What Brings the Best Results: Offices, Hybrid Work or Home Office?

Today’s digital tools make flexible working conditions possible in many industries. Beyond benefiting employees, home office or part-time remote work is increasingly favoured by companies for their unique advantages. We’ll outline key considerations to ensure successful online collaboration with your home team or foreign freelancers.

‘If you don’t like it, please look for another job,’ declared Sir Jim Ratcliffe, Manchester United’s investor, after he banned staff from working from home. He justified his decision by the fact that at one of his companies, the number of emails sent during Friday home office hours dropped by 20%.

Molly Johnson-Jones, CEO of Flexa, says the incident is an example of a trend caused by a lack of trust and communication between the workforce and senior management: ‘Relying on metrics to monitor employees can lead to a culture of presenteeism, where it’s more important to look busy than to do a good job. Staff who are under pressure to be performance-oriented cannot do their best work, no matter where they are working from.’

More recently, Amazon has joined the ranks of companies that have permanently called their staff into the offices. Furthermore, multiple anonymous sources have confirmed to The Register that Dell is implementing a system to track hybrid workers if or when they arrive at the company’s offices. One of the anonymous sources expressed concern that the classification plan could be a way to determine the best targets for an upcoming round of layoffs.

Outsourcing IT talent from abroad

In January 2024, LinkedIn reported that although only 9% of available jobs in the UK were fully remote, they were attracting twice as many candidates. In the US, the supply of open full home office jobs was similarly low, but nearly half of all applications came for them. Employment Hero‘s survey of more than 1,000 British employees, from Generation Z to Boomers, also produced interesting findings. As many as 67% of those who work in a permanent home office rate their work productivity as high, compared to 54% of hybrid workers. Moreover, more than half of those who work from home long-term think they have time to relax.

The home office doesn’t stand in the way of building strong working relationships either, as 45% of people working offsite are more comfortable talking to their bosses about financial issues. Among staff who work in an office, only 32% of respondents felt this way, and 29% among hybrid employees. The possibility of a permanent home office brings with it, for example, the preparation of food from fresh ingredients, more time for exercise and the creation of a comfortable workspace. This can improve staff health and reduce sick days. In a FlexJobs study, 43% of people reported the lack of home office opportunities as the reason they left their jobs.

However, remote working also offers benefits to companies, whether in staffing or hiring freelancers. According to Apollo Technical, 78% of HR professionals say that retaining staff is possible without dedicated funding – all it takes is flexible schedules and a home office option. An analysis by Global Workplace Analytics even shows that working from home can save U.S. companies up to $11,000 per person annually. Moreover, organisations can hire top talent worldwide with specific skills or expertise. This creates opportunities for new perspectives, greater innovation and creativity within the organisation.

IT specialists in another time zone can work even when the company may be offline and, more importantly, understand regional trends, markets, business risks and cultural norms in their country better than an in-house team. By shifting some of the workload to an external resource, they can focus on, for example, strategy development and decision-making. In addition to the speed of onboarding IT talent, it’s also worth considering the tax and regulatory benefits that come with foreign collaboration.

However, recruiting offshore experts also raises issues that may not suit some companies. These include communication challenges and cultural differences, time zone differences, regulatory and legal differences, and the impact of exchange rates. Potential downsides of online communication also include fatigue from virtual meetings and possible extension of working hours.

When is a home office appropriate?

Before a company accepts or rejects a home office application, it is recommended to consider the parameters that should define the company’s policy regarding the possibility of working from home. For example, it may include a condition that employees in client-oriented positions can only work from home a certain number of days per week; otherwise, they must be in the office. Conversely, the permanent home office could be allowed for those whose job is focused on digital communication, meeting people in another location, communicating by telephone or can be done 100% online.

However, some tasks cannot be performed adequately without the right technical equipment. If a company cannot provide it to a person’s home, they may not be entitled to work remotely unless they invest in the necessary equipment themselves. Access to a high-speed internet connection is also very important for almost all home office tasks. It’s also worth opting for efficient methods of communication through messaging apps such as Slack or regularly scheduled video calls via Zoom or Skype.

A company that has concerns may include a probationary period arrangement and clear expectations regarding the quality of work required in the work-from-home agreement. However, if a company is not willing to allow all workers to work from home, it can base its system on seniority. The longest-serving staff are usually more experienced, able to work independently and more invested in the company’s performance, so they can be offered to choose the days of the week when they want to work remotely, while junior staff can stay at home office on alternate days.

‘Managers who believe that remote workers are always less productive must first question their managerial competence,’ explains Jim Moore, an employee relations expert at Hamilton Nash. He adds that as long as people are meeting expectations, it doesn’t matter where they work from.