Working from a home office is growing in popularity nowadays.Many people are opting to leave the corporate office business buildings and remain to work at home.
What are the advantages and disadvantages to working from a home office? Actually, the advantages might also turn into a disadvantages depending on the type of personality you have and your working habits.
One of the advantages to work at home office is clothing. You can wear essentially anything you like while at home. There are no company dress codes or uniforms. A great deal can be saved on not having to purchase suits, corporate clothing or paying a dry cleaner.
However,in the opposite side, it can be a disadvantage to work in anything that you want. It is a great motivational factor to some people that being required to report to work at a specific time and wearing certain clothing. Not everyone is able to stay motivated to get started with their jobs in the morning if they don't have a routine they are mandated to follow.
Another advantage is that working from a home office means no commuting in business traffic or paying for gas to travel back and forth to work. There is no pressure to clock in at a certain time or go to the office when you are not feeling well. Stress is greatly reduced with the freedom to begin work when you are ready and take breaks as needed. In addition, you do not have to worry about road rage, traffic accidents or driving in inclement weather.
A disadvantage to keeping your individual work schedule is getting behind in work tasks. You can waste time and end up not being able to socialize or participate in anything outside the home while trying to complete deadlines and get organized.
Furthermore, working from a home office enables you to save money on childcare. Children can be attended to between work tasks and have more time with you. Domestic responsibilities can be squeezed in during the daily routine between work assignments.
However, a disadvantage to working from a home office is spending too much time with the family. You can easily become distracted and get behind in your work schedule. Many of your friends might not realize that you are actually doing real work. They're apt to drop in at anytime to visit or call you to go out to socialize when you need to be doing work related tasks.
Working from a home office will save expenditures with renting an office space to operate your business. You can save on utilities and even make certain tax deductions because of using home space for work.
The flip side to saving rent is that clients might not want to come to your home. The clients that do visit or know you operate from a home office might want lower fees for services and products because they view you as less professional then a competitor with a rented office space.
As a result, there are advantages and disadvantages for working in home office. So, how you think guys? Please leave comment for us, thanks.
Reference:
Hi Crystal, being a lazy person, I do wish to work in my own environment and work whenever it suits my time.
ReplyDeleteBeing able to do so, as you ve mentioned, stress can hardly exist. Now how great would that be! Being able to wake and work and rest and eat whenever I like, wear whatever I like, thats really something I d would like in my working life.
However, I personally dont really find it helpful to work at home. Maybe its just me. Why? Its because I dont think that I will be motivated to work seriously being in an environment so comfortable for me. I think most of the time I d be doing something else, for example, resting, chatting online and so on. Besides that, I wont be able to get to know more people in the society which is obviously a BIG disadvantage for me. This might cause me to be a lonely guy without any friends which is really pity if that happens. Moreover, when I face difficulties in my work, I wont be able to refer the problem with someone else immediately. I might need to make a call which makes thing complicated.
So to conclude, I myself do not think that I am suit to work at my very own home office as I am a lazy person!
reference: Advantages and Disadvantages of a Home Office, Yousaytoo.com, viewed 4 October 2010, http://www.yousaytoo.com/part-2-advantages-disadvantages-of-a-home-office/366798.
I do agree with you, as I'm a lazy person also, if work at home, I might not have the motivation to work. Like what you say, I will do something else especially facebook. I still rather to work in the office although I can wear whatever I like if work in the house. But for me, formal wear or uniform not bad for me too as I'm tired of thinking and choosing what should I wear every morning. ^^
ReplyDeleteYo girls, what’s up?!
ReplyDeleteWhen I read through your blog post, I found out that this is a very interesting topic for discussion. Well, I think that the advantages and disadvantage of working in a home office is depending on the person’s characteristics and lifestyle.
For most people, working at the home office will probably save a lot of set up or overhead cost such as rental fee, office fittings and insurance cost etc. In country like USA, the use of a portion of home for business purposes may enable the particular owner to gain some home office tax deduction under certain requirements (IRS 2010). The people who choose to work at home will have the flexible working hour that is desired by them. Apart from that, most people think that working at home is more secured and safe because they probably feel that they can “guard” their office at home after office hours and they are more protected from inclement weather to stay working at home. For the mothers who want to work can work at home and still can spend more time with child(ren) or family even during working days.
