Working from home is promoted by the government to employers, especially in the context of the traffic jam problem. But what are the “pros and cons” of working from home? A day in the life of 2 people who work partly from home with all the snags of this way of working.
Situation
The situation of 2 male officials, one of whom fulfills a commercial field service position and the other performs administrative and accounting work. In this position they both work partly from home and both have families with young children.
In the morning ritual, which usually falls on mother’s shoulders, father is now also involved in one situation. This is because one of the children has soiled the clean clothes with boiled egg and both children have to be at school on time. Father is at home anyway and can therefore offer a helping hand, because mother also has to be at work on time.
All in all, this means that he only sits down at his desk around 9:00 am. That in itself is not a problem, because he has planned all kinds of calls and hanging on the phone with the potential new relationship before 9 a.m. is not desirable anyway.
The other officer has agreed with his partner that he will take the children to school that day (saving mother time). He immediately takes the dog with him, so it has been outside for a while. He doesn’t get back until around 9:30 am and then sits down at his desk to start doing his administration and bookkeeping.
You can then continue working until approximately 11:15 am, as there are no colleagues to keep you from work. But when the mail arrives we go to see what it is and immediately make coffee, because what do we do without coffee.
An invoice that is incorrect needs to be responded to and we do that immediately, because no colleague is curious to listen.
One family’s children stay at school during lunch, while the other family’s children do not. Since father is at home, he can pick up the children. He leaves the house at 11.15 am to pick up the children, then gives them a sandwich at home and gives them some time to play. There is not much work involved, because the children regularly come in to ask for something. So father stays nearby and reads the newspaper and can be reached by telephone. At 1.15 pm the children have to be taken back to school and at 1.40 pm father is back home to take a seat at his desk.
Both fathers do not use after-school care, so the fathers have to pick up the children at 3:30 p.m. and some phone calls can still be made . Unfortunately, administration and accounting are no longer possible with the children around you.
Function
The picture outlined is no exception and gives a negative image from the perspective of the employer. But actually this image is not relevant at all, because it is more about the function. A commercial position where you have to make appointments for new accounts or relationship management due to a lot of telephone traffic can easily be done from home, but office functions with a home workplace are only productive if the private situation allows it. And that is precisely where things often go wrong.
If the partner also works, such a work-from-home day is quickly seen as a day to save on after-school care or babysitting, for example. And that’s where things go wrong. If you want to be able to work from home, a separate workplace and no everyday family situation around you is important.
Who will be wiser?
In an office position, the employer only benefits if the employee does not have to work in the middle of the family situation. Then the officer can even be more productive. The official will like the advantage of no traffic jam, but may miss some social contacts.
The commercial function is very different and the effect will be slightly less, but the commercial officer must also be able to work in a quiet situation and can be expected to do his job. However, if the figures show that the commercial officer is productive enough (counting new accounts, for example) and he/she manages this in the limited hours of working from home, no one will make a fuss about the work-from-home day. Doesn’t seem entirely fair to office officials, but it is in practice and, strictly speaking, everyone is assessed on their performance and the reasoning is correct.
Finally
The conclusion is that it roughly depends on 2 factors, namely:
- the private situation
- the type of function
Working from home is already well established for commercial functions, but not for office functions. Making this a topic of discussion is therefore not surprising at all, if it can be demonstrated that the home situation is arranged and the type of work must allow it in terms of security (think of the bank employee, for example). How many employers will go along with this???