Work-from-home policies help offices save real estate costs and more

Facilities managers looking to manage large offices have a lot of logistics to juggle. With each employee, there are a number of questions to be answered – where will they sit? What equipment will they need? Who will they collaborate with, and where?

Luckily, some companies are finding success easing their facilities management burdens by allowing employees to work from home. According to Business Management Daily, the Council of Better Business Bureaus is a shining example of this practice – the organization’s employees now spend 30 percent of their working hours at home, and that figure is expected to rise to 50 percent within two years. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, this is an ongoing trend across America – as 23 percent of workers “did some or all of their work at home” in 2012.

The effects of this trend have been tremendous. The 114-employee nonprofit was able to move out of the building it had used since the 1980s and transition into a new one that’s half the size. Rather than supply each worker with a desk, computer and phone, the BBB group instead allowed workers the flexibility to use their own.

Working from home isn’t without its drawbacks – there are skeptics who consider remote workers less efficient, notably including Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer. But for facilities managers, work-from-home policies can work wonders for easing the burden of managing a workforce.