Part-time work from home pros and cons | Parallels Insights

What is part-time work from home?

Part-time work from home is a flexible work arrangement model where employees use their home as a working base with the freedom to schedule their working hours. In today’s tech era, with the advent of improved communication technologies, such as cloud computing and virtualization, there are fewer constraints, and employees can work from anywhere.

This phenomenon has opened a range of benefits for both employee and employer. The fundamental cause of success and popularity behind this model is that it provides the desired work-life balance for employees. The productivity for the employer or the business increases when they have happier employees. Also, by allowing employees to work part-time from home, a business can save infrastructure and utility expenses.

On the other hand, employees can save on commuting expenses and time. Moreover, this model allows employers to reach a geographically wider pool of talent across the globe.

Benefits of working from home

When set up properly, working from home has many benefits for both employers and employees:

Cost savings. Working from home saves employees a great deal of money on things like daycare and gasoline. Organizations can also save on real estate. For example, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office reported in 2015 that it had saved more than US$38 million by downsizing its office space.
Enhanced job satisfaction. Working from home provides the required freedom and flexibility, making employees engaged and fulfilled. This is demonstrated by a recent CNBC study that revealed a global workforce happiness index (WHI) of 75 percent for remote workers compared to 71 percent for in-office employees.
Improved productivity. When employers trust their teams—even while working from home—to deliver work, employees get motivated to work harder and deliver results than ever before. Also, data shows that when employees don’t commute, skip extra coffee breaks, and other disruptions, productivity increases.
Less stress and sicknesses. Studies show that long, commuting hours contribute to increased stress levels. Also, more population increases respiratory problems. Working from home eliminates these risks leading to a healthy lifestyle.
Attraction and retention of talents. Most millennials are optimistic about remote working technologies and prefer to leverage them to remote working. Employers that offer working from home options can attract and retain some of these talents.
Remote working is environmentally-friendly. Working from home reduces traffic jams and air pollutions from cars. Also, environmentally sound choices like opting to use less paper, minimal lighting, and heating in the office increase air quality.

Challenges with part-time work from home!

With part-time work from home being a trend, there are not many arguments against it. However, there are a few common concerns, which businesses should try to deal with before jumping into this option. One of the main concerns is the difficulty in managing remote workers and their work as there won’t be any direct supervision. Any communication or access issues to the company application tools and software for remote work can cause a sense of isolation for the employees. Data security is another area of concern when company mission-critical applications are hosted in the Cloud for remote access. In this regard, the virtualization of applications and desktop environments creates easier and safer ways of remote access without the chance of critical data being compromised. However, not every virtualization solution is feature-rich, cost-effective, and easy to install.

Security Risks of offering work from home

Working from home raises serious security concerns, such as:

Unmanaged devices. If the organization doesn’t provide managed devices such as laptops, thin clients, or tablets to their employees, the alternative for such employees would be to leverage bring-your-own-devices(BYOD). Without a sound BYOD policy in place, corporate data and applications in these devices can get compromised, especially if stolen or lost.
Insecure virtual private networks (VPNs) or home WIFIs. A VPN might seem like it’s the best solution for providing network security via its encryption protocols. However, corporate data and applications can still get compromised if the device gets lost or falls into the wrong people’s hands. On the other hand, the wireless equivalent protocol (WEP) used in most home WIFI networks are weaker, and cybercriminals can easily compromise endpoints and their data.
Phishing attacks. Hackers disguising themselves as genuine government agencies or healthcare bodies can easily trick unsuspecting employees through various methods such as emails to give way sensitive corporate data. This can negatively impact the organization.

How Parallels RAS increases productivity!

Parallels® Remote Application System (RAS) is a virtualization solution that can deliver mission-critical virtual applications and desktop environments to end-user devices anywhere in the world. It can boost ROI for companies that opt for part-time work, or the work-from-home model for their employees. With its modern data security and access control features, Parallels RAS proves to be an ideal choice for organizations to power up their hundreds of virtual desktops and applications.

Get an idea about how Parallels RAS can enable part-time work from home. Download your 30-day trial today!

References

Webopedia | https://www.webopedia.com/TERM/T/teleworking.html

Finances Online | https://reviews.financesonline.com/p/parallels-ras/

TechTarget | https://searchmobilecomputing.techtarget.com/definition/telecommuting

Techopedia | https://www.techopedia.com/definition/9683/telecommuting

Parallels RAS | https://www.parallels.com/blogs/ras/advantage-of-remote-working/