Stay-at-home workers: connecting offices with technology.

• Author: Dee, Kevin M.
• Position: HR Matters

Technology makes huge differences in most of our lives and facilitates business on a global scale. Today's workers now have many choices as to where and how they work, especially when it comes to office-related professions. "There's an app for that" has become true for just about anything you can think of, and if you think of something new, someone is waiting to make it into an app.

Even farmers today can program their tractors to plow the "back forty" and relax from home, watching remotely as the tractor does its job. The technological evolution in the workplace brings increased stress and a blurring of the lines between work and personal life. We need to find balance between being connected to our work worlds and living our "real lives."

Always at the Office

Working from home means you are always at the office, no matter where you are. Your phone is your office and can access so much information that we are in danger of losing our critical thinking skills. Home offices are more comfy and come with many more distractions and temptations. You can work in your pajamas at home or take a laptop and hang out at a coffee shop while sipping lattes, munching on muffins, and still wearing pajamas.

The office, which used to be a social connecting place, is becoming less and less the place where we come to think and connect with coworkers and colleagues. We can now use LinkedIn or Facebook, Twitter or Facetime, instead of actually talking to a real person. One client commented that they can get more done in three hours at home than a whole day at the office, without boring meetings, social chatting, and people popping by. Technology makes this all possible and then some. Today geographic proximity is not a necessity for many businesses and workers as long as they are connected by technology.

Questions to Ask

Some people working from home have made it work for them, but before you ask to work from home, you may want to ask yourself these questions:

* Is your job something that can, at this time, be considered for working at home? How?

* Are you a self-starter and would you be able to keep up with your work products or would you give in to watching Mad Men or Game of Thrones reruns and scrambling last minute to get things done?

* How are you going to maintain the relationships (people, not machine) critical to you and your team's success? Especially when we understand that body language is sometimes more than 90 percent of communication.

* How will you...