雖然有一個靈活的時間表，但未必是一個好主意。

當伊恩 · 賴特去年 11 月從他的家在倫敦開始工作時，他認為他有理想的安裝程序。When Ian Wright started working from his home in London last November, he thought he had the ideal setup.

他可以花時間陪他兩個月的嬰兒，而他為他全新的公司，英國的商業(yè)能源，可幫助公司比較超值電和天然氣供應(yīng)商工作。從格林威治區(qū)的兩居室房子，他在他餐桌主被全職奶爸和企業(yè)所有者的大計劃設(shè)置。

它的工作都不是。"有在一開始的希望和夢想結(jié)束與現(xiàn)實在哪里設(shè)置中，就是一個時刻"賴特說。"我迅速得出結(jié)論，它只不工作"。

你撓撓你的頭和奇跡，所有的時間去哪里？

兩個月后，他試著把嬰兒放在全職看護。他回到了餐桌，某些這一次它會工作。房屋維修、 家務(wù)、 郵遞員，所有的只是似乎陷入的方式。賴特說，"那些小事會剛分手我流，"。"你去年底的一天，和你劃傷你的頭和奇跡，所有的時間去哪里？"

從回家的失敗原因之一工作︰ 太多的干擾 (信用︰ 蓋蒂圖片社)

一個月后，賴特意識到他只是不能生產(chǎn)在家工作。他租了一個倫敦橋附近的共同工作空間的辦公桌，最后，他開始運轉(zhuǎn)了。

在家工作有它的好處，研究顯示它一般增加快樂和生產(chǎn)力。但一項新研究還表明，你應(yīng)該小心才作出斷裂與你的辦公室。

第一，培訓

靈活的時間安排很可能會成為更普遍的未來幾年;一些公司已經(jīng)通過"辦公桌"提供較少的書桌比有員工努力存錢和鼓勵遠程工作天。在英國法律允許許多工人要求更多彈性時間，并在全球各地的公司正在使用在家工作政策作為一種招聘方式。

在家工作不是簡單，打開你的筆記本電腦，正事

但在家工作的問題開始從一開始的權(quán)利。這是工作的因為我們認為每個人都可以做的他們不在辦公室的所有方面。

這是以斯帖 Canonico 514 工人最近發(fā)表的研究報告中的發(fā)現(xiàn)。Canonico，英國倫敦經(jīng)濟學院部管理，一個小伙子說在家工人在她的研究沒有接受任何培訓或指導如何拔掉過渡。由于近一半的她研究了 514 人在家全職工作或在他們的日程安排有一定的靈活性，它加起來。

為了使從家里的工作成功，避免隨意設(shè)置，選擇一個指定的辦公空間 (信用︰ 蓋蒂圖片社)

如果你做到了你自己，你知道在家工作不是簡單，打開你的筆記本電腦，正事。培訓 — — 有些人討厭和別人的我們無法獲得足夠的 — — 可以使成功與失敗的區(qū)別不在辦公室。

"那里是根本不在家工作的程序足夠積極管理，"Canonico 說。"當你不積極管理實踐中，會發(fā)生什么是它獲取失控"。

所以，確切地說，這樣的管理看想什么在我們的生活？嗯，對于初學者來說，我們將有可能會告訴我們需要一個專門的辦公室或工作區(qū)中，為我們的家庭和其他中斷的邊界。這是說比做更容易。（問問教授羅伯特 · E · 凱利，"BBC 爸爸，"以后自己年幼的孩子沖進了房間，現(xiàn)場的電視訪談中，成為了互聯(lián)網(wǎng) meme）。

如果你不努力去被"看到"你可以過去獎分配 (信用︰ 蓋蒂圖片社)

然后有日常的陷阱，可以導致嚴重的職業(yè)損傷或停滯，Canonico 說。例如，如果你不在辦公室，不感受到你的存在，你可能將錯過新的項目和商機作為他們發(fā)放給某人的老板看到每一天。

[可以] 成為專業(yè)技能和個人孤立

事實上，來自亞利桑那大學的新研究根據(jù)行政教育在亞利桑那大學的埃勒管理學院助理院長喬卡羅拉顯示 40%的回家的感覺，斷開連接從公司的戰(zhàn)略方向和三分之一的感覺像他們沒有得到支持，從老板，從工作的雇員。

"在家工作的人成為專業(yè)技能和個人孤立的"Canonico 說。"他們說眼不見，心不煩'"。

小步驟 flex

但是，您可能會想，在家工作是辦公室生活的圣杯 — — 沒有所需的臉時間、 性能評判結(jié)果不在辦公室和沒有一天兩小時通勤的存在。

它能感覺到專業(yè)經(jīng)常隔離在家工作 (信用︰ 蓋蒂圖片社)

