Page 20 - 2013 LDN Home Improvement Magazine

2013 H
OME IMPROVEMENT MAGAZINE. LINCOLN DAILY NEWS.com May 1, 2013
20
Moving your workplace home
Amajor trend in the U.S. workplace is to
decentralize and allow your employees
to work from their homes on a part-time
or even full-time basis. Many major corporations,
medium-sized businesses and even mom-and-
pop shops are sending their employees back
home to complete
their daily chores,
mostly because
we have become
an information-
based culture, and
now we have the
c ommun i c a t i on s
backbone in most
urban areas to
support this trend.
One of the key
items is the presence
of fast broadband
Internet. It keeps us connected to headquarters,
connected to our work in the cloud and connected
to each other. But the presence of Internet and
connected computers is only half the formula for
successfully making this transition to working
from home.
We usually think of what working from home
can save us. Working from home can help save
us the daily money for transportation, money for
meals, a special work wardrobe and daily time
for the commute. Working from home can even
get us away from some of the most annoying
people on the planet -- our co-workers. Working
from home can allow us to work in comfort and
privacy, to concentrate on the job, and actually
accomplish something. We can even work in our
pajamas if we like.
But to successfully make this move, we should
also consider the
downsides. There are
many distractions
at home that aren’t
present at the
centralizedoffice.The
spacewasn’t designed
for doing work,
let alone meeting
with clients and
colleagues, and most
home environments
are designed for the
relaxation of a home
life rather than the accomplishments of a work
life.
Although the work-at-home trend continues
to grow, Yahoo, a major Internet news and
information portal, announced three weeks
ago that it is ending its experimental program
of allowing employees to work from home,
primarily because work-at-home employees
weren’t getting the job done. CEOMarissaMayer
called hundreds of remote Yahoo employees
back to the centralized office because the home
workspace culture was hurting her organization