“Today marks the 8th consecutive National Work from Home day in the UK. Created for all the right reasons, the initiative looks to recognise the “cultural, economic and social changes that are altering attitudes to how we balance or mix work and lifestyle.”
Whilst certainly the balance is shifting, it’s important to step back and ask the question why? The answer is increased productivity. Remote working is not about making life more convenient, it is about allowing people to work in the places and environments in which they are most productive.
This is why we didn’t jump like so many others to condemn high-profile CEO Marrisa Meyer’s move to ban remote working at Yahoo! earlier this year. This was a company-specific decision, made to address an issue of productivity that is supported by internal research done by the company.
The decision also lays clear to all what the bottom line is: CEOs are focused on how employees are most effective, and will pull out all the stops to make sure this is the case.
We need to take the “home” out of remote working – as the secret joy of writing emails in your pyjamas doesn’t truly deliver value and won’t push the changes in work life that we all crave – increased productivity does.
What this means is if you’re not effective at writing your reports in an office, you need to be vocal about it. This doesn’t have to mean you’re working from “home” either. It could be in a park on a warm day with a laptop or tablet. It also doesn’t need to be an isolating experience. With the right tools in place teams can be just as effective virtually as they can when all sat in an office together.
Take some time today to analyse your working week. How could you get more done? Do you have a commute you hate that could be removed with the right technology? Can you head straight home after a remote meeting and continue the workday from there? How much time can be saved that can then be poured elsewhere?
Remote working (or “smart working”) is the future, and is as liberating a transformation as the journey from school to working life, all over again. We just have to make sure we keep the end game in sight, or we risk losing the way.”