Working from home – a slackers’ charter or the route to better performance?

Working from home, remote working or agile working are concepts being bandied around more and more often these days.  It’s often seen as a good perk for the employee, enabling them to avoid the stress of commuting and better balance home and work life.  However, some managers find the shift from managing those physically present in the office to managing those working remotely difficult. With one major concern being whether the worker can be trusted to work as hard as they do when they are in the office.

According to new research the key to a successful remote working relationship is actually trust and that a manager failing to offer trust and therefore autonomy  to the remote worker can be highly detrimental to a worker’s performance.  This calls into question to the common belief that performance is achieved through managerial or peer control.

The study also shows a lack of evidence of remote workers shirking work, showing a positive relationship between to extent of the remote working and the number of hours worked.

Read more about the study here.