Report on Staff Benefits of Implementing WFH at AKC Architectural Firm

This report analyzes the potential benefits of implementing a work-from-home (WFH) policy at AKC Architectural Firm. It addresses key aspects such as necessary software and access, additional resources required, cost savings, staff education on tax benefits, acceptable WFH facilities, processes to prevent misuse, potential issues, ensuring adequate on-site staff, and alternative arrangements. The analysis includes a cost-benefit evaluation, demonstrating potential productivity gains and cost savings from WFH, alongside a discussion of tax benefits for employees and measures to prevent misuse. The report concludes that implementing WFH can enhance productivity but requires careful monitoring and management to address potential challenges.

Running head: STAFF BENEFITS
Staff Benefits-WFH
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author note

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Table of Contents
Introduction:....................................................................................................................................1
Part 1. Appropriate software/access to allow work from home:.....................................................1
Part 2. Additional resources:............................................................................................................1
Part 3. Cost savings for the firm due to WFH:................................................................................2
Part 4. Education of staff on the benefit of using home services in relation to taxation:................3
Part 5. Acceptable weekly WFH facilities:......................................................................................4
Part 6. Processes to prevent staff from misusing WFH:..................................................................5
Part 7. Issues arising from WFH:....................................................................................................5
Part 8. Ensuring adequacy of staff on site:......................................................................................5
Part 9. Different arrangements required in place:............................................................................6
Conclusion:......................................................................................................................................6
References:......................................................................................................................................7

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Introduction:
Adame, Caplliure and Miquel (2016) mentions that work from home is one of the
important facilities which modern firms allow their employees. Moreover, governments of
several countries like Australia encourage WFH by giving tax benefits. The study would visit
several aspects related to WFH by taking AKC Architectural Firm as the base of the study.
Part 1. Appropriate software/access to allow work from home:
The case study presents a situation that the staff absent themselves due to personal
commitments which points out that the AKC Architectural Firm does not have work from home
(WFH) in place. Adame, Caplliure and Miquel (2016) point out that the work from home or
WFH facility would enable the employees to work from while attending to their family chores
simultaneously. Ungureanu et al. (2018) points out in this respect that architectural firms require
to have a minimum number of onsite employees at any given point of time. This is important to
ensure smooth progression of their projects so as to ensure completion within time and avoidance
of extension costs. Thus, it can be inferred that AKC Architectural Firm does not have work
from home in place due to its very nature of work, which is management of architectural
projects.
Part 2. Additional resources:
The management of AKC Architectural Firm needs to acquire the software and provide
access to the staff to enable them work from home. Hayes, Douglas and Bonner (2015) point out
that implementation of work from home facilities would attract immense initial investment from
the firm. The departmental heads would have to first make a list of employees who do not have
their own laptops and/or internet set ups at home. Then the company would have to carry out an

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accounting of its present inventory of laptops and modems. The aim of this stock taking would
be to find out that gaps between the laptops and modems which would be required to provide
work from home facility to each staff and the actual inventory which the firm has in place. Then
AKC Architectural Firm should acquire the required number of laptops and modems which
would be used by the employees to avail work from home facility. The firm in addition to the
laptops and modems also acquire the software and operating system packages form those
laptops. It should also acquire and have software packages which would allow the managers to
supervise and allocate tasks to their subordinates availing WFH on a given day (Mendes et al.
2015).
Part 3. Cost savings for the firm due to WFH:
The management of AKC Architectural Firm would be required to carry out a cost
benefit analysis before allowing its WFH facilities. While carrying out the cost vs savings
analysis, the firm is required to calculate the loss of productivity which is suffering due to staff
absenteeism due to lack of WFH facilities. For convenience, it has been assumed that the firm
employs 100 employee and each employee gives a productivity of $100 a day. Therefore, the
total target productivity would be $10000 a day. The analysis would consider two situations, first
in absence of WFH and second in presence of WFH. If it is assumed that in absence of WFH, 50
percent of employees can’t work, then the productivity is $5000. Now, in the second case, once
WFH is implemented, at least 95 employees can work, if it is assumed that 5 employees are on
leave. Thus, the firm on a given day can gain productivity of $9500.
As far the cost of acquiring laptops are concerned, it has been assumed, that the firm has
60 laptops and modems in place and requires to acquire 40 laptops and modems. It has been
assumed that the firm acquires 40 units of XPS 15 9550 at $ 2649 per unit (ap.dell.com 2018). It

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has also been assumed in order to ensure internet access to these 40 employees, the firm buys 40
units of 100 GB data plan from Vodafone Australia at $ 80 per month. This means the cost of
giving internet plans to 40 employees would come to $ 3200 (vodafone.com.au 2018). The cost
benefit analysis shows that the even if 5 employees stay on leave, the firm would earn a profit of
$5828 by allowing WFH facility. Thus, it can be inferred from the cost benefit analysis that the
firm would earn a profit of $ 5828 by allowing WFH against $ 1328 without WFH. This means
the firm would earn a profit of $ 4500 by allowing WFH facility.
Part 4. Education of staff on the benefit of using home services in relation to taxation:
AKC Architectural Firm should educate its employees on the tax benefits which they
obtain by working from home. The Australian Tax Office allow certain tax benefits to employees
who avail work from home facilities. The taxation benefits can be divided into two categories
namely, employees having working areas and employees without working areas. The employees
of both categories can avail rebates on facilities like gas, electricity and work related phone use.
However, certain rebates like depreciation of office fittings like curtains, insurance and interest
on mortgage can be enjoyed by employees with work areas only (Harris and Krueger 2015). This
shows that the firm can encourage more employees to take WFH instead of taking leaves. This
would its productivity and profits.

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Figure 1. Tax benefits of WFH in Australia
(Source: ato.gov.au 2018)
Part 5. Acceptable weekly WFH facilities:
It can be pointed out that it is not feasible for AKC architectural Firm to allow WFH to its
employees for entire 38 hours of weekly working hours. However, it can be pointed out that as
per the cost benefit analysis the firm can allow 50 percent of its employees avail WFH on a day.
The firm can alternatively allow employees to avail 50 percent of their total weekly shift hours
from home.

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Part 6. Processes to prevent staff from misusing WFH:
The firm should take stringent steps to ensure that its employees do not misuse the
facility of WFH. The management can take a few steps to ensure prevention or at least minimize
the exploitation of WFH facilities. First, the employees would be required to login at their
normal shift hours and they must send their login reports on their official emails. The second
measure which the firm can take is installation of employee monitoring software on the laptops.
The third step which the managers can take to prevent misuse of WFH facilities by certain
employees is that employees should be available on emails to take tasks.
Part 7. Issues arising from WFH:
The implementation of the WFH facilities would present certain issues before AKC
architectural Firm. The first issue which implementation of WFH would present is that the
managers would find it difficult to manage both onsite and WFH staffs. The second issue that the
situation would present is that the firm would find it difficult to manage and measure
productivity of employees. The third issue which the situation would present is that the managers
would find it difficult to measure the reasons responsible for poor performances of certain
employees. Moreover, WFH may encourage certain employees to share confidential company
data with unauthorized identities (Adame, Caplliure and Miquel 2016).
Part 8. Ensuring adequacy of staff on site:
The firm should ensure at least 50 percent of its staff members are onsite on any given
day of work. This would ensure smooth progression of projects on time and timely competition.

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Part 9. Different arrangements required in place:
The firm can make two different arrangements in order to ensure the staffs can take care
of their children and work at the same time. The first option would be opening of a crèche where
the staffs can leave their children in charge of carers. The second option would appointment of a
different manager board who would supervise staffs availing WFH.
Conclusion:
AKC Architectural Firm should implement WFH to enhance its productivity. The firm
should however, monitor its employee closely while they work from their respective homes.

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References:
Adame, C., Caplliure, E.M. and Miquel, M.J., 2016. Work–life balance and firms: A matter of
women?. Journal of Business Research, 69(4), pp.1379-1383.
Adame, C., Caplliure, E.M. and Miquel, M.J., 2016. Work–life balance and firms: A matter of
women?. Journal of Business Research, 69(4), pp.1379-1383.
Ato.gov.au. 2018. Working from home. [online] Available at:
https://www.ato.gov.au/General/Property/Your-home/Working-from-home/ [Accessed 4 Sep.
2018].
Harris, S.D. and Krueger, A.B., 2015. A Proposal for Modernizing Labor Laws for Twenty-
First-Century Work: The «Independent Worker». Washington: Brookings.
Hayes, B., Douglas, C. and Bonner, A., 2015. Work environment, job satisfaction, stress and
burnout among haemodialysis nurses. Journal of nursing management, 23(5), pp.588-598.
Mendes, T.D., Godina, R., Rodrigues, E.M., Matias, J.C. and Catalão, J.P., 2015. Smart home
communication technologies and applications: Wireless protocol assessment for home area
network resources. Energies, 8(7), pp.7279-7311.
Ungureanu, P., Cochis, C., Rodighiero, S., Bertolotti, F., Mattarelli, E., Montanari, F., Rinaldini,
M. and Scapolan, A.C., 2018. Innovating onsite or coordinating online? An exploration of how
knowledge practices shape the onsite and online collaboration interplay across the lifecycle of
collaborative communities. CERN IdeaSquare Journal of Experimental Innovation, 2, pp.22-29.

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vodafone.com.au. 2018. Mobile Phone Plans.. [online] Available at:
https://www.vodafone.com.au/plans [Accessed 4 Sep. 2018].
Www1.ap.dell.com. 2018. Dell Outlet Refurbished XPS Laptops - Amazing prices | Dell
Australia. [online] Available at:
https://www1.ap.dell.com/content/topics/segtopic.aspx/products/quickship/au/en/xps_notebook?
c=au&l=en&s=dfo [Accessed 4 Sep. 2018].