According
to IDC, a research market-research firm in Framingham, Massachusetts, the
number of employees working from home at least one day a month has been rising
23% a year since 2007. As more and more companies turn to the work from home option to
save their bottom line, employers are using new tactics to safeguard
information and make sure their employees stay on task.
While companies
insist that it's not their intention to keep their work from home employees
chained to their desks, the use of programs that track productivity are on
the rise. These programs may be used in addition to virtual
face time via Skype, email, instant messaging or phone calls. In fact, many of
these tracking programs are actually run in tandem with security software designed
specifically for financial or health services for the purpose of preventing
leaks and conforming to required security regulations.
This may sound like the freedom of working from home
is being encroached upon but really, it isn't. Because so many work from home
employees have different stopping and starting points throughout the day, the
most popular tracking programs are not those that track time but the amount of
work accomplished. That way, if an employee works the morning but stops to take their child to a doctor's appointment and completes the necessary work later in the evening,
all is well because the employee is being judged by results. This allows
employees to be less stressed about managing time and more focused on
accomplishing tasks using whatever methods best suit them.
Let's face it. While working from home is an
opportune chance to blend one's home life and work, it's still a job-- but not
everybody is cut out for working from home. A company has the right to expect its employees to be productive. And even if employers choose to check
on summaries of what websites employees are visiting throughout the day, they
cannot do so without alerting their employees that they are being tracked-- and monitoring can only comprise of business-related
activities. Anything otherwise is considered a violation of an employee's privacy.
As the work from home revolution continues to evolve, there will no doubt be more issues to iron out over time. Whether it's on the side of the employer or the home-based employee, each resolution only moves things further in the direction of creating a much more stable working relationship.
