Today I came across this article on Forbes. It talks about how working from home can inadvertently make your employers think you are not working as hard as employees who are in the office. You miss out on “passive face time” which is simply being seen in the workplace during normal office hours. However, the article then goes on to give advice on how to compensate for the lack of face time.
This article got me thinking about the recent trend of working remotely or telecommuting. What are the pros and cons? Are we moving to be a strictly digital society? Is it even possible to run a company with all of your employees only communicating via email? So many questions and not very many answers.
For now, I suppose we have to evaluate our individual situations and let our employers decide if they can work with a digital employee. And if we are the ones deciding if we want to let our employees work remotely, we can test it out. This may be the new wave of how business is done, and after all, we have the technology to make things happen and communicate just as quickly as in person. I think it’s worth trying out this new digital workforce. However, if you are the one working remotely, make sure to stay in constant connection with your boss, follow-up on emails and calls quickly, and still make time to meet with your employer face to face.
As far as the harm to your career…well that’s up to you to decide. If you have nothing holding you back from being in the office, I would say spend as much time there as possible. However, if you have a family or other circumstance that requires you to be at home or simply just out of the office, do your best to maintain relationships and do such a good job on your work they don’t even realize you’re gone.
I’m curious, what are your thoughts on working from home? Do you think it is harmful to your career?