Network bandwidth is not an issue and should not be used as an excuse against working from home - only gamers need more than what a standard ADSL2 provides. If there are any issues, they have nothing to do with the amount of data but rather with the latency on the server's side and if one has a server at home that requires faster uploads, businesses can and do afford that option too for a small fee.

Well researched persuasive article Malcolm.Just don't expect every employer to embrace this logic.

Given, as you say, we work between the ears, and that's not every employer!

But particularly those who pirate the best ideas of their employees and then claim them as their own?

So they can avoid rewarding those good employees, who are in fact the very life blood of their enterprise!

And if some employees are not only allowed but encouraged to work from home they'll be more productive and far less stressed out given they will have avoided the gridlocked commute!?

And if you want folks to bounce ideas off of one another, then what's wrong with teleconferencing! If folks really do need to commute, rapid rail will allow them to be productive during the travel time!?

Rapid rail links and fibre to the home, will act to lower the cost of housing given folk will not have to live within commuting distance and even if quite remotely located will still be able to remain productive be it in the home or during the commute!
Rhrosty.

All generalizations are false.

Working from home suits some people better than others. If the home environment is conducive - comfortable, sufficiently peaceful and self-contained, equipped properly for any communication needs etc. - and the individual concerned is sufficiently self-disciplined to "stay on task", then it could work.

Working from home suits some tasks better than others. If the progress of an organization is dependent upon the extra spark of ideas caused when people get together and interact directly, then physical isolation is not going to be the most productive work environment. And from experience, while teleconferencing is entirely suited to highly structured tasks - Board meetings, for example - it is a fundamentally inefficient process for any group-driven creative activity.

The only stupidity is a business trying to establish "rules" on working from home that ignore one or both of these concepts. But some businesses believe that the more prescriptive are the rules, the more efficient will be the organization. And hey, there's no law against stupidity.

Pericles

I completely agree with your points. As a manager, I have had some staff work from home very successfully, but the success was due to the nature of their work, their home environment, and their personal discipline and integrity. In other cases it didn’t work out, as one or more of these was missing.

My partner also works sometimes from home and sometimes an office. The office seems to work best, because of the social interactions and exchange of ideas (not just a “water cooler” myth).

The workers’ comp issue is a real one. Not only are employers responsible for ensuring the work environment is safe and appropriate, which is relatively easy, they must ensure it stays that way. That is hard when they don’t have any control of the environment, or lots of pairs of eyes to identify hazards.

That said, I think there is a role for working from home, and that it will grow.

Bouncing ideas off one another at the water cooler, code for having others do your best most critical thinking for you; and then able to avoid rewarding them for their brilliance unless you think a few complimentary words will pay the rent or put food on the table or gas in the tank.

Managers are usually a very different species from business owners. And speaking as a former owner my concern was getting the best from my employees, and if that best was having them work from home then I would do all that was reasonable and affordable to see that that happened!

However I was not always an employer but spent many years as an employee, and noted some managers were more than self serving and able to exploit those on the lower rungs for their better ideas; and therefore adverse to the idea of folks working from home, as that didn't serve their purely personal interests!
Rhrosty.

Ah Rhosty, of course you are right, the only possible reason a manager could have for having reservations about staff working from home is a diminished opportunity to steal ideas from them.