Working remotely – evaluating the pros and cons

Last week we dived into the first part of this mini-series comparing typical office work and the more modern-day remote work. While in part 1 we took a closer look at the staple of modern work culture: the office, today we’ll focus on the comforts (and discomforts) of working from your living room, bedroom or your local coffee shop.

When we think of working remotely it’s easy to picture an image of a new and sleek laptop paired with a double latte or flat white in a downtown-based coffee shop in some bit metropolitan area. However, there’s more than meets the eye.

Let’s dig in!

Pros

Flexibility

Usually, that comes with the idea of remote working. You don’t necessarily have to be present at the office by a certain time. However, to be sure it works you still need to be on time for any meetings or conference calls. Thankfully, modern conferencing tools allow you to join calls with people located around the world at really good quality.

This arrangement comes in handy when your life requires you to be more present at home for multiple reasons, whether that’d be:

• • having some errands to do (laundry, general cleaning or minor repairs)
  • dropping off and picking up your kids from school, daycare, etc.
  • having to walk your dog multiple times a day (and your doggo has severe abandonment issues like this fella⬇️)

via GIPHY

No commute

That is a really huge one. As mentioned in part one, we’ve talked about the downsides of a daily commute to work. Well, when you work remotely (which usually means from home) you don’t need to commute. Plain and simple. What’s even better, you can make it into your advantage, like doing some inhouse gym exercises. 

No dress code

Who likes dressing every day to work, especially in places where the dress code is quite rigid (consulting firms, law firms, etc.). I mean, I get that a lot of folks would like to live the Harvey Specter-ish lifestyle and