Over my 32 years in the corporate world, I have been involved in a number of occasions where we decided to save a buck and allow people to work from home instead of paying for office space.
Each one of those occasions only lasted a few months before we experienced a huge drop in productivity. We found most of the employees who were supposed to be home working were found not working…or going to work for and another company while working for us.
This forced us to reel them all back into the office.
The most productive we ever were was when we had all employees in one location.
We had NOTHING but problems when we decentralized and allow people to work from home.
It still goes on today.
There has been one study after another showing production dropping drastically when employees are allowed to work from home.
When a team works from home, everyone contributes less (even those in the office), simply because they believe they’re going to be less productive. A sort of “free rider” affect: Nobody wants to be the one person still performing while others try to coast on their hard work. CNBC.COM
Yes, I know, there are some people who are just as productive remotely, if not more, but they fall within less than 1% of a company’s remote workforce. The vast majority of people who work remotely from their headquarters or office are 60% less productive than those who are in their private office away from shared workspace or coworking open areas.
Projects take longer. Collaboration is harder. And training new workers is a struggle. ‘This is not going to be sustainable.’ Wall Street Journey
Business executives are having a hard time meeting project deadlines and other commitments that rely upon the workers who are not working from home.
The solutions are simple but complex.
In this COVID -19 shutdown, it is really hard for business owners and executives to keep their workforce safe and healthy in an open office. Sending their workforce home is the best decision the company can make.
These companies may be saving on operational expenses but for the most part, they are quickly losing their market share to their competitors who hugely invested in their workspace environment to keep their workforce in their offices.
The solution..hard decisions to make. The solution will be based on keeping everyone safe and healthy..to do that is going to cost and cost a lot.
Let me know how I can help.
