Homing from work is a reference to the activity of doing personal work in the workplace. This includes paying bills, shopping online, making service appointments such as spa & salon sessions, and doctor visits.
Homing from the workplace is not an alien concept. It has always existed in workplaces. Most of the employees are guilty of doing personal work of one kind or the other at one time or the other.
But now, employees are beginning to experience more enjoyment at work and personal satisfaction as a result of homing from workplace. This concept is becoming an effective tool for employers to deliver greater work-life balance to employees.
Employers are able to provide employees with more reasons for being happy at work, which in turn is leading to a more productive environment at the office.
Here are the benefits that employees, HR executives, and organisations are able to experience as a result of the homing concept:
A Positive Approach
Unlike the approach of attempting to wipe out the practice of carrying out personal tasks at work, the homing approach is a more positive one. Employees across age groups have been known to indulge in some kind of personal activity at workplaces.
According to a study conducted by Captivate Network, a whopping 93% of employees accomplish personal and family objectives at work to achieve better work-life balance.
You will hardly any person who’d admit to such indulgences. So, tracking such occurrences constantly is not only difficult and time-consuming, it’s usually a waste of resources for HR executives. In fact, such tracking experiences can be very embarrassing for employees, which can, in cases tarnish your brand reputation.
A more practical approach for the HR department would, therefore, be to accept and embrace the presence of this practice and then put a permissible cap on the extent of indulgence.
Integrating personal life into workplaces through homing can enable HR professionals to control the excessive practice of realising personal errands at the office with greater success.
Better Work-Life Balance
Employees spend a major part of their lives at work. So, there are going to be unfulfilled demands of their personal life intruding into their work life. It can be hard for employees to focus on the work at hand when all they want to do is pay the power bill or grab that irresistible shopping deal.
With homing at work, your organisation becomes flexible enough to indulge its employees their small desires at work. With enough time available for their personal tasks, employees will be able to discover better work-life balance.
Greater Productivity
When employees start to feel that they are spending a maximum amount of time at work compromising their personal needs, they are bound to resent the work itself. By allowing the practice of homing at work in place, you can prevent such negative sentiment.
Allowing employees the freedom to have multiple short breaks in which they can carry out their personal tasks gives them time to relax and serves as a stress-buster. These multiple stress-busting sessions can help improve their mental state, leading to better productivity.
Many scientific studies also attest to the fact that short breaks rejuvenate one’s mental state. Such breaks have been known to fuel creativity and decision-making abilities.
By preventing small homing breaks, you inadvertently compel employees to focus on only a single task at hand for a prolonged period of time, which can negatively impact their thinking power, leading to mediocre or sometimes even below-average results.
Better Brand Reputation
Contrary to traditional organisational practices where employees are constantly put on check through systems such as time sheets or other time-based metrics, homing offers a powerful alternative. Employees are bound to resent time-based metrics or any form of metrics that measure not their performance but the time they spend on their desks doing work.
By including homing as part of your work culture, you are more likely to earn your employees’ trust and loyalty, which promotes better organisational reputation.
Your workplace, culture, the way you treat your employees and their happiness quotient all play a major role in determining your brand reputation. With your flexible workplace, your happy workforce becomes your primary advertising vehicle.
By allowing homing at work, you win on all the above counts, making your workplace and employees your positive brand ambassadors.
Better Recruiting
With better brand reputation, especially when it comes to caring for employees, recruiting becomes easier. Your organisation stands greater chance to attract top talents. As recruiting is expensive, an easier process is sure to bring down organisational costs.
Higher Retention Rates
Prospective employees are keener to be employed by organisations that are flexible and open-minded in their approach to work culture. Employees are rating flexibility over even crucial factors such as salary and pay perks.
This shift in priorities of emerging workforce needs to be considered if you want to maintain lower attrition rates. Embracing homing at the workplace is one of the best ways to do so.
Healthier Workforce
Investing in employee wellness is one of the best returns on investments an organisation can realise. A healthier workforce is a highly productive workforce that is ready to steer your organisation towards a brighter future.
By reducing stress levels and promoting better work-life balance, homing at workplace facilitates a healthier workforce.
It is not necessary that you make homing a written rule at your organisation. Allow it to grow as an undocumented part of your culture. Make it part of your day-to-day working – if you find an employee booking movie tickets for the weekend, face it with a smile and not a disapproving face.
Prevent misuse of homing by developing performance-oriented metrics so that employees understand their performance matters and no compromise over the end results would be tolerated.
For better results, you could try out homing on a trial basis to determine mutually-acceptable thresholds.
How Preferred Training Networks Can Help
Preferred Training Networks can help you adopt the right approach for introducing homing into your organisation. We specialise in a range of non-technical training programmes, including corporate soft skills building, change management, workplace resilience, managing difficult people at work, conflict resolution and more.
Our range of professional programmes is extensive, including 300+ training and development courses, customised to organisational needs. Companies in the top 500 list in Australia have benefitted from our contemporary and advanced training programmes.
We have a highly qualified team of consultants, instructional designers, facilitators and trainers who come with an excellent reference from senior management of top 500 companies in Australia.
With us as your training partner, you get to save enormous costs and stress as we give you the benefit of a single destination for a wide range of organisational performance development programmes.
Call us at 1300 323 752 for more information.