Many people are working at home rather than in the workplace. Some people believe this will bring benefits to the workers and their families, but others suggest it will cause stress in the home. Discuss both sides and give your opinion.

With technology increasingly being able to support a suitable home office environment, working from home is becoming an attractive option for many employees. Employees gain the advantages of being able to make better use of time and avoid costs associated with working, but at the same time this arrangement may interfere with their home environment. In this essay the merits of working from home compared to working in the office will be discussed. Working from home allows people to avoid the need to travel to and from work giving employees additional hours in the working week that can be used for either work related activities or provide a more balanced lifestyle. For example, the additional time could be used to take children to and from school. Employees will also have lower costs, particularly in relation to transportation. For example, if one partner works from home a family may be able to avoid buying a second car providing them with significant savings. Savings may also be made in other areas such as food and entertainment costs. In addition, the breaks from work that most people take during the day can be used to perform household chores. The lack of other employees also means that there are no social norms and in quiet periods an employee can read the paper or a book or even watch television, activities that would be socially unacceptable in an office environment but do not impact on performance and may lower stress and have a positive influence on wellbeing. However, employees may experience significant difficulties in working from home. They have no physical barrier between their work and home life as their office is ever present and could interfere with having a normal family life unless carefully managed. Employees may also feel isolated as they do not have co-workers with them and may lose valuable information that is sometimes passed by casual interactions in the office and fail to have the opportunity to build the relationships that are essential for career development and promotion. In summary, working from home provides many advantages including lower costs, having more available time and being better for the environment. However, the time spent working from home must be managed carefully as there are risks of isolation, negatively impacting family life and loss of productivity