Most of the time, we talk about remote work highlighting its broad advantages for both the company and the worker. But working remotely also has certain disadvantages that in the case of large international companies, can have a negative impact on their productivity and profitability. Today in our blog, we talk about remote work from both points of view: its advantages and also its disadvantages.
Being a remote worker, you get to work on your own time, from anywhere in the world with an internet connection, be it your town or an exotic and remote place. We got you day dreaming now don’t we? 😀
For some, the issues can be related to dealing with the uncertainty of when the next job will be. Fun fact: LinkedIn ensures that 43% of workers in the United States in 2020 will be freelancers and that the model extends in more developed countries. The form that in some cases, is presented as a suggestive option in search of a better reconciliation with personal life and for others, the only option to get a job.
Numerous studies have shown with the publication of their results the many benefits that remote work entails, which is called to be the future and that in our days have already incorporated the most advanced and innovative companies, those who know that it is not worth losing to a great worker when distances are a problem.
The studies focus on the benefits in terms of cost savings and increased productivity and, in this article, we will see what the results have been.
The Pros of Working Remotely
Honestly, there are plenty of them, let’s dive into the most important ones!
Cost savings!
The main benefit that workers find in this method of work is cost savings, especially in travel, so they increasingly thank and value companies that include this way of working in their management policies. In fact, half of the respondents value this opportunity to work remotely for their continuity in the company, discarding offers from other companies, although their salary is higher.
Quality of life!
It is no doubt easier to enhance the quality of your life when you’re working remotely. You get to spend more time with your family as the time being utilized to commute, along with the breaks you get can be spent with families. Having lunch with your family each day and getting back to work is a treat itself. Bonus: You get to take out time for exercise or even sign up for the gym – prior to or after your working hours because you save up a lot of your physical energy working comfortably from your home. Such scenarios tend to highlight how an individual can focus on both their mental and physical health and not make compromises on these things.
Saving on commute!
It is not necessary to travel daily to the office, with all the stress it causes, rainy days, snow, hail, cold or intense heat (even heavy traffic, demonstrations, street cuts, lack of taxis, etc. in some countries) time is used working from the first moment of the morning, without suffering these headaches.
Super time and cost efficient!
For work from home bloggers, content creators, and working women who have other priorities to juggle, the concept of remote working suits them best. Bloggers especially are always on the go. Tweaking their websites powered by highly technical tools and algorithms. You may find bloggers in your street, cafes, parks, and just almost anywhere with their systems. With different content marketing tools and facilities, remote working has become a practical and cost-effective facility. Want to set up a blog? Just head to WordPress. Sign up with a 24/7 managed hosting and maintenance provider like BionicWP and work your way up!
Bye bye monotonous life!
In some offices, it is difficult to realize the outside climate or work with artificial light or in a monotonous environment and lack of comfort. When remote working, many people choose to stay in a bar, a cafe, hotel, restaurant, a library, a co-working office, a family member’s home, where the environment feels much friendlier.
Choose your work space!
You can decide how long to stay even choose another space the next day to change the air. The remote worker can choose from a series of infinite options. In cities with free Wi-Fi in the street, in summer many people remotely work from a square. There are even jobs you can do remotely. For instance, programmer analyst jobs, entry level copywriter jobs, remote telecommute jobs, work from home legal jobs, and work from home jobs with no experience.
Benefits for Employers
Usually, when talking about distance work, people tend to think only of the benefits they report to the worker and not to the employer. It goes without saying that the worker benefits greatly from this work model, but the company also wins.
Surveys tell us that 77% of those employees who work with a remote desktop in Windows 10, or another operating system, increase their productivity by developing more activity in a shorter time.
As for the doubts that always arise when this mode of work is raised to enable remote desktop for workers, especially when the collaboration of a team consisting of several people is required, studies indicate that 42% feel so connected and integrated as if you were in the office and 30% feel even more connected. As a matter of fact, 85% of millennial’s prefer working remotely.
Another of the great advantages that the company obtains in relation to the increase of the benefits is the reduction of costs, since these workers do not need either of facilities that the company has to maintain in perfect conditions, neither of computer equipment, nor of any other office equipment. The remote workers use their own space, usually their house with their own equipment and material, so the company significantly reduces expenses.
Benefits for the Environment
An added Pro! The health of the environment is benefited every time an individual does not have to use their vehicle, or public transport at best, to go to their office to do a job that they can do well from their home computer. Distance work not only saves money on travel but, by reducing the hours of travel in transfers, greenhouse gas emissions are reduced.
The saving in electricity; in that amount needed by any office or office with tens or hundreds of employees to operate, also has a great impact on our ecological footprint. By promoting remote work not only will the company save considerably on electricity, but the environment will thank us since the rate of energy consumption for office equipment is double compared to that of the equipment we use to perform the same work from home.
And it is that with employees working from their home, a place that is already enabled, energy consumption is significantly reduced.
Finally, with remote work, the use of paper and ink is also significantly reduced, since it works with digital options, such as PDF formats. Reducing the use of paper and ink, in addition to reducing costs, results indirect benefits to the environment for obvious reasons on the reduction of pollution levels and felling of trees, but indirectly it also means less volume to store, less space and less need for companies to build or maintain office buildings, which translates into less energy pollution, cost per employees and therefore, less expenses for entrepreneurs.
The Cons of Working Remotely
As we said in our introduction, implementing a remote work policy in our organization also has some disadvantages for the company, two of them would be the following:
Difficult internal communication
Remote work has allowed large companies to better internationalize their products and services by hiring native personnel who know first-hand the ins and outs of each market. Being able to count on this type of employees who work at a distance helps the company to adapt better to the tastes and lifestyle of the country where it seeks to succeed, but it has a serious disadvantage: the possible lack of communication between that remote work team and the Company management.
Thus, distance becomes a disadvantage of remote work, in the absence of verbal and non-verbal communication that, if not corrected, can result in a loss of the feeling of belonging to the team, and emotional disaffection between the different team’s international work, a decrease in involvement and productivity.
Difficult to work certain professional roles
Although many employees would love the possibility of working remotely with flexible hours, not everyone has the necessary self-control to do so. And it is that remote work requires the professional discipline and personal autonomy that allows him to forget those domestic distractions that prevent him from concentrating on doing his work in time and form being as productive as the direction of his company expects.
Fortunately, this disadvantage of remote work has an easy solution if we implement any of the many technological solutions that facilitate collaborative and remote work, productivity tools that help the employee to work autonomously, but controlled and monitored from the direction of his department.
So, what’s it going to be? Have you decided for a major lifestyle change, do you think remote working is your cup of tea or do you like to be a part of the daily grind? Let us know in the comments, we’d love to know your thoughts! 🙂
