Home office, why is it not a reality already?

04.12.2018 1,595 4

Martin Pramatarov

Home office! Just the sound of it gets you excited, doesn’t it? Imagine how nice it is to work from your home. You can spend more time with your family, enjoy homemade food, and let’s not forget that you can avoid the dreadful traffic. Less stress and more happiness, why it is not widespread yet?

Is home office good for the employers?

Yes, it is. It can save them plenty of money. Having employees that work remotely, constantly or just a few days a week, will reduce the needed office space. Some workers can share the same desk. One works Monday to Wednesday, another one – Thursday and Friday.

It will also lower the bills for electricity and other services. Fewer people, less consumption, obviously!

So why is home office still just a beautiful dream and not a reality?

Not many companies are willing to let you work remotely due to various concerns – personal, interpersonal, and tech problems.

Lack of trust

Old-style managers want to see their employees all the time. They feel that if the employee is not there, he or she won’t work. They like to pass by your desk, 10 times per day and ask you the same question: “are you ready?”

Discipline

Let’s not ignore that there are many undisciplined people too. You can be well-organized, with your agenda of tasks and a clear mind as to what you have to do during the day, but others may not be. Some will skip work and do nothing if possible, or maybe just get distracted. The working hours and the tasks should be respected equally in the office or from your remote working space.

Telecommunication

There are plenty of solutions for telecommunications. Different messengers and conferment call apps, applications for working together and more. On paper, it sounds like there are no problems, right?

Not everybody is a quick learner, and it can be hard for older workers to communicate with their more tech-savvy colleagues. Managers will need to educate the employees on how to use the latest tech and keep the communication flow going.

Remote Access security concerns

There are several ways to access the necessary resources from your home office. First, the straightforward one is to use the Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP). You can access your office computer from anywhere in the world and from different devices like phones and laptops. The problem? Hackers. They know how to exploit it. Not only that but you’ll also need to have your office computer turned on all the time.

The second option is to access your company resources directly. You can do it with just a username and a password, with two-factor verification or a VPN (Virtual Personal Network). VPN creates safe access to your company network that is encrypted. That way, all the data traffic will be protected, and the cybercriminals can’t use it. A VPN needs to be installed, but it can be software or hardware. There are many solutions.

So technology is not a big problem. The issue is both in the employers and in us. Managers need to trust a little bit more in us, and we should not disappoint them, respectively. We can work from home; we can deliver similar and even better results if we really understand that the home office day is not a free day. It has the same schedule as the regular office, but with a few extra elements.