Remote working for the future

A recent independent survey on working outside the office was conducted by The Creative Group, a specialised staffing service for interactive, design, marketing, advertising and public relations professionals.  The results showed One-third of advertising and marketing executives polled said the percentage of creative staff working remotely today is higher than three years ago; only 4 percent said it's lower.The question is: will this trend leak down to agency personnel in Malaysia?Angie Ruby, managing partner of Impact Communications comments: "We don’t really practice this in our office as most of our staff are juniors but this idea would work well for people in senior roles as they would need less training and guidance. It will be especially handy for people with families.”Peter Pek, group managing director of Mercatus shared that remote working has not been introduced in their company but will eventually move towards that direction.“In theory it is a great idea but in reality it is hard to make it work. The most important thing here is discipline. Also it doesn’t apply well for all roles – only certain ones like designers, writers and programmers where they need not be in the office to get the job done."With Skype and all the other latest instant messaging tools, communicating should not be a problem as long as people are on top of it and do not leave things to last minute.Some benefits of working from home are:Reduced commute time allowing for more effective use of timeImproved retention and morale of staff as they have a work life balanceAllows access to talent outside your geography, resulting in broader talent poolHowever a few factors should be considered before implementing this idea in your office:How everyone can be kept aware of meetings and activities in the office? A common centralised calendar will need to be set up so everyone is aware of deadlines to ensure projects flow well and everyone knows which meeting to attend.How often people can work from outside the office? There has to be a certain number of days people come into office. Total lack of attendance in the office will be bad for teams as there will be no chance for camaraderie. Also meeting and interacting with colleagues boost the level of creative output. So limiting remote working to one or two days a week will be more effective.Is your business ready for it? New companies, those in transition and ones experiencing complications in communications should limit remote working arrangements as it mayHas your company taken all the steps to be ready for this move? Be sure to get your human resource and legal team involved in the process of implementing remote working. What are you thoughts on this?