My final suggestion, at least for now, on cutting costs out of your marketing is to cut down on the size of your office and let your employees work from home.
I have to admit to having a bias toward home offices. I haven’t worked in the same state as the person I report to in more than twenty years. Even when I worked for Microsoft, I did much of my day-to-day work out of my home office and just came into the main office for meetings.
To say I’m “self-motivated” would probably be an understatement, but I refuse to believe that I am unique. I believe that many people, especially in the technology industry, are just as motivated and that all they really need is strong leadership and someone who trusts them. What matters is what they accomplish, and not that they came to the office from 9 AM to 5 PM.
Here are just a few of the benefits of allowing employees to work from home:
The Home Office
My final suggestion, at least for now, on cutting costs out of your marketing is to cut down on the size of your office and let your employees work from home.
I have to admit to having a bias toward home offices. I haven’t worked in the same state as the person I report to in more than twenty years. Even when I worked for Microsoft, I did much of my day-to-day work out of my home office and just came into the main office for meetings.
To say I’m “self-motivated” would probably be an understatement, but I refuse to believe that I am unique. I believe that many people, especially in the technology industry, are just as motivated and that all they really need is strong leadership and someone who trusts them. What matters is what they accomplish, and not that they came to the office from 9 AM to 5 PM.
Here are just a few of the benefits of allowing employees to work from home:
Better productivity. The famous chats around the watercooler that everyone talks about can be informative. However, in my experience, they are often filled with irrelevant company gossip and grousing. And, all offices have at least one “Chatty Cathy” (or Charlie) that spends hours a day hanging over cube walls talking to co-workers and disrupting the flow of business.
Factor in the time that employees will save in not having to commute and you could have hundreds of added hours of productive work time without adding headcount.
Lower costs. Less people in the office means that you can cut down on the office space you need. In addition, you cut down on other amenities you provide in the office such as coffee, tea, etc. You do need to factor in increased phone costs but there are ways to keep those costs down as well.
Employee satisfaction. This is a given. Most employees love the freedom to work out of their home and come into the office when needed.
Better get used to it anyway.
I never understood any IT company’s reluctance to let some of their employees work from home – even if that home is on the other side of the world. We work all day with customers, suppliers, alliance partners, and resellers – most of whom we see face-to-face maybe once or twice a year. Most of our interactions are over the phone or computer by necessity. If we can learn to work effectively with these people, why can’t we work more effectively with our own co-workers in the same way?
In addition, many companies are starting to outsource work such as support, development and even marketing to lower costs providers in emerging countries such as India and China. We have no choice but to learn how to collaborate with these individuals using technology and not relying on face-to-face interactions.
My experience is largely with software companies. I realize that not every company culture is conducive to allowing their employees to work from home. In addition, there are just some jobs that need to be in an office.
But nowadays I’ve even seen support specialists, a role that everyone assumes would need to be in the office, working from their homes. Technology has made these arrangements possible. Calls can be routed to the specialist whose line is open regardless of where he or she sits in the world. Support specialists can be online helping a customer, accessing a central knowledgebase, and even helping one another over Instant Messenger while they work together to try to solve a customer’s problem.
Again, not for everyone, but many more companies are exploring this arrangement. I’d love to hear if you’ve tried it and if it worked for you.
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