Offering work from home benefits is a great way to both attract and retain the best talent.
If this is something your business offers, or is thinking of offering, you need to have clear work-from-home guidelines in place to protect both your business and its employees.
Here’s how to draft a work from home policy.
There are loads of positives to freelancing and working remotely, not least that you can fit your work schedule around other priorities in life – doing away with the nine-to-five means freelancing can be particularly good for parents, who have to factor school runs and childcare into the working day.
A study from Kalido, a professional networking app, has found that as many as half (50%) of all workers are expected to turn freelance in the next two years. It also found that almost two-thirds (64%) of UK-based businesses currently rely on freelance workers in some capacity; and over a third (39%) of business owners predict that their use of freelancers will grow faster than their number of permanent hires in the next five years.
On the face of it, this is great for everyone’s life/work balance, but there’s evidence to suggest that a growth in remote working could lead to an increase in mental health issues, particularly for those who work alone at home.
If you’re a new parent, or you’ve ever had to juggle a job with a baby or a toddler, you’ll know just how much of a hassle it can be.
If you’ve ever worked freelance, had last-minute jobs land on your lap and chase clients for payments, you’ll know how much hassle that can be too.
If you’ve ever done both, it may have surprised you to learn that both can work perfectly together.
If business is booming and your workforce burgeoning, you may find office space is an issue, even if you have staff who sometimes work at home.
So could an open plan office layout be the answer?
A report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has found that global warming is a more pressing problem than previously thought – while nations across the planet are working to keep warming down to no more than 2°C, we all need to be working to a 1.5°C limit.
And the worst news is that we only have 12 years to make a serious dent in our global carbon emissions, else we seriously risk Earth warming up by 3°C, which would be catastrophic.
So, we all need to do our bit to help reduce carbon emissions, and remote working is a great place to start.
