What People Really Do When They’re ‘Working From Home’

A recent survey by Citrix reported in BusinessWeek has revealed that many home workers sneak in other activities when they are working from home.

In their survey they looked at 1,013 office workers and found that the following percentages of people admitted to engaging in the following activities while working from home.

43% watch TV or a movie
35% do house chores
28% cook dinner
24% admit to drinking alcohol
20% play video games

What does this mean? Is it the end for telecommuting as we know it? Not necessarily, as preliminary research from Stanford University suggests that even in light of all these distractions, telecommuters are actually more productive than their peers in the office.

So, there is plenty of hope and value in telecommuting and the tips I would give to employers to help make the most of their telecommuting workforce are:

Focus on productivity rather than activity, and establish productivity agreements with all home-workers insisting that employees must maintain a certain productivity level in order to stay working at home.
Coach and advise telecommuters on how to work productively and effectively at home and to manage distractions and their well-being.
Have regular daily check-ins with staff.
Consider using desk-top activity monitoring software to track staff activity/lack of activity on the computer.

In terms of employees, my advice would be for you to be aware that working from home can leave you with an absence of structure and day to day motivation due to the absence of your peers and manager. This can make you more susceptible to distractions and a loss of motivation. Also, the lack of other staff can lead to loneliness and boredom which can make you susceptible to becoming distracted and demotivated.

Therefore, as well as doing a telecommuting working plan, I would also recommend that homeworkers do a telecommuting self-management plan, which enables you to manage the behavioural and emotional aspects of working at home also. And below I have set out 8 tips for working effectively at home, and these are: