Content
If the above disadvantages do not outweigh the possible advantages, it is definitely worth trying this format. Therefore, the question of choosing whether to work at home or in the office should be considered more in terms of personal preferences. As you can see, the list of disadvantages of remote work from home is entirely predictable. Although for some people these are not disadvantages and are unlikely to be of great importance to them.
Allowing remote work can help businesses retain employees and prevent absenteeism. When remote workers don’t feel micromanaged and believe their employer trusts them, they are more likely to develop positive feelings toward organization leadership. In turn, workers will be less tempted to look elsewhere for employment, promoting a sense of loyalty and dedication. Even if workers aren’t looking for new jobs, they might be less inclined to call out of work at random. Without the right onboarding process or help, it can be challenging for remote employees to find and locate all the information they need to manage their work.
Increased flexibility in schedule
According to research from NordLayer, remote employees in the U.S., the U.K., and Canada put in an average of two extra hours of work per day in the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. As you may know firsthand, when work expands and seeps into your free time like this, it can throw off your work-life balance and accelerate burnout. Global lockdowns forced all but essential workers to adopt remote work almost overnight. People scrambled to set up home offices and adjust to back-to-back virtual meetings and online collaboration. The cons of working from home are isolation and loneliness, lack of motivation, at-home distractions, and unmonitored performance.
“You want someone who’s capable of building something from scratch and seeing it through. Finding these people frees the rest of your team to work more and manage less,” the book explains. Some of us do our best work late at night, while others prefer to get up early and spend the late afternoons away how companies benefit when employees work remotely from the desk. And while some metropolitan areas offer certain lifestyle perks, other big-city issues—like high costs-of-living—will drive potential employees away. The rest of the year, we manage to work together across 17 time zones, using Slack, Zoom, and some sheer effort to all stay connected.
Positive Environmental Impact
But even still, if you want to make a distributed team work, you need to accept a time shift. “I’ll take phone calls late in the evening from folks that don’t realize I’m on the east coast and consider that part of the job for someone working remotely in a different time zone,” Furbish says. For example, Close.com says they use Snapchat internally for team building.
Hence, it is important to scrutinize each point, keeping in account the activities and tasks you are going to perform daily on a remote work tool. This is even harder when dealing with people across hierarchies with a busy work schedule available on a remote work tool. Without supervision and colleagues, it is tough to stick to your targets while staying inspired with a remote work tool. Motivation takes a back seat, while laid back attitude takes a front seat.
Remote working advantages and disadvantages from different points of view
As mentioned in an article about work from home and productivity statistics by Apollo Technical, studies show that remote workers are more productive. For example, choosing the best working location to focus, avoid distractions and get things done definitely improves efficiency. But being happy and satisfied with a job also contributes to being more engaged and productive in tasks.
- Getting used to spending most of your day sitting in front of your computer is a hard habit to break.
- To maintain the air of professionalism whilst in meetings, you need a quiet private room with no disruptions.
- While there are plenty of advantages that come with remote working, it has also posed new challenges that we didn’t think about a year or so prior.
- We’re heading further into Q4 2021, and many companies have already decided whether they’ll remain remote, return to in-person work or take on some form of a hybrid model moving forward.
- New tools, such virtual whiteboards, as well as new meeting formats, such as idea jams, can set the stage for recapturing creative collaboration.
- This can feel like a loss, especially if your priorities have supported your overall wellbeing.
Working remotely can give employees the time and environment needed to make healthy choices. Just over half of respondents (51%) said that they are more productive working from home during the pandemic. When asked why, many cited fewer interruptions and quiet work environments (68% for both) as part of the reason for their increased productivity. As more and more companies allow employees to continue working remotely post-pandemic—like Twitter, Square, Shopify, and Facebook, to name just a few—they’ll also see significant long-term cost savings. The 2019 State of Remote Work report found that one of the top reasons survey respondents gave for working remotely was work-life balance. As we touched on earlier, the flexibility that remote work provides gives people the ability to better manage their obligations whether they’re work-related or not.
Remote Work Cons
If you have a remote team, there are certainly pros and cons of employees working from home. The ways remote teams get to know one another and collaborate are different than they’d be if everyone worked together in the same office. Luckily, there are remote culture tools and resources that can be used when team members aren’t able to get together in-person.
The Pew Research Center found that before the COVID-19 pandemic, only 20% of people whose work could be done remotely were working from home most or all of the time. Are you an introvert who finds social interactions more draining than energy-giving? Then you might thrive in a work environment without other colleagues. If you feel more focused in a quiet environment with few distractions, working from home may give you the opportunity to be your most productive. Employees particularly believed working from home was better, with 70% of employees stating virtual meetings were less stressful with 64% preferring hybrid meetings. Although allowing remote work in your organization gives you access to a wider, more diverse talent pool, it also adds a new layer of difficulty — finding employees that thrive in a remote environment.
People might look for a new job that allows them to work remotely or on-site. Therefore, adopting a remote work model fulfills employees’ expectations, as well as retains and attracts talent. An improvement in productivity due to remote work is also a major benefit for employers. Therefore, remote work should not just be presented as a means to increase productivity.
Software developers have little trouble switching to working remote, but it can be much more difficult if you work in banking or, let’s say, as a barista. When the pandemic first broke out and we were quite literally forced to stay at and work from home, the debate took a pause because the entire world was trying to reorganize its processes and not go crazy. For me, greater comfort means shifting back and forth between my desk and a portable standing desk, as well as working on the comfy couch in the living room with my dog in my lap. You’re also able to match your breaks to your natural peaks and dips in focus. “Working from home allows you better control over managing your energy,” says Rachel Wallins, founder of Accelerate Talent Management and a productivity and leadership expert.