Managing Remote Workers

The purpose of this brief is to determine wether to establish work-at-home policy for selected employees at the Q-tel Pty Ltd. Information and communication technologies (ICT) make it possible for employees to work at home and deliver their work output to the firm by those ICT. This work arrangement is called telecommuting (Sarbu, 2015).

Telecommuting has been shown to reduce absenteeism, improve retention, and reduce recruitment costs for the organization (Family, pg. 730). Increased employee moral is also a benefit associated with telecommuting (Professional Isolation, pg. 512). Offering this new benefit that is such a satisfier for employees will likely result in reduced turnover within the organization and higher productivity. A study found pubic employees who were satisfied with their telework/telecommuting benefits were less likely to leave their positions (Family pg. 732). With the reduction of office time, an increase in employee productivity is likely due to fewer interruptions from fellow employees (Lessons pg. 10). With telecommuting having benefits to both the employer and employee, this new policy should bring positive results to the

Many people work in telecommuting jobs where all they really need is a place to sit and a computer with internet connection. Other businesses allow workers to work from home or set them a set of working hours on site.

It seems that employers are afraid that they will not be able to effectively monitor employees output and have major security concerns when allowing employees to telework. The initial costs of setting up telework to employees may also be a concern for employers.

Employers allow telecommuting for many reasons, including the ability to recruit better talent, decrease overhead expenses, increase productivity, expand the employee base to include those with disabilities (Anderson, Bricout & West, 2001; Lipin, 2010; Myungjung & So Hee, 2017), and to support

“This remote work may be something we should be doing more of, according to two new studies. Working from home can be good for your health and productivity. Not only did people who worked from home report greater work satisfaction and less “work exhaustion,” they also got better sleep. Separately, researchers found that the highest performing workers were the most likely to cultivate and excel in a “WFH” environment (Gregoire, 2015)”. If workers don't prefer to work at home they are more than welcome to continue working at the main workplace. The company will give each employee the opportunity to try working from home in order to have more space at the main work

According to Hess (2014), employers’ benefit from the cost saving from not maintaining large office buildings to house their employees and the employees benefit from saving money on travel, meals, and in some instances child care. Hess (2014) goes further and says that distractions usually found in a typical office environment (i.e. phone calls, office conversations, and the like) promotes more efficient work. Although there are inherent positives for the employer, there are also inherent negatives that a manager must face in order to promote a good work environment for the company and for the remote employee. Fallon (2014) gives four challenges that a manager faces managing remote employees. The challenges of Communication, Tracking Productivity, Employee Trust, and providing a Unified Company Culture are the four main issues that Fallon

Lewis said that employers should use a remote work option when the available talent in a commutable distance is scarce or when life changes alter an employee's circumstances. However, he said, not every employee is a good candidate for a remote set-up. According to Lewis, employees who should be allowed to work remotely include those who have jobs where the nature of the work can be performed without face-to-face interaction with co-workers or clients. Employees would also have to demonstrate that they are capable of working remotely in terms of being mature and independent and having a proven track record, he

There are a number of stakeholders that would take an active interest in and may be affected by this study for a variety of reasons.

Awareness will be created by promoting the change on the intranet that is accessible by all employees. To provide the Desire, we will articulate what the change is and how it will impact each employee. Knowledge of the documentation necessary to work from home is provided with the company documentation as well as a link from the intranet article. The Ability to make the change is fairly easy, but there will need to be some skills developed to keep the work from home person on track with their tasks as well as demonstrate ways to keep in touch with co-workers. Reinforcement will come in the accountability for working from home as well as demonstrating that working from home provides no negative consequences to the employee’s ability to perform their job

I will use keywords such as telecommute, home-sourced, telecommuting, benefit, impact, remote work, telework, teleworking, teleworker and effect. I will incorporate these keywords in my

In any given role there are barriers that can hinder you doing your job, when working remotely some of the things we take for granted whilst working face-to-face become such a barrier.

Since the telecommuting job requires adequate office space to ensure the employee has everything they need to

The benefits of teleworking are largely self-evident. Management saves money by not having to invest in real estate costs (Ruth, 2008). By working in private (typically from one's home), employees are for the most part able to regulate their hours. People have different 'body clocks' and teleworking allows a worker to tailor their work schedule to the period of the day in which they work best. Pigeonholing someone who works best at night to a '9 to 5' schedule does not maximize a worker's productivity, and teleworking ensures that management receives the worker's most productive hours.

Working from home can sound like a dream come true. However, like any job situation