It's an interesting thought this one. Reality is that employers hire people to go to work, to put in an appearance for 38-ish hours a week and to produce outcomes during that time. At least if employees are in the workplace there is a reasonable degree of confidence that they are working on something productive. Letting people work from home leaves them open to the distractions of personal tasks, tv, family and multitude of other activites that provide no benefit whatsoever to the business.
Then there's the equality issue. Do you allow people to opt out of the workplace once they reach a certain level in the hierarchy? Or is it based on their job function? Some combination of the two? Do you allow for the reality that some people are extremely productive working from home whereas others struggle against the distractions? How do you justify the decision to those who aren't extended the option of flexible work hours without impacting of their motivation?
At the end of the day there may be some value to be had at an individual level in allowing people the option of flexible work practices but I have doubts as to whether that value exceeds the cost of implementing the practice within an organisation.
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Monday, September 8, 2008
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