Working from home, employer’s perspective

Working from home: The benefits and downsides from an employer’s perspective

The world of work has evolved since the widespread adoption of home working due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Even though BMP Wealth has embraced a hybrid working model for its employees, many companies worldwide have requested that their workers start returning to the office.

The arguments for and against this move have been subject to much debate, and in last month’s article, you read about the pros and cons of working from home in Hong Kong from an employee’s perspective. 

However, these pros and cons vary somewhat when viewed from the perspective of an employer.

Continue reading to discover some of the benefits and drawbacks that employers may face when it comes to their employees working from home. 

The benefits of working from home from an employer’s perspective

Employers could reduce rental and energy costs for the business

Perhaps the primary benefit of allowing employees to work from home is that your business could save money. Indeed, since your employees won’t be in the office as much, you could reduce rent and energy costs as you may find you need less office space. 

A study from Global Workplace Analytics, reported by Business.com, shows just how much money employers could save by allowing employees to work from home.

It estimates that for all remote-work-compatible jobs, if everyone who wanted to work remotely did so just half the time, the total money saved would be over $700 billion a year. For each employee, the annual saving averages out at $11,000. 

More specifically, Sun Microsystems, a US-based IT company, revealed that remote working prompted savings of $68 million a year in real estate costs, and the plastic and synthetic company Dow Chemical reported that it saved 30% on other costs.

Adopting a hybrid approach could help employers with recruitment

Since the Covid-19 pandemic, it seems as though working from home, or a hybrid arrangement, has become a top priority for employees. As a result, a hybrid working structure could be an attractive workplace benefit for employees and even help with recruitment. 

In fact, a study reported by Workplace Insight revealed that 49% of HR professionals surveyed found that hybrid working was an effective recruitment tool. 

Moreover, working from home in some capacity could help retain workers. Of the 62% of HR professionals who introduced a hybrid working policy after the pandemic in 2020, 60% said they’d seen tangible improvements in employee retention. 

A work-from-home model could also give your business access to a more extensive and diverse talent pool. Since employers can hire someone outside the immediate area, this could erase any geographical boundaries and help companies recruit someone with a fresh perspective.

Working from home could improve family dynamics for employees, boosting productivity

Employees need to balance their work and life effectively. Otherwise, this can affect their mental health and overall productivity. When work is hectic, they may struggle to find the time to spend with their loved ones, damaging their relationships and emotional wellbeing.

As such, working from home could help employers improve their employees’ family life and boost overall work-life balance.

Aside from simply spending more time at home with loved ones, remote workers could save money on commuting costs, vehicle maintenance, and lunches, meaning they have more disposable income to spend on fun family days out.

This could be beneficial to employers. Employees with a healthy work-life balance could: 

  • Have lower levels of absence, sickness, or stress
  • Be more motivated and energised
  • Experience a boost to their productivity and morale.

The downsides of home working from an employer’s perspective

The productivity of employees could decline when they work from home

While it is somewhat difficult to measure productivity, a Stanford analysis reported by Forbes found that there was a 10% to 20% drop in productivity for employees working from home.

The report suggested that this decline in productivity could partly be attributed to coordination and communication issues.

In fact, BMP Wealth has found from its own experience that this lack of communication can be seen with certain product providers. For example, replies to emails can be slower, and calls aren’t responded to as quickly. The knock-on effect of this is that it ultimately reduces overall productivity. 

Distractions at home, particularly from young children or families, could also hamper employee productivity. 

This could especially be an issue in Hong Kong, as properties tend to be much smaller. Shrink that Footprint reveals that the average property size in Hong Kong is 484 sq feet, compared to 818 sq feet in the UK.

The abovementioned Stanford report found that reduced creativity could also be a factor in deteriorating productivity since people aren’t entirely focused together in person. 

Interestingly, Jeremy Hunt, chancellor of the UK, has shared his concerns in this area, remarking: “I worry about the loss of creativity when people are permanently working from home and not having these ‘water cooler moments’, where they bounce ideas off each other”. 

Employers must make additional security considerations

Data security also becomes a paramount concern when your employees work remotely, especially if they’re accessing client data in less secure environments. 

Indeed, employers have less visibility over their workers’ data access, potentially exposing corporate networks to unauthorised eyes. 

To reduce this risk, companies and employers may need to establish remote working data policies. While employers could provide additional security training for employees, this could affect the cost savings of the company.

It’s also important to note that personal computers tend to be less secure than corporate ones, as the average person doesn’t consider security features such as email filtering, firewalls, and encryption on their own devices.

Without these additional security measures, corporate networks could be at risk from hackers, and they could steal clients’ data.

It could be more challenging to build a strong team and develop a corporate culture

When employees work from home, there’s a chance they’ll have limited face-to-face interactions with other team members. 

Even if employers encourage them to interact through regular meetings, the lack of in-person interaction isn’t conducive to building meaningful relationships. This could mean that employers struggle to build a strong and effective team.

This could especially be problematic if employees are dealing with client issues collaboratively, as it’s far easier to share ideas as a group when they’re working together in the office. 

Instead, a home-working environment could mean that it’s a slower process to solve any problems that clients are experiencing. 

In addition, employers could also find it challenging to build a sense of company loyalty. Without the personal connections between team members, some may simply see it as a job or a list of tasks to tick off.

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