1. Work in own comfortable environment.

2. Able to obtain more concentration and focus (That is if you are confined to your own space with no external disturbance). When I visited a MNC in Redmond last year, every developer has his/her own room because the employer believes that they need silence and own space to think as they hardly need to interact with each other. To me that’s no difference from working at home.

3. Save time on commuting particularly if you need to go through massive traffic (in KL especially on rainy days! Indirectly, you get more sleep too! And that would indirectly help the government to counter the traffic problem in the city)

4. Save costs on commuting (the heightened petrol prices just won’t get you anywhere as it will continue to raise) and meals and probably office attire since you do not need to dress up 5 days a week. Only startup and ongoing investment is on telephone and broadband connections and probably some necessary devices like printers but the accumulated expenditure is still cheaper than the daily expenses if you were to work in the office.

5. Self-managing and maximize flexibility as well as productivity in own way.

6. Nurture self-discipline as opposed to perception of laziness (it’s all in the mind!).

7. Develop mutual trust and respect between employer and employee. I never like anyone breathing down my neck, so respect is significant to me.

8. With reference to that, employee tends to be more willing to work at any time during critical needs. Of course that rarely happens but even if it does, employee won’t feel stressed or upset about the request.

9. Extremely advantageous to working mothers as they can also focus on the upbringing of the young children at the same time. Again it is self-managing and mitigates the need to employ a baby-sitter thus save costs! Anything that is good for the family is good for the country’s future. Children are the country’s future generation. If only Malaysia government and the private sectors could be more broadminded and liberal to realize that in the long run (longer maternity leave please! 2 months is pathetic! In UK, the government is making the effort to extend the ordinary maternity leave to 9 months from mid 2007..aarrghh I’ll miss the boat).

10. In some cultures, it would cut down unnecessary time wasted on socializing, long lunches and teh-tarik sessions coz those would chew up most of the precious working time. That would result in overtime if tasks do not get completed by end of the day.

And the list goes on……What matters is the job gets done within expectation and what more can you say, if either way produces the same result. But many wonder what and how do you work from home. That’s because it doesn’t apply to every profession. If you need to work with counterparts face to face, no doubt you need to be on site. However, technology is so advanced these days that you can access the company’s network seamlessly off-site and you can have netmeetings, teleconferencing and videoconfering anytime anywhere. So why not seize the opportunity by fully utilizing the available feature? If Malaysia wants to be a well known MSC hub, it’s not the setup of physical organizations in Cyberjaya that counts but what should improvise and grow is also the cultural working mindset. I’m not saying that every company in the UK allows the employees to work from home as there are still some conservative ones in this developed nation. If you are already enjoying the heavenly benefits, it would be a tough challenge trying to find the next job in another organization that can meet equivalent anticipation. I believe money isn’t the sole factor nor would it supersede other requirements all the time – mel.