減輕最不利的是跟遠程工作是關(guān)鍵。這是提姆 · 坎貝爾作為兼職在家員工的亞歷山大 · 曼解決方案，全球外包和咨詢公司學到的了。

坎貝爾，曾在英國BBC 一贏得 2005 年節(jié)目學徒 》 ，已幫助在過渡到靈活的時間安排建議其他企業(yè)，兩年前被他自己公司的舉措的一部分，讓居家工人。現(xiàn)在，10%的公司的 3500 名員工在家工作。它并不總是一帆風順。

"我們談?wù)撊绾胃嗟纳a(chǎn)工人可以但是我們忽略到那里，所需要的步驟"坎貝爾說。

相反，我們應(yīng)該把它想象成任何新的風險，與嵌入的過程。在家工作每周兩到三天在第一次之前會全職不在辦公室。不斷地分析如果你像以前，您用過之前的老板讓你測定和撤消這一特權(quán)的生產(chǎn)性 — — 或者，更糟糕的是，把你當作缺乏潛力。

提姆 · 坎貝爾公司做會議通過視頻會議對在家工人 (信用︰ Alamy)

找到如何呆在辦公室，有關(guān)。在亞歷山大 · 曼恩坎貝爾說，通過召開視頻會議，會議確保甚至在家工作的員工有定期的臉時間和老板。這家公司也使用一個叫做 Yammer 的聊天服務(wù)，意味著你永遠不會遠離上級交談。它有助于停止由辦事處現(xiàn)在又一次和大工作人員會議，親自出馬，而不是永遠的斷開連接的聲音隱約免提。

確信你會發(fā)現(xiàn)如何呆在辦公室，有關(guān)

坎貝爾說:"很多人的設(shè)想是，當他們從家里開始工作時就會進了相同的人，他們是在辦公室，只是在不同的環(huán)境中的變身"。"這可以發(fā)生，但只與大量的工作去你那兒"。

當它不工作

結(jié)合家庭和辦公室不適合佩德羅 Caseiro，共同成立一家公司叫做 Obby 去年后平試圖從他的倫敦工作的人。想要省錢，他和他的伙伴們決定同時開發(fā)一個應(yīng)用程序，可以幫助人們在家工作類在小事中覓像陶器、 烹調(diào)和攝影。

Caseiro 很快意識到，中斷，像從水管工或烹飪午餐，參觀加入太多的干擾。

我知道我最好離開傳統(tǒng)的辦公室工作

"它是這些微的事情，不會發(fā)生如果你在辦公室的方式花你一天的時間，"Caseiro 說。在 6 月，公司致力于辦公空間。

Caseiro 雖然不反對在家工作。在他的工作，Caseiro 說，很多有才華的網(wǎng)頁開發(fā)人員期待一個靈活、 在家的時間表。他主要的開發(fā)者，事實上，住在位于葡萄牙南部陽光充足，沙灘附近和仍指甲所有他的最后期限。

"我看我自己的工作效率和知道我最好離開傳統(tǒng)的辦公室工作，"Caseiro 說。"但我知道我也必須是靈活的聘用。我試著尋找人們是否可以去做任務(wù)我們需要他們來做，并不認為他們?nèi)ツ睦镒鏊麄儚?。

He could spend time with his two-month-old baby while he worked for his brand-new company, British Business Energy, which helps companies compare rates for electric and gas suppliers. From a two-bedroom home in the borough of Greenwich, he set up at his dining room table with big plans to master being an at-home dad and business owner.

None of it worked. “There was a moment right at the start where hopes and dreams end and reality sets in,” Wright says. “I quickly came to the conclusion that it just wasn’t working.”

You scratch your head and wonder, where did all the time go?

Two months later he tried putting the baby in full-time childcare. He returned to the dining room table, certain this time it would work. House repairs, chores, the postman, all of it, just seemed to get in the way. “Those little things would just break up my flow,” Wright says. “You get to the end of the day, and you scratch your head and wonder, where did all the time go?”

One reason work from home fails: too many distractions (Credit: Getty Images)

A month later, Wright realised he just couldn’t be productive working from home. He rented a desk at a co-working space near the London Bridge, and finally, he was cranking away.

Working from home has its benefits, with research showing that it generally increases happiness and productivity. But a new study also shows that you ought to be careful before making the break with your office.

First, the training

Flexible schedules are likely to become far more commonplace in the coming years; already some companies have adopted “hot-desking” providing fewer desks than there are employees in an effort to save money and encourage remote work days. Laws in the UK allow many workers to ask for more flex time, and companies across the globe are using work-at-home policies as a way to recruit.

