What are the advantages and disadvantages of working from home?

Due to the coronavirus pandemic and the resulting partial home office requirement, many employees carried out their work from home for the first time. This revealed benefits you weren’t aware of before. It is not without reason that the home office is considered an attractive advantage in today’s world of work. But there are also disadvantages to working from home.

Home office: advantages and disadvantages

Working from home has many advantages, but also some disadvantages. However, it cannot be said at all levels that these advantages and disadvantages should be considered as such for every employee and employer. What is an advantage for one employee may be a disadvantage for another. There are therefore many other individual factors that come into play to determine whether the advantage that employee X sees in working from home is also an advantage for employee Y.

However there are basically seven advantages and seven disadvantages:

1st advantage: savings on travel and travel costs

For example, the morning commute to work costs time and often a lot of nervousness. B. once again there is no parking, the traffic is very heavy or the bus or train is late. This time and nerves kON you can save money by working from home. Plus, costs for fuel or bus and train tickets.

2nd advantage: adaptation to biorhythm

Adapting to your biorhythm leads to living in a healthier and more efficient way. There are people who are particularly fit and productive in the morning, but are no longer able to perform after 6pm. But there are also people who become particularly productive in the evening and less effective in the morning. Working from home allows you to organize your working hours more flexibly. However, it is important to discuss this flexible interpretation of working hours with your employer in advance. However, you need to be present at upcoming client or team meetings and also act as a contact person for your employees.

3rd advantage: Freedom of choice in the work area

In most cases, the employee has a specific job in the office and some companies also have a dress code that must be respected. There is more freedom in the home office. You can decide for yourself which workstation is right for you and whether it will be used every day or whether it will move from the desk to the living room table to the terrace table. It’s up to you what a productive work atmosphere means to you. You can also work wearing the outfit you feel most comfortable in. In the case of client appointments or business meetings, this should of course be adapted to the dress code.

4th advantage: increased productivity

Distractions are often very high in the workplace. Whether it’s the ringing phone, the noisy printer, or the constant visits from employees. In the home office it is possible to create a productive atmosphere, which can take place according to your own rules of conduct and with self-determined breaks.

5th advantage: companies save on fixed costs

For the company, having fewer employees in the company means less office space, electricity costs, heating costs in winter and lower costs for fruit and drinks.

6th advantage: greater attractiveness

For the company, the possibility of working from home is an interesting advantage desired by many employees.

7th advantage: environmental protection

Working from home can also help protect the environment, since, for example, you don’t have to drive to and from work. A report from the Institute for Applied Industrial Sciences (IFAA) shows that if 10% of employed people in Germany would work from home one day a week, saving around 4.5 billion kilometers of commuting distance and around 850 million kilograms of C02 per year. At 20% it would be 1.7 billion kilograms.
Furthermore, it is possible to save a lot of energy, especially in open-plan offices.

What has advantages usually also has disadvantages. Therefore, some of the disadvantages of working from home are highlighted here.

1. Disadvantage: Self-discipline required

The freedom of working from home is appealing. This is why self-discipline is necessary to work successfully and productively.

2nd disadvantage: simultaneous care of children

One of the benefits was that there were fewer employee distractions or loud noises in the workplace. However, distractions can come from your own children. Sometimes home office involves taking care of children and, if necessary, taking care of the house at the same time. This makes it stressful and, in the worst case scenario, the work activities involved suffer.

3. Disadvantage: Fewer career opportunities

It is much easier to demonstrate your skills and determination in the company than when working from home. So if you can show your qualities and commitment at a local level, it will be easier to advance your career in the company. When working from home, this is harder to prove and harder for employers to control.

4. Disadvantage: more over time

It is often difficult to separate professional and private life. On the one hand, because superiors do not respect employees’ privacy and expect them to be available in the home office even outside of actual working hours. On the other hand, because employees have difficulty setting these boundaries on their own. There may be several reasons for this. The first is that people who work from home still feel like they have to prove that they are actually working and not wasting time. For this to be successful, the task is completed after the actual end of the working day.

5. Disadvantage: isolation

Chatting with employees during your lunch break or simply having them sit around you and seeing that they are also working productively can motivate you and give you a sense of team. This is difficult to replace when working from home, because social interactions are much less or disappear entirely. Especially non-work conversations, e.g. B. to the coffee machine cannot be replaced by phone calls etc.

6. Disadvantage: Unclear insurance coverage

When is compulsory accident insurance valid when working from home? What are home office workplace injuries? Insurance coverage exists only for accidents occurring during the exercise of professional activity. For private activities (e.g. accepting parcels or preparing meals) there is no insurance coverage via the compulsory accident insurance. Mandatory accident insurance coverage does not apply during the lunch break, as it is considered private time. But here too there are exceptions and some ambiguities.

7. Disadvantage: Costs for employees

For companies, working from home means lower electricity costs, possibly lower rent costs, lower costs for employees to consume coffee, etc. At the same time, this means that employees incur more costs when working from home. This is evident every month for many employees, especially with rising electricity and heating costs.
Here you can find out what electricity costs can be, which technical devices use how much electricity and how you can save.

Recording time in the home office

It is important for the employee and the employer that working hours are recorded even when working from home. Suitable for this is e.g. B. mobile time recording. On the one hand, the employer has an overview of the hours worked by the employees. On the other hand, it is important for the employee to manage his or her own time to maintain an overview. Especially in light of the previously mentioned disadvantage, that overtime in the home office is part of everyday life. A study by the Hans Böckler Foundation shows that full-time employees without time recording work 3.5 hours of overtime. If employees personally document the hours worked, overtime amounts to three hours. In the case of recording company working hours, this is reduced to two hours.
This means that employees can relax for longer in their free time with company time recording. However, logging time in the home office is not the rule, although it can protect against overload.

Time tracking software

With digital time recording you can record and manage working hours flexibly, clearly and without errors. It provides important evidence of the hours actually worked by your employees and this also in the home office. About a Online terminal, registration is possible on the desktop or via the mobile view of the smartphone. It is also possible to book breaks (e.g. smoking breaks or coffee breaks).

Fixed or prescribed breaks can be taken through an automatic break deduction. There is also an overview of target and actual times, exact booking times and flextime balance.
You can also view the hours accounts per employee. This will give you an overview on the remaining days of vacation, overtime and hours actually worked.

Integration with workforce planning software

Digital time recording can be integrated with implementation planning software. This means that during planning you can immediately see which employees are present, late or still absent, even when working from home.

Conclusion

Home office has its advantages and disadvantages. What is an advantage for one person may be a disadvantage for another. However, working from home is increasingly becoming part of everyday life. This means that you should be well prepared to make working from home as productive and transparent as possible for each party. For example, attendance tracking software is ideal for documenting hours worked.

Do you want to know if digital time recording is worth it for your company? Request information about our time recording software now. We give you 30 minutes of our time and advise you on the topic of recording time via Netmeeting – free of charge and without obligation.