For some people including me, they will find out that brainstorming is difficult when always staying at home. There is no working environment ‘feel’ at home at all to do serious work and the job is hard to be taken seriously. This will also cause the isolation from customers, colleagues and the business world indirectly too. Sometimes, home chores can also 'come' in between office work that might disrupt the work performance and yet the difficulty to achieve the motivation to work. Last but not least, when working at home, people will probably seldom leave home in which lead to less exercise and continuously health problem arises.
In general, both work at home or not are actually goods with their reasonable point of views. Therefore, the most important when the people choose to work at home is they can handle the foreseeable issues that might arises during home working so that nothing can stop the worker/boss to perform at his/her optimal potential of employment/business at all times.
TQs!
Reference:
What You Need to Know about the Home Office Deduction 2010, IRS.gov, viewed 7 October 2010, http://www.irs.gov/newsroom/article/0,,id=108138,00.html
Hi Crystal and Jee Lin,
ReplyDeleteAfter viewing your posting, I actually agree with you especially on one of the advantages which is about “no commuting in business traffic or paying for gas to travel back and forth to work”. Through this way, besides the advantages it created as u mentioned, we can also actually save money in our pocket by not driving to work. According to McDonough, money can be saved by concerning three elements. Firstly, the numbers of miles per day are going to be cutting off from our travels. Secondly is the price of gas. Thirdly, the type of mileage that is capable to be achieved by our car.
Besides that, we can also save the environment by work from home. Although this issue may not be the main reason that most people choose to work from home, nonetheless it do play an important role in saving our environment by reducing fuel consumption as well as conserving energy. Furthermore, it also helps to reduce air pollution as people do not have to drive to their office everyday will reduce car travel from home to work, therefore less CO2 (which is one of the factors that will cause global warming) created or reduce the amount of greenhouse gases being pumped into the air. According to Pinola, “The Climate Group for the Global e-Sustainability Initiative indicates that telecommuting and technologies such as online video conferencing decrease tons of carbon dioxide each year”.
In addition, work from home also helps those companies to save thousands on office space and parking space for of their employee who work remotely. The reason is there is no need for those employers to add more cubicles and desk in order to provide a larger work force. Through this, those fixed expenses can actually be reduced.
References:
McDonough, M 2010, Environmental and Cost Benefits of Telecommuting to Work, Bright Hub Inc., viewed 7 October 2010, http://www.brighthub.com/environment/green-computing/articles/7524.aspx.
Pinola, M nd., About.com, Save the Environment by Working from Home, viewed 7 October 2010, http://mobileoffice.about.com/od/tipsfortelecommuting/qt/telecommuting-is-good-for-the-environment.htm.
Benefit of Telecommuting, TargetWoman.com, viewed 7 October 2010, http://www.targetwoman.com/articles/telecommuting.html.
Pinola, M nd., 5 Reasons Employers Should Mobilize Their Workforce, About.com, viewed 7 October 2010, http://mobileoffice.about.com/od/getmobilized/tp/employer-benefits-of-telework.htm.
Hi Crystal, if given the opportunity I will also prefer Soho rather than working in office building as it provides more freedom. First of all, Soho working hour is flexible and not bounded by the office hour (Himanshu, 2009). I do not have to wake up early in the morning to rush to the office and get stuck in the traffic for at least 15 minutes. If I am adopting Soho, I will be able to finish my own housework for example doing laundry within the 15 minutes instead of waiting for the traffic. Besides that, I can go for bill submission without taking leave as the bank and telecommunications company only operate on weekdays. However this does not mean I will take the chance to escape from work. To emphasis, I can work at anytime even at night as long as I’m able to finish the job. Furthermore, Soho provides more time to spend with my family as I can meet them during break, lunch time or anytime instead of talking on phone (Solter, 2007). In addition, Soho also can reduce stress as there is no office politics exist (Himanshu, 2009). There will be no interruption of co workers and no rumours will distract you from working and therefore reduce the mental pressure. In summary, I would suggest that if your company is online based Soho will be an ideal choice based on the benefits above.
