In today’s fast forward business world, telecommuting is something which cannot be replaced and it has become an important aspect as it directly benefits the employers in various ways possible.
There are many debates going around the world about the feasibility of telecommuting in terms of financial aspect as well as work life balance. Even though many business people and researchers support telecommuting, still there are group of people who conflict in their views as telecommuting has many disadvantages too.
With the increased growth of mobile technology, telecommuting has become a best choice to work from home. Read this post to know more how telecommuting benefits the employers as well as its negatives impacts.
What is Telecommuting:
Telecommuting is something which operates with the help of technology where employees does not have to travel from their home instead get sign in to their systems from home using advanced technology. The whole process is to avoid physical commuting to work.
Telecommuters operate from home using their laptops or desktops and do their work from home. There is lot of doubt about whether telecommuters belong the payroll of the organization. Of course, yes they belong to the organization as same as employers who work in their office environment.
Precisely, telecommuters are home based employees but still they get all the benefits same as employers who work from office. Most of the jobs related to telecommuters are based on customer or client services.
From the growth aspect, telecommuters are becoming the most wanted as it gives innumerable jobs to people who wants to work from their home and also because of the growth of technology. Employers also feel that over the years telecommuting has increasingly created a better work atmosphere as well as it changed the aspect the way people use technology.
There are various factors which has made telecommuting grow over the years. Some of the effective telecommuting devices are wider broadband network, emails, high speed Internet, fax machines, and voice mails and voice calls.
Mentioned below are few pros and cons of telecommuting for employers.
Advantages and Disadvantages of Telecommuting for Employers:
| S.no | Pros of Telecommuting for Employers | Cons of Telecommuting for Employers |
| 1 | Increase in productivity of the organization | Initial expenses are very high to set up home office |
| 2 | Work hour flexibility benefits employers | No proper day to day interaction |
| 3 | No limited work hours | Less face to face contact |
| 4 | Lots of energy and money is saved | It takes lots of time to meet technological difficulties |
| 5 | More responsibility is taken by employees | Less socializing with employees might increase conflicts |
| 6 | Reduced office space | Employees might feel left out |
| 7 | Employers meet good expectations of employees | Pay scale might be expected higher than reality |
Telecommuting Advantages for Employers:
Telecommuting has numerous organizational benefits. Usually telecommuters work from their home for maximum three days of the work and rest of the time they do work in their organization. Here are the few advantages of telecommuting to the employers. They are,
1. Increase in productivity of the organization:
According to a recent survey, most of the employers feel the productivity of the organization has increased due to telecommuting than working from office. The reason behind this is that there are lots of interruptions at the office like series of meetings, small breaks with colleagues, and fun events at office etc.
Social events are given more priority in an office environment. Hence, employers prefer employees work from home as they do not get many distractions as that of office environment.
2. Work hour flexibility benefits employers:
Telecommuters have work hour flexibility as they have no particular scheduled timings. This indirectly helps the employers as it actually helps them get more skilled performance than wasting time in office environment.
For example, employees take small breaks when they don’t have mood or energy to work in their home. But they give full fledged result even when they work less number of hours.
3. No limited work hours:
Few of the employees always feel comfortable working in night shifts whereas, few employees feel working better during early morning hours. So, each one of them have a different style of working.
In such cases of employees, telecommuting is of huge advantage to the employers as it gives them no limited work hours and allows them to work according to their respected schedules. This indirectly benefits employers as there is more productivity comparatively as every individual work effectively according to their self preference .
4. Lots of energy and money is saved:
Telecommuters saves lot of time in commuting from one place to another. And they also do not get distracted or feel tired because of to and fro to office.
By this employers get good performance scale from employees and they also save huge sum of money from providing travel allowances. Hence, telecommuters increases the revenue and also some amount from the expenditure.
5. More responsibility is taken over by employees:
Employers always benefit more from telecommuters as they are given additional responsibilities. Generally, when telecommuters work from home they have lots of freedom to give attention to family life.
But, as they are completely trusted and given additional responsibility of not being present in office environment they tend to take things more seriously in taking care of their professional career.
6. Reduced office space:
Organizations who have good number of telecommuters have considerable amount of saving in setting up office space. For example, there is huge amount spent by the employers in setting up office space like adding furniture, paying more rent for bigger space, and more electrical power is spent.
In case of more telecommuters there is financially much reduced expenses and double the outcome for the employers as it can hire many number of employees around the world with one time initial setup.
7. Employers meet good expectations of the employees by telecommuting:
Most of the telecommuting programs have always attracted more employees to work better and also has created a good employee retention. For example, there are many chances where employees tends to quit due to relocation difficulties.
In such cases, employers take up telecommuting programs to retain employees as well as meet their expectations of relocation difficulties.
Disadvantages of Telecommuting for Employers:
Even though telecommuting seems to be very beneficial, it also has some disadvantages. Here are the few disadvantages listed below. They are-
1. Initial expenses are very high to set up home office:
There is always high initial expenses in setting a home office as the employers have to spend for every single individual employee for an official phone line and computer line expenses.
This sometimes might go overboard as the employers have to meet office setup expenses in one place and also home office setup for telecommuters.
2. No proper day to day interaction and less face to face contact:
Telecommuters most often only interact through a voice call or an email. This might lose face to face connection with the employers. And always office setup has better socializing chances and day to day interaction.
Telecommuters most often gets missed out the real fun of being with other employees of the organization. And as there is no bonding with the higher officials they tend to give up with the organization at times of crisis.
3. It takes lots of time to meet technological difficulties:
There are many occasions where telecommuters faces lots of technical difficulties from home office. And also there is lots of time wasted until and unless these issues are sorted out by technical experts.
This disadvantage is very common as technical experts has to travel one place to another every time to sort out technical issues.
4. Less socializing with other employees might increase conflicts:
Sometimes understanding among the employees gets totally reduced as there is no sort of socializing among them and as each individual’s way of thinking is different from other. This causes isolation among them , and it is very difficult for employers to build a proper team.
5. Employees might feel left out as they do not know more about the overall process:
Most of telecommuters have only a routine lifestyle of meeting deadlines and mostly they have a routine job life working from home. Sometimes working alone might cause stress as well as they might feel ignorant about the organization.
6. Pay scale sometimes might be expected higher than the reality:
Generally, telecommuters does not have a particular work hours, and as they work in uneven work hours they tend to have a feeling that they work more hours than the employee working in office environment. Eventually, they expect to be payed more than an employee working from office.
In order to meet their expectations, employers have to sacrifice their financial norms to retain the telecommuters. This is one considerable disadvantage among the employers to hire a telecommuter.
Conclusion:
Telecommuting is a fast growing job role which is accepted by most of the organizations around the world. Even though there are few negatives, it has high number of count in the positive aspects like there is no disturbance in work due to weather conditions, good employee retention and better performance and diverse group of employees around the world etc. And, moreover it has good reputation among the employers as it satisfies all management strategies and expectations.
Henceforth, telecommuting has become and unavoidable job of many employees around the world. It can be a huge benefit to the employers when it is handled with a good office setup and with a proper management strategy. Hope this post helps to understand the world of telecommuting, its advantages and disadvantages.