Working from home is not as simple as opening your laptop and getting down to business

But the problems with working from home begin right from the start. That’s because we think everybody can do all aspects of their job away from the office.

That’s what Esther Canonico found in a recently published study of 514 workers. Canonico, a fellow with the London School of Economics Department of Management, says the at-home workers in her study didn’t receive any training or guidance in how to pull off the transition. It added up since nearly half of the 514 people she studied either worked from home full-time or had some flexibility in their schedules.

To make working from home successful, avoid haphazard setups and opt for a designated office space (Credit: Getty Images)

If you’ve done it yourself, you know that working from home is not as simple as opening your laptop and getting down to business. Training—something some of us loathe and others of us can’t get enough of—can make the difference between failure and success away from the office.

“There is simply not enough active managing of the procedure of working from home,” Canonico said. “What happens when you don’t actively manage the practice, is that it gets out of hand.”

So what, exactly, would that sort of management look like in our lives? Well, for starters, we’d likely be told we need a dedicated office or workspace, with boundaries for our families and other interruptions. That’s easer said than done. (Just ask professor Robert E Kelly, the “BBC dad,” who became an Internet meme after his young children burst into the room during a live TV interview.)

If you don't make the effort to be "seen" you could be passed over for prize assignments (Credit: Getty Images)

Then there are the everyday pitfalls that can lead to serious career damage or stagnation, Canonico said. For instance, if you aren’t in the office and your presence isn’t felt, you’re likely to miss out on new projects and opportunites as they’re doled out to someone the boss sees every day.

[You can] become professionally and personally isolated

In fact, new research from the University of Arizona shows 40% of employees who were working from home feel disconnected from the company’s strategic direction and one-third feel like they don’t get support from bosses, according to Joe Carella, assistant dean of executive education at University of Arizona’s Eller College of Management.

“People working from home become professionally and personally isolated,” Canonico says. “They say ‘out of sight, out of mind’.”

Small steps toward flex

But, you might be thinking, working from home is the holy grail of office life—no required face time, performance judged by results not presence in the office, and no two-hour-a-day commute.

It can feel professionally isolating working from home often (Credit: Getty Images)

Mitigating the downsides that come with remote work is key. That’s what Tim Campbell has learned as both a part-time at-home employee of Alexander Mann Solutions, a global outsourcing and consultancy firm.

Campbell, who was the 2005 winner of the BBC One show The Apprentice in the UK, has helped advise other businesses during a transition into flexible schedules and was part of his own company’s move two years ago to allow at-home workers. Now, 10% of the firm’s 3,500 employees work from home. It doesn’t always go smoothly.

“We talk about how much more productive workers can be, but we ignore the steps it takes to get there,” Campbell says.

Instead, we ought to think of it like any new venture, with an embedding process. Work from home for two or three days a week at first, before going full-time away from the office. Continually analyse if you’re as productive as you were previously, before the bosses make the determination for you and revoke the privilege—or, worse, write you off as lacking potential.

Tim Campbell's company does meetings by video conference for at-home workers (Credit: Alamy)

Find ways to stay relevant in the office. At Alexander Mann, Campbell says that’s done with meetings held by video conferencing, making sure even staffers working at home have regular face time with the bosses. The company also uses a chat service called Yammer that means you’re never far from a conversation with the higher-ups. And it helps to stop by the office now and again and show up in person for the big staff meetings, rather than always be the disconnected voice on the staticky speakerphone.

Be sure you’re finding ways to stay relevant in the office

“The assumption for many people is that when they start working from home they’ll just morph into the same person they were at the office, just in a different environment,” Campbell said. “That can happen, but only with a lot of work to get you there.”

When it doesn’t work

Combining home and office didn’t work for Pedro Caseiro, who tried working out of his London flat after co-founding a company called Obby last year. Looking to save money, he and his partners decided to work from home while developing an app that helps people find classes in things like pottery, cooking, and photography.

Caseiro quickly realised that interruptions, like a visit from the plumber or cooking lunch, added up to too many distractions.

I… know I’m better off working out of a traditional office

“It’s all these micro things that take time out of your day in a way that wouldn’t happen if you were in an office,” Caseiro says. In June the company committed to an office space.

Caseiro isn’t against working from home, though. In his line of work, Caseiro says many talented web developers expect a flexible, at-home schedule. His main developer, in fact, lives near the beach in sunny southern Portugal, and yet still nails all of his deadlines.

“I look at my own productivity and know I’m better off working out of a traditional office,” Caseiro says. “But I know I also have to be flexible in hiring. I try to look for whether people can do the tasks we need them to do and not think about where they’re going to do them from.”

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