Who would have ever thought that working a legit job from home is actually possible?  It’s all because of technology that the dream job (as in working in your PJs) actually came to fruition when mobile productivity was conceptualized way back in 1949.  Since then, mobile productivity has come a long way.  But are work-at-home employees good for the company?  Let’s take a look at some of the pros and cons of employing someone who is working from home.

Cons:

• Much like in the workplace, unsupervised employees tend to idle, wasting their time with unimportant things just to pass time like playing video games or spending way too much time on social network sites.
• Some of them are hard to get in contact with, especially with the time difference as some of them work from other parts of the world.
• Some work employees are scammers.
• Office employees are more expensive, especially with all the benefits they are demanding for.

Pros:

• If you are a start-up business, you don’t have to get a big office because you can have a virtual assistant.
• If you get mature, responsible employees that love and are committed to their work, you won’t even worry about getting idle employees.
• Virtual employees are cheaper.
• And because they are working from home, this eliminates the office gossip and office romances that always end badly.

Many are already utilizing virtual employees, because they are really cheap and oftentimes are really serious about their online jobs.  Acquiring the best virtual employee takes time–a process mostly done through trial and error and by skimming through thousands of profiles from LinkedIn or other professional networks.  These sites actually help employers get the best employees as the employees are rated by past employers, so it’s quite easy to know whether someone can be trusted or not.

With the dawn of the Cloud Era, with everything stored in cloud, it’s easier to share files and there will be no more data lost or spending precious time rummaging through files, cases or important documents.  But be sure to allow only limited access to employees so that pertinent data will not be exposed to everyone–also easier to set up with virtual environments as you can set permissions.

The rise of the virtual worker has lent to several companies producing services and devices that can accommodate the growing need around this trend.  The California-based Box, which topped the Forrester’s list for commitment to tablets and smartphone platforms and developing a mobile strategy that aligns with the needs of the mobile workforce which includes low latency, cloud reach and platform support.

Citrix is also a major industry influencer, it’s latest development being the acquisition  of RingCube, a company that offers customized virtual desktops and management platforms, for an undisclosed amount.  Meanwhile SAP is pushing their Business ByDesign software, a service enterprise application suite that’s recently made its way to Australia, helping businesses move their data to the cloud.

There are lots of pros and cons with virtual desktops and work-from-home employees but the most important issue is that by utilizing anything virtual, you are making yourself vulnerable to hacking and malware attacks.  Take precautions with virtual environments as you would with a real office setting, and see what the future holds for you.  Need help making the final call?  Here’s an infographic decision tree to help you along the way.