Home office and remote management are now at the top of the agenda in the country's businesses. Many leaders are at a loss as to how to handle the situation.

Over the past few weeks, employees have been experimenting with working from home. Some love it, others don't. Some teams have become more productive during this period, others less so. How well a home office works depends on the type of work to be done, what systems the company has for follow-up and facilitation, and not least the personality and ability for self-management of the individual employee. But the fact that using a home office is becoming a topic that managers must actively take a position on is certain. Managers and management groups must decide as soon as possible what strategy to have for using a home office and communicate this to the organizations. Because now there are many and different opinions and wishes out there. 

The authorities are still recommending home office in Norway, and this applies especially to those who depend on public transport. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is opening up to permanent home office. He says the experience has been good and that it provides great flexibility with regard to where people live. Several large American companies have signaled the same. Telenor CEO Sigve Brekke recently came out with the same message.

However, more and more people are claiming that it is lonely and demotivating to work from home, and that most of all they want to be in the office and see their colleagues. In the time of corona, it is not good volunteer spirit to complain about working from home. At the same time, there are many who enjoy working from home, whether it is to get more time, increase freedom or meet other needs.

So what is right? And who benefits most from a home office solution? Employer or employee? When assessing the use of a home office in your own company, you must proceed systematically. Involve others in this work. This could be your own team, other managers or advisors.

1. Analyze the situation

•  What are the advantages and disadvantages of home office in your unit?
•  Does your company have a policy regarding home office that you need to influence or take into account?
•  What laws and regulations do you have to comply with (including the Working Environment Act and regulations on working from home).
•  Which employees can and want to have a home office. This is about both personality; ability and willingness to work independently, and whether their home base is a suitable place to work. These assessments must be made by both the manager and the employee. Because the perception of how good an employee is at self-management may well differ.

2. Decide on the framework and scope for the home office

• A prerequisite for a successful home office is that you can exchange and share information in the same way as if you were present at work. This means technological solutions, both for storing and retrieving data, such as file sharing in Teams, Sharepoint, OneDrive etc. and systems for communication, such as Teams and Zoom. People must have a network with good capacity. Although many employees have become familiar with the use of video meetings during the corona era, there are certainly some who need more thorough training in the technology if this is to become the standard way of working.
•  How should the leadership role be exercised? Yes, Remote management is largely based on trust.. This means that the goal process with the team becomes extra important. What should the individual employee deliver? How should you as a manager follow up? How should you keep motivation up and strengthen the team spirit, a prerequisite for well-being and results. Involve the team in goal work. Clarify expectations both ways. Create predictability.
  

  3. Set fixed days that the team must be physically in the office

•  It depends on what you do, but maybe it's 1-2 times a week , maybe more, maybe less. In sales organizations, this is quite common, as there is often a desire for salespeople to be in the office as little as possible and out with customers as much as possible.
•  Meeting physically is important for preserving or developing culture in a team. It is also about something beyond the practical, namely the human.
•  Psychiatrist Finn Skårderud claims that "The price of distance is greater than we realize. We have nervous systems that are rigged for face-to-face and body in the same room . We communicate largely with gaze and body language, which disappears in the digital. The absence of this natural contact creates unrest."