Working from home - A case study from the myosh team

With over 50 full time employees and contractors, the myosh team have been productively working from their homes for over 17 years.  As organisations review their operations amid this emerging coronavirus pandemic, we thought we would share the benefits of working from home.

myosh is a workplace health and safety management platform.  The software includes around 50 modules that integrate to help HSE Teams manage hazards, report incidents, manage risk and conduct inspections plus many other functions too.  Our team includes management, analysts, programmers, sales, support, marketing and admin and while most are based in Australia, we have staff based in the USA and Asia too. We have a head office in Perth where some of us meet every Tuesday from around 10am till 3pm.  

On Tuesdays we catch up with our teams, discuss our work, get coffee or lunch together and generally share friendly banter.  Many of us get together to play a game of golf or squash before or after work on Tuesday. At the office, we chat about our lives, politics and the news as most office workers do.  We arrive late at 10am (to avoid traffic) and leave early for the same reason. We use Teamwork software to review and assign our strategies and tasks for the short and longer term.

As of this week, due to the coronavirus, Tuesday’s office meeting have been cancelled until further notice.  As organisations review their operations, many organisations will, where possible, allow employees the opportunity to work from home. According to Forbes, “remote work is no longer a privilege,” and Fast Company considers it ‘the new normal.”  

So here’s an overview of what to expect, some tips and tools and feedback from a team that does it well:

Productivity Increases When Employees Work From Home

According to Fast Company, remote employees are simply more productive. “The biggest driver of the pivot to a remote workforce that’s currently underway in our market is that remote employees simply produce better results than their traditional counterparts. While many critics of remote working used to assert that letting employees work from home would drain them of their productive spirit, the past few years have produced conclusive evidence that employees who spend a bulk of their working hours outside of the office are vastly happier and more productive.”

• Recent research from Gallup, for instance, notes that those workers who spend about three to four days of the week working offsite are substantially more engaged in their jobs than traditional counterparts who are stuck behind desks all day. The logic behind this productivity boost is actually quite easy to understand; by giving workers more control over their personal lives and permitting them to schedule their work-life balance accordingly, companies are making them happier and more fulfilled as they enable Average Joes to become workplace superstars.
• Flexible work hours translates to more productive hours when employees can choose to work at times in the day when they feel more productive and motivated.
• Less stress. Workplace bullying, harassment and other work related stresses are much alleviated in the home office environment.
• The Airtasker study found that average total unproductive time per day for remote workers was 27% less than that of office workers.  The study also found that remote workers were 32% less distracted by management.
• Toxic workplaces. The study also found that 28% of employees had quit their jobs due to toxic relationships with co-workers.
• Less distractions. Offices can be noisy places with many distractions inside and out.

Other Benefits for Organisations

• Sick Leave – While we have no official statistics here, it’s apparent that our workers suffer less from infections as they are not in an office environment on a daily basis.  We encourage sick team members to stay home on Tuesdays! And less infections means less sick leave expenses.
• Employee tenure is  deeply impacted by commute times.  In fact, long commutes cause 1 in 4 respondents to quit a job at some point.
• Remote workers have more time to exercise and they tend to have healthier diet options available. The benefits of having a healthy workforce are obvious and far-ranging, from taking fewer sick days to maintaining concentration.

Cost Benefits for Employees

• The first and most obvious benefits include saving on fuel, transport, parking, vehicle maintenance.
• One of our myosh employees said that working in the city at her previous job, she used to spend on average $15-20 per day on lunch, $5 for coffee and around $7-9 on public transport. Wow, that’s more that’s around $30 per day or $650 per month! Preparing healthy food at home is far more cost effective.

Other Benefits for Employees

• Time saved on commuting can be spent on extra work hours, leisure, socialising or on chores. An Airtasker study states employees save an average of 8.5 hours of free time per week.  
• A flexible schedule is a no brainer. You can take breaks at any moment, feel no rush to hang up on your family members when they call, and eat lunch at any weird time you want.
• Flexible work hours. Some of us are morning people, and some are night owls.  Flexible work hours allows you to choose when you work best.
• Healthier lifestyles – According to Airtasker, remote employees were healthier in terms of exercise. On average, they clocked in two hours and 44 minutes of physical exercise each week, which was 25 more minutes each week than office workers. Both diet and exercise are important for the health of your employees, which might be why we’re seeing more employers offering wellness benefits.
• Sick leave – If you or the kids are unwell, working from home allows you the flexibility to do some or no work depending on your situation.  You might have a mild flu that keeps you from the office but still allows you to be semi productive at home.
• Improved work/life balance.

Organisational Tools for Employee Engagement

• Some organisations implement screen or mouse tracking software to ensure employees are focussed on their work however this type of micromanagement can result in less engaged and productive workers.
• Studies have found that the most effective way for remote employees to stay productive were to take breaks, have set working hours and stick to task lists.
• Use Time and Task software for managing hours worked. We use Teamwork for project, task and time keeping functionality
• Where relevant, our staff quote estimated time for jobs and this allows us to manage expenses and monitor productivity.
• Use an Online Learning platform for Inductions, policy sharing and training.
• Use technology like Skype for quick conversations, text messages, image and file sharing.
• Use screen capture software like Snagit to help with image communication.
• Hold regular online meetings with video and screen share technology. Eg Zoom meetings.

Implementing a Remote Work Policy

• Ensure employees are equipped with discipline and clear instructions, tasks and goals.
• Implement a team mentality to ensure employees remain engaged with their team based goals. Be clear about timeframes and status updates and that you have a system in place to measure productivity.
• Make sure workers have adequate devices and software to work with.
• Ensure staff are clear about who to contact for help eg IT dept for software assistance, Admin for timesheets.

The benefits of working from home are clearly great for both employees and organisations.  We hope these changing times will encourage a shift from traditional work practices to a more future savvy way that has many benefits on our health, our environment, our productivity and for the organisations that provide our means to live a happy and healthy lifestyle.