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SMBs Not Sold on Letting Employees Work from Home

Guest post by: Ann All

Article Overview: Though SMBs are more flexible than larger companies in many ways, they are somewhat less willing to let their employees work from home, finds a recent Citrix Online study. Will this make it tougher for SMBs to recruit top talent?

SMBs Not Sold on Letting Employees Work from Home

MBs are less comfortable than their larger counterparts with having employees work from home, reports vnunet.com.

According to research commissioned by Citrix Online, 40 percent of SMBs allow their employees to work from home, while 76 percent of larger businesses do so.

The EMEA managing director at Citrix Online expresses surprise that SMBs, which he says enjoy "greater operational flexibility than their corporate competitors," aren't more inclined to let employees labor from home.

It's worth noting, however, that SMBs may lack the IT resources to properly manage remote employees. Matching up pretty closely with the above numbers, 43 percent of SMBs have technologies in place to accommodate home working, vs. 76 percent of larger companies.

Nonetheless, work from home was the third-most popular flexible work option among British SMBs responding to the survey, following letting employees take a day off on short notice (78 percent) and offering flexible start and finish times.

While telecommuting and other flexible work options are emerging as a popular incentive used to attract scarce tech talent and surveys show telecommuting is a popular idea among workers, even telecommuting proponents such as Sun say it isn't for everyone. The Silicon Valley company uses an evaluation tool that weighs employee preferences, work environment and other factors to help determine which employees are good candidates for work at home.

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