Before the Covid-19 outbreak hit our shores, the concept of working from home seemed distant as only a few local companies have adopted the culture on a case-by-case basis.
But ever since the pandemic hit us, we’ve been forced into working from home, much to the majority of employees’ delight. For employers, some have fully immersed themselves in the work from home culture, making it permanent in their companies, although others can’t seem to wait for their office culture to get back to the old normal.
So, should working from home be implemented permanently? Here’s maybe why it should!
For employees:
They waste less time commuting
As every Malaysian knows, getting to and from work alone takes hours, thanks to our rush hour traffic jams. For example, if you’re someone that lives in Kota Kemuning but whose office is in the Midvalley area, you’ll know the struggle of sitting in crawling traffic early in the morning only to reach your office half dead more than an hour later.
If you were to be working from home, the time spent in traffic jams could be utilised productively for work as you’ll be starting the work day early and fresh compared to using up all the positive energy you’ve accumulated for the day getting stuck in an hour-long jam.
Saving money!
Let’s be honest, especially for those who live away from home, saving money on a Malaysian salary is hardly a reality anymore. With rental, electricity bills, water bills, car installments and maintenance, commuting expenditures (petrol and tolls), phone bills, internet bills and so many more, even saving just a couple hundred ringgit a month sometimes seems pretty impossible.
But while working from home, commuting expenditures have been severely cut down, making it easier to save money despite the increase in electricity bills. Spending on food can easily be curbed as well considering we can cook simple food at home with the lack of temptation from outside forces.
More family time
For those living away from home, this gives them an opportunity to spend more time with their families while also still completing their daily tasks and obligations to their company remotely. As some would say, not all jobs require their team members to be on site.
Even for those who live with their families, this means having extra time to spend with their children and/or elderly parents. After all, one of the most important things in the world is to cherish time with your parents before they are gone too soon.
For employers:
Saving money!
Yes! Even employers can profoundly save on office expenditure when their employees work from home. Those who’s businesses don’t necessarily require office space can easily choose to rent a co-working space only when a task calls for it.
For employers who require an office space, working from home can cut down on electricity costs when entire teams work from home as there wouldn’t be lines of laptops with chargers turned on throughout the day. Not to mention air-conditioning expenses as well!
Other costs that can be reduced include snacks (WOB staff members normally wipe the pantry clean within a week; imagine being able to make a weeks supply last the entire month!), printing costs and other miscellaneous costs.
More family time too!
Employers are more likely to spend longer hours at the office as they would have loose ends to tie up or decks to complete. This means they would also have even lesser time to spend with their loved ones. Hence, if employers can work from home as well, this means they too can be present around their children and/or elderly parents.
After all, employers are just like us team members, they have families that they are probably missing too.
You can hire the best beyond your vicinity.
Most employers only hire people within a certain vicinity of their office so that their employees can be present at the office, but if the job does not call for the team member to be present and work from home is implemented, bosses can always hire potentially excellent staff members from other parts of the country and even overseas!
For example, if an office is based in Kuala Lumpur, the employers can always hire people from Sabah and Sarawak who can work from their locations and still excel in their field of expertise and contribute to the company.
Those are just some of the potential perks of working from home for both the employees and employers.
I mean, both bosses and staff members are still people with different sorts of interests in life. Some are parents who have become used to being away from their children due to their careers while others are parents who wish they could be more involved in their children’s lives before they grow up too quickly.
Some are extroverts who love participating in social environments while others are introverts who would rather be left out of work banter and office politics. And some are people who worry about climate change and would be eager to jump on the opportunity to reduce their carbon footprint by avoiding commutes.
The possibilities of why working from home is beneficial is almost endless, considering it’s not just for the benefit of the employee and employer but also for the planet and the environment.
Working from home could mean the reduction of the usage of plastic bags and take-away containers when tapau-ing lunch, hence less trash to pollute the planet. It could also mean that offices can severely reduce air-conditioning usage, hence less harmful gases being released into our ozone layer.
There’s no better way to implement working from home permanently than to also save the environment in the process!
Hence, with all that being said, what do YOU think? Should working from home become the new norm?
Let us know in the comment section below!
Also read: Twitter CEO: Employees Can Work From Home Forever
