Practical Challenges to offer Work From Home
While many companies are offering work from home, there's some complaints on social media that some companies, some employees are not getting work from home option. While it is easy to complain, this post helps you understand challenges involved in work from home.
1. Desktop: Most companies provide desktop to junior staff. Laptops are offered to only slightly experienced/middle level employees- say a team leader or above. This makes it difficult to allow junior employees to work from home. They may have their personal laptop/computers at home but it will not have the softwares and configurations needed to do the work.
It isn't easy to install work software on personal computers- enterprise licenses are not valid on personal devises, hardware configuration may not be suitable, existence of various other personal software poses security risk, plus hard to offer any support if device develops issues.
2. Phone: Call centre and BPO staff providing support often use an IP phone on which calls are received. This physical asset can not be moved home, so making it difficult to offer work from home.
Moving most calls to skype or similar online platforms instead of physical phone is the way forward.
3. Confidentiality clause: Most BPO employees need to keep their phones in a locker and need to comply with a dozen different rules related to confidentiality, so that sensitive client information doesn't go out. If allowed to work from home, enforcing this confidentiality is a big problem, so management hesitates to take any risk. If there's a data breach companies will lose contact worth millions of dollars plus risk of law suits.
4. Trust factor: Indian employers believe strongly in supervising their junior staff. Left to themselves, the general belief is that productivity will be very low. Provision to supervise are minimum if work from home is offered, making it difficult for management to offer it.
Hundreds of memes making fun of work from home isn't helping either.
5. Infra issues at home: Home internet is not as fast as office ones. Power failures and other issues, plus lots of constant disturbance, noise and distraction often compromises on productivity.
6. Hardware: Several roles such as network admin, IT admin etc often can't work from home- they need to be physically near the IT hardware/infrastructure to maintain them or fix issues. Servers can't be sent to someone's home.
Not all work can be done from home. I am not saying companies shouldn't give work from home but just trying to explain various factors which may make it difficult for companies to give work from home to everyone.
It isn't easy to install work software on personal computers- enterprise licenses are not valid on personal devises, hardware configuration may not be suitable, existence of various other personal software poses security risk, plus hard to offer any support if device develops issues.
2. Phone: Call centre and BPO staff providing support often use an IP phone on which calls are received. This physical asset can not be moved home, so making it difficult to offer work from home.
Moving most calls to skype or similar online platforms instead of physical phone is the way forward.
3. Confidentiality clause: Most BPO employees need to keep their phones in a locker and need to comply with a dozen different rules related to confidentiality, so that sensitive client information doesn't go out. If allowed to work from home, enforcing this confidentiality is a big problem, so management hesitates to take any risk. If there's a data breach companies will lose contact worth millions of dollars plus risk of law suits.
4. Trust factor: Indian employers believe strongly in supervising their junior staff. Left to themselves, the general belief is that productivity will be very low. Provision to supervise are minimum if work from home is offered, making it difficult for management to offer it.
Hundreds of memes making fun of work from home isn't helping either.
5. Infra issues at home: Home internet is not as fast as office ones. Power failures and other issues, plus lots of constant disturbance, noise and distraction often compromises on productivity.
6. Hardware: Several roles such as network admin, IT admin etc often can't work from home- they need to be physically near the IT hardware/infrastructure to maintain them or fix issues. Servers can't be sent to someone's home.
Not all work can be done from home. I am not saying companies shouldn't give work from home but just trying to explain various factors which may make it difficult for companies to give work from home to everyone.
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