Telecommuting Offers Flexibility And Is Rising In Popularity
Telecommuting is becoming increasingly popular among employers and employees a like, 50% of companies allowed telecommuting in Y 2008, and is to 67% in Y 2014.
While increased telecommuting offers greater flexibility to workers and may save companies money in overhead costs, it does takes away valuable time for face-to-face interactions among people.
The Big Q: Is there a place that provides benefits all around?
The Big A: A poll conducted by Gallup suggests there may be.
The poll found people who work remotely report being more engaged, enthusiastic, and committed to their work, provided they work remotely 20% of their working hours or less. It seems that a Key to telecommuting successfully may be to spend more time working in the office than out of it.
As Money reported: “On one hand, it (the Gallup’s poll) found evidence of added productivity from those working outside the office, as People actually work more hours at home, in part because they were not commuting or running errands at lunch. Some of the productivity increase also comes from being away from office distractions,” says Gallup CEO Jim Clifton.
But there is a point of diminishing returns, adds Mr. Clifton.
People who spend 50% or more of their time working off site are less engaged than in-office counterparts and people who spend all of their time working remotely are 2X as likely to feel disconnected from their work, Gallup found.”
In-Person interactions are important in personal life, too.
Much of the research on the benefits of face-to-face interactions surrounds their role in the business world, but do not forget these benefits apply to personal life too. Loneliness, a feeling of being disconnected from those around you and wishing you had that connection, is on the rise and can put a persons health, both physical and emotional at risk.
While people are increasingly turning to social media as a way to connect with friends and family, be sure to take the time to have those irreplaceable face-to-face visits with those you care about.
Psych Central explained: “It is often difficult, if not impossible, on social media to reveal the qualities that define deep, intimate relationships. While our social media friends offer us a great deal, it is not a true substitute or even supplement for real-life interactions with others. Social support can be a strong predictor of positive mental health. Emotional support has been shown to protect us from a wide array of both psychiatric and physical ailments.
But unlike online friendships, real-life relationships take time and effort. They help us learn about others and ultimately ourselves. Online friendships, while certainly valuable in many ways, lack the ability to provide us with opportunities for deep and lasting emotional closeness. So accept and seek out your online friends, rekindle lost connections, and revisit childhood friendships, as long as it is not at the expense of nurturing and deepening your real-life relationships.”
The quality of communication was found to be a more important contributor to neural synchronization than the quantity of communication. This suggests that perhaps even infrequent in-person meetings may have more of an impact than frequent digital meetings.
What matters are the many ways we connect only when we are physically together.
Stay tuned in…
HeffX-LTN
Paul Ebeling
The post Telecommuting Offers Flexibility And Is Rising In Popularity appeared first on Live Trading News.