ReplyDeleteReference:
Himanshu 2009, 7 benefits of working from home, Shout Me Loud, viewed 6 October 2010, http://www.shoutmeloud.com/7-benefits-of-working-from-home.html
Solter, N 2007, Top ten benefits of working from home, viewed 6 October 2010, http://blogs.sun.com/nsolter/entry/top_ten_benefits_of_working
Hi Crystal.
ReplyDeleteNice topic to discuss about. I just knew that there are so many advantages of working at home office but at the same time those advantages can become disadvantages too. Since you have mentioned both advantages and disadvantage, I would like to discuss some ways to overcome those problems.
Before that, I would like to add in a disadvantage. For instance, there is not enough space for you to do your work. It would not be a problem to set up a home office if your house has the extra space. It is also important for a home office to set up properly so that you can be more concentrate on your work. For instance, you should have a designated space or location whereby your equipment and files are all under your control and protection. The space is really significant because without a proper workplace, you might not be able to do your task properly. On the other hand, when the space is good enough, this means you can protect the privacy of the document as well. You can make sure that all your kids are not going to go into your office and mess up with all your documents. Therefore, prepare a good and comfortable space for yourself before you start working from a home office.
Other than that, an individual would need to separate his work from the family life. It is very difficult to completely overcome this problem when working from a home office. Therefore, you would need to set rules for yourselves. For instance, setting time, limit the distractions and manage your time are part of the rules settings. Setting time such as office hours for your task and after office hours mean the time is for your family. Setting time is very important as this does not only help you to stay more focus to your task but also help to prevent customers from dropping in after your working time.
Besides that, setting time will also prevent you from over-working and forget about your break. How to limit the distraction? For example, if your hand phone lets you to a chat with your friend for few hours and left out your task, you can switch it off to reduce the distraction. Managing your time is definitely the thing that you have to do. Work out a schedule and make sure you follow your schedule in completing your tasks. After you have done all these, try to check out whether or not you have accomplished your goal.
In conclusion, it is important for a person to have a balance on the work as well as balance on family life. Try to talk to your family members about the setting of time to get their support and explain to them about your work and make sure that they understand you. Their support and understanding will let you do better in your working from a home office.
References
Home Office Warrior, 2007, Beating the Top 10 Problems of Working at Home, viewed 6 October 2010,
http://www.homeofficewarrior.com/home-office/beating-the-top-10-problems-of-working-at-home/
Hi Crystal and JeeLin,
ReplyDeleteThis topic sounds interesting. As we can know that, SoHo is a modern business in this century. Everyone will like to be their own boss, that’s why they run a home office. Working from home gives u freedom for instance by avoiding the rush hour such as traffice jam. You do not need to rush to work as you are the one to manage your own working time. I also found some disadvantages of working from home. Since the environment of working at home was relaxing, it will results a difficulty for the home-based workers to switch on their working mode. Ultimately, it also will result some missed deadline occurs, broken trust, unpaid work, missed opportunities and etc.
Normally in a regular working office, while there are break downs on computer, the office can easily call for maintenance and fixed on the problems as soon as possible. Adversely, when working at home, you will usually work for your own and does maintenance of everything by own self. This will be quite challenging.
Hence, as a home-based worker, a well-scheduled working schedule must be prepared. Also, they can prepare some useful phone number such as technical support so they can easily look for maintenance guy when facing some technical problem. Once all these hurdles have overcome, it will become more enjoyable and stress-free working at home.
Working at home is very nice but the only thing is that you will not associate with other people or even meet new friends because of your work at home. Sometime working at home can be more stressful when you don't know how to separate time for your work online and house chores.
ReplyDeleteBeen there, done that. I guess it's really discipline that matters depending on each individual. One thing I realized about working from home is that you gradually become fat because you are always working in front of your computer. Not to mention the countless of distraction such as Facebook, Youtube, forums, etc.. There are some tools out there that actually help you to block access to these sites for a fixed period of time.Nonetheless, it really boils down to individuals.
ReplyDelete