Why the Home Office Employee Works for Everyone

Elon Musk, whom I am a big fan, was recently in the news, seemingly at odds with employees that wanted to continue to work from home. As smart as Elon Musk is, I am questioning whether he really feels that employees working from home are not working, less productive or otherwise cheating the company somehow or is he attempting to “weed out” individuals within the workforce.

I question this because the basic principle of leadership is to get the most out of each employee in the matter of production. Americans have forgotten that the idea behind working is to produce as much as possible. Isn’t it? If you agree, then hear me out when I tell you that the “work from home employee” is the best option in determining a company’s workforce.

Here’s why….

Flexibility

Today, workers want the flexibility to work whenever and wherever they wish. With a “work from home” option, employees can work all hours of the day and extend the work week into the weekend if necessary. Corporate employees could accomplish personal weekly tasks such as doctor appointments, school functions, etc. in this environment without having to request time off from their employer.

Childcare

The cost of childcare continues to increase across the country. Like any other industry, daycare facilities are struggling to find qualified employees to accommodate childcare for parents too young to attend school that have to shove off to an office each morning for work. Working from home gives the employee more flexibility to forego daycare type options and manage the care of the child from inside their own home.

Employee fears being called back into an Office Environment.

Employees love the flexibility of working from home and consider it a privilege. These employees fear being called back into the office if management feels the home office employee concept is unproductive as a whole or they are afraid their employment will be terminated. As a result, the home office employee will tend to be more productive, not less.

Most Qualified Talent and Recruiting

Post pandemic, corporations are struggling to find the most qualified talent to hire. Today, it is the employee that has the upper hand when it comes to choosing the company to work for. To get the most talented candidates, more and more corporations must offer a “work from home” option.

Future Pandemics

Covid-19 showed us that we can adapt to disastrous conditions when we need to. Home office work environments present less threats to everyone by being somewhat “quarantined” from the rest of the workforce when there is illness abound. Should there be another round of some sort of pandemic, or the Covid-19 virus revisit our communities, a work from home office solution such as what HomeWerx provides is the perfect solution to a very serious problem.

Cost

It only makes sense that it cost less to have an employee work from home than in a corporate environment. Real Estate space is the biggest cost. Office space is expensive. In one model done by HomeWerx, it costs $30,000 annually to provide a desk for a corporate employee. This includes the space itself, insurance, parking, higher rates for workers compensation and other factors. The same space it takes to work from the employee’s home is not factored into the corporation’s cost. One large cost factor that most companies have not considered when they foster a on premise in office work force is the cost of HR claims. These claims range from $30,000 to $1.2M depending on the severity. Companies that sent their workforce back into their homes to work saw a dramatic decrease in these types of claims. This cost is often overlooked but is indeed a significant cost to consider.

Productivity

The idea of working in America has not changed. The end goal is to get as much production from an employee as possible to improve the profitability of any given company. Companies sometimes forget this and seek to be what I call “kingdom builders”. Growing headcount and laying down the edict to come into an office so these “ kingdom builders” can lay eyes on their employees to boast their own egos are common in the workplace. This does not contribute to the bottom line of these companies. Studies have shown employees that are happy are more productive.

When the Covid-19 pandemic began, Google was the first company to send employees home to a home office environment. From March 2020 to January 2022 Google’s revenue grew from 39B to 64B dollars. In April of 2022, Google required these same employees to return to the office. The next day, over 30% of Google’s workforce quit. The reasons ranged from childcare costs to simply the preference to continue to work from home.

These factors should all be considered when choosing the type of workforce corporations want to deploy. Flexibility is never a bad thing, and it should be offered whenever possible to everyone in a given organization to help maintain positive moral and companies looking for a boost in profits…

John Lee
Founder- HomeWerx, LLC