call, but that’s not a very effective way to communicate something so nuanced. That’s why employers are asking their remote workers to come into the office at least a few days every week, because seeing this culture in action is an effective way of showing employees how they should act.
2. To Encourage Focus
Not every telecommuting employee maintains perfect discipline while they work from home. It’s tempting to want to multitask when you’re sitting at your home computer, after all, especially if you think you can still give your job the amount of attention it needs. However, employers want to make sure their employees are treating their tasks with the respect and focus they deserve, and so bringing employees to the office can help remind them that staying on task is important.
3. Collaboration Speed
Speed is important in almost every profession, especially the kind you can do remotely through the internet. Among other things, it’s important to have a high-speed connection, like a fiber-based gigabit internet, but not every employee lives in a place that has access to fiber lines. However, an office with a gigabit internet connection can access cloud information and contact clients, and employees working on the same project don’t even need that if they’re all in the same room.
Telecommuting has its advantages, but so does working in a modern office with natural lighting, comfortable chairs, and gigabit internet connections. While businesses aren’t calling all their remote workers to the office, at least not on every work day, it’s becoming clearer that office jobs have a few advantages of their own.