Groupon employees of a certain tenure or fragrance are sometimes encouraged to get a fresh perspective by working from the only location where they spend even more time than the office—their own homes?! Workplace psychology experts agree that sometimes the most innovative ideas can come from menial tasks around the house. For instance, a possibly apocryphal tale suggests that the idea of the automated dishwasher suddenly entered the mind of an inventor who was tired of washing dishes and, also, desired money.
Working from home also allows employees to recharge their mental health and take a brief reprieve from workplace stresses such as noisy cubicle mates, a strict diet of vending-machine onion chips, and skull-rattling hourly fire drills. Though most employees write out all of their work by hand and send it into Groupon’s offices in twine-bound packages via a trusted courier or ably trained Clydesdale, some Groupon employees have begun experimenting with remote “Productivity Terminals”—essentially a hybrid of your typewriter and your television that sends completed work via radio signals and telephone wires and eliminates all distraction.
Tags: Behind the Deals
