虽然有一个灵活的时间表，但未必是一个好主意。

当伊恩 · 赖特去年 11 月从他的家在伦敦开始工作时，他认为他有理想的安装程序。When Ian Wright started working from his home in London last November, he thought he had the ideal setup.

他可以花时间陪他两个月的婴儿，而他为他全新的公司，英国的商业能源，可帮助公司比较超值电和天然气供应商工作。从格林威治区的两居室房子，他在他餐桌主被全职奶爸和企业所有者的大计划设置。

它的工作都不是。"有在一开始的希望和梦想结束与现实在哪里设置中，就是一个时刻"赖特说。"我迅速得出结论，它只不工作"。

你挠挠你的头和奇迹，所有的时间去哪里？

两个月后，他试着把婴儿放在全职看护。他回到了餐桌，某些这一次它会工作。房屋维修、 家务、 邮递员，所有的只是似乎陷入的方式。赖特说，"那些小事会刚分手我流，"。"你去年底的一天，和你划伤你的头和奇迹，所有的时间去哪里？"

从回家的失败原因之一工作︰ 太多的干扰 (信用︰ 盖蒂图片社)

一个月后，赖特意识到他只是不能生产在家工作。他租了一个伦敦桥附近的共同工作空间的办公桌，最后，他开始运转了。

在家工作有它的好处，研究显示它一般增加快乐和生产力。但一项新研究还表明，你应该小心才作出断裂与你的办公室。

第一，培训

灵活的时间安排很可能会成为更普遍的未来几年;一些公司已经通过"办公桌"提供较少的书桌比有员工努力存钱和鼓励远程工作天。在英国法律允许许多工人要求更多弹性时间，并在全球各地的公司正在使用在家工作政策作为一种招聘方式。

在家工作不是简单，打开你的笔记本电脑，正事

但在家工作的问题开始从一开始的权利。这是工作的因为我们认为每个人都可以做的他们不在办公室的所有方面。

这是以斯帖 Canonico 514 工人最近发表的研究报告中的发现。Canonico，英国伦敦经济学院部管理，一个小伙子说在家工人在她的研究没有接受任何培训或指导如何拔掉过渡。由于近一半的她研究了 514 人在家全职工作或在他们的日程安排有一定的灵活性，它加起来。

为了使从家里的工作成功，避免随意设置，选择一个指定的办公空间 (信用︰ 盖蒂图片社)

如果你做到了你自己，你知道在家工作不是简单，打开你的笔记本电脑，正事。培训 — — 有些人讨厌和别人的我们无法获得足够的 — — 可以使成功与失败的区别不在办公室。

"那里是根本不在家工作的程序足够积极管理，"Canonico 说。"当你不积极管理实践中，会发生什么是它获取失控"。

所以，确切地说，这样的管理看想什么在我们的生活？嗯，对于初学者来说，我们将有可能会告诉我们需要一个专门的办公室或工作区中，为我们的家庭和其他中断的边界。这是说比做更容易。（问问教授罗伯特 · E · 凯利，"BBC 爸爸，"以后自己年幼的孩子冲进了房间，现场的电视访谈中，成为了互联网 meme）。

如果你不努力去被"看到"你可以过去奖分配 (信用︰ 盖蒂图片社)

然后有日常的陷阱，可以导致严重的职业损伤或停滞，Canonico 说。例如，如果你不在办公室，不感受到你的存在，你可能将错过新的项目和商机作为他们发放给某人的老板看到每一天。

[可以] 成为专业技能和个人孤立

事实上，来自亚利桑那大学的新研究根据行政教育在亚利桑那大学的埃勒管理学院助理院长乔卡罗拉显示 40%的回家的感觉，断开连接从公司的战略方向和三分之一的感觉像他们没有得到支持，从老板，从工作的雇员。

"在家工作的人成为专业技能和个人孤立的"Canonico 说。"他们说眼不见，心不烦'"。

小步骤 flex

但是，您可能会想，在家工作是办公室生活的圣杯 — — 没有所需的脸时间、 性能评判结果不在办公室和没有一天两小时通勤的存在。

它能感觉到专业经常隔离在家工作 (信用︰ 盖蒂图片社)

减轻最不利的是跟远程工作是关键。这是提姆 · 坎贝尔作为兼职在家员工的亚历山大 · 曼解决方案，全球外包和咨询公司学到的了。

坎贝尔，曾在英国BBC 一赢得 2005 年节目学徒 》 ，已帮助在过渡到灵活的时间安排建议其他企业，两年前被他自己公司的举措的一部分，让居家工人。现在，10%的公司的 3500 名员工在家工作。它并不总是一帆风顺。

"我们谈论如何更多的生产工人可以但是我们忽略到那里，所需要的步骤"坎贝尔说。

相反，我们应该把它想象成任何新的风险，与嵌入的过程。在家工作每周两到三天在第一次之前会全职不在办公室。不断地分析如果你像以前，您用过之前的老板让你测定和撤消这一特权的生产性 — — 或者，更糟糕的是，把你当作缺乏潜力。

提姆 · 坎贝尔公司做会议通过视频会议对在家工人 (信用︰ Alamy)

找到如何呆在办公室，有关。在亚历山大 · 曼恩坎贝尔说，通过召开视频会议，会议确保甚至在家工作的员工有定期的脸时间和老板。这家公司也使用一个叫做 Yammer 的聊天服务，意味着你永远不会远离上级交谈。它有助于停止由办事处现在又一次和大工作人员会议，亲自出马，而不是永远的断开连接的声音隐约免提。

确信你会发现如何呆在办公室，有关

坎贝尔说:"很多人的设想是，当他们从家里开始工作时就会进了相同的人，他们是在办公室，只是在不同的环境中的变身"。"这可以发生，但只与大量的工作去你那儿"。

当它不工作

结合家庭和办公室不适合佩德罗 Caseiro，共同成立一家公司叫做 Obby 去年后平试图从他的伦敦工作的人。想要省钱，他和他的伙伴们决定同时开发一个应用程序，可以帮助人们在家工作类在小事中觅像陶器、 烹调和摄影。

Caseiro 很快意识到，中断，像从水管工或烹饪午餐，参观加入太多的干扰。

我知道我最好离开传统的办公室工作

"它是这些微的事情，不会发生如果你在办公室的方式花你一天的时间，"Caseiro 说。在 6 月，公司致力于办公空间。

Caseiro 虽然不反对在家工作。在他的工作，Caseiro 说，很多有才华的网页开发人员期待一个灵活、 在家的时间表。他主要的开发者，事实上，住在位于葡萄牙南部阳光充足，沙滩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离开传统的办公室工作，"Caseiro 说。"但我知道我也必须是灵活的聘用。我试着寻找人们是否可以去做任务我们需要他们来做，并不认为他们去哪里做他们从"。

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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