How Companies Should View the Advantages and Disadvantages of Home Office

Recently, in the face of the outbreak of coronavirus, some companies in Hong Kong have begun to implement unpaid vacations to their employees, while a small number of companies have started partially implementation of Home Office in addition to non-essential personnel to reduce the risk of virus transmission among public. Home Office began to be another hot topic in the city except for #masks out of stock. However, is Home Office a suitable strategy for employers or employees? I will show you the pros and cons as shown in below:

Pros 1: Savings of commute time

According to research, although Hong Kong has a small population, commuting in Hong Kong have an average daily commute time of 73 minutes, and commuters across districts or sea even with longer time! Part of this time is not only spending on actual transportation, but also from long waiting times. Therefore, the implementation of the Home Office saves employees a long day of commuting time and allows them to enter working status faster than ever. And because of the reduced commute time, employees do not need to get up early but get a longer rest for being spirited. Home Office saves commute time for employees and hence increase their passion about work.

Pros 2: Working efficiency

For manager point of view, not all employees can devote themselves to work all the time and have 100% productivity. However, there are times when employees are coping with tasks, but they are unable to achieve the desired workload throughout the day. But Home Office does not need to be like this. Evan employees do not have the supervision but they have scheduled work goals and tasks to finish and follow. Hence their performs can be assess with only those tasks. In terms of the mentality of employees, how to complete the task at hand efficiently and with high quality may become a lazy stimulant or self-discipline under a sense of responsibility. Studies show that if people can focus on one thing, they can increase their work efficiency by 20%. If employees are able to work in a shorter time than his usual day to complete one day’s workload, they will have more time to discuss and review and find a more suitable solution. It is undoubtedly one of the positives.

Pros 3: Reducing the chance of coronavirus transmission

Since every employee works from home remotely, for the current epidemic, it can effectively reduce the chance of cross infection and protect the health of employees, which is very beneficial to the business operation in the long run. In such difficult period, it can also bring a good reputation to the enterprise that allows employees to work at home. However, there are still many companies that need their employees to return to the office for work, which has been criticized by many voices in society.

However, telecommuting also brings some negative issues listed below:

First: relatively high conditions of Home Office implementation
Home Office has relatively high hardware and network requirements, not to mention companies that require synchronized collaboration. Therefore, some companies will start to consider implementing Home Office, but there are still difficulties in implementation especially they have no related technical support or preparation. Therefore, employees can only be required to take unpaid leave or return to the office forcibly.

Second: delays in communication
Even when the home office has been started, and each employee is working from home. It is hard to communicate with relevant colleagues and reach them quickly as in the office, so workers can only leave messages and wait for a reply. However, it is not allowed to be delayed if there is a urgent matter. People may reply late if they focus on doing their job, employees is likely to be misunderstood for laziness. So, how to reduce the delay of communication delays caused by telecommuting is also a question mark for managers to think.

Hence, we will provide you with different solutions as below to clarify your concern.

Solution 1: building a platform for multiple people to collaborate online at the same time
For a platform that needs to accommodate multiple people for online collaboration at the same time, the bandwidth requirements are very high, otherwise it will easily cause packet loss and fail to communicate effectively. Dataplugs’ 1Gbps dedicated server plan is definitely a great tool for you.

Our 1Gbps dedicated server plan includes 1Gbps dedicated international bandwidth and 1Gbps Hong Kong local bandwidth, unlimited traffic, whether you have a huge workload or you want to prepare streaming video, you can easily reach it. All servers use enterprise-class hardware with the latest Intel Xeon processors and SSD hard drives to help you cope with demanding and high-traffic tasks. Despite the epidemic raging in Hong Kong, Dataplugs’ ISO-certified technical team is still providing 24/7 professional technical support, so that allows your business operations having no worries.

Solution 2: Seeking suitable and reliable telecommuting advice
Dataplugs understands that enterprises may have concerned about telecommuting, but unpaid vacations or mandatory work may bring negative effects, and do not know how long the epidemic situation would be last, so dedicated telecommuting needs to be deployed quickly without delay. However, since each enterprise has different requirements for home office, we recommend that each enterprise consult and obtain suggestions before preparing to implement home office, otherwise it will result in mismatched resources and wasteful results. Dataplugs’ multi-line professional team has many years of IT experience. Currently, it is also implementing home office measures so that it can respond to inquiries from customers in need at any time.

Solution 3: stable and reliable network and hosting solution
We understand that due to the spread of the epidemic and the increase in the demand for online shopping from the public when they have much spare time, the number of visits to online shopping platforms under your business may surge. For companies that urgently need to expand their website’s loading ability, Dataplugs is not only effectively supporting you at the network level (Dataplugs has 100 + Gbps total bandwidth and multiple Tier-1 international network supplier resources) but also at the hardware level. A number of different web hosting solutions will escort your business forward and allow your business boundaries to expand and beyond the limit.

Need more information?
Email sales@dataplugs.com to learn more about our offering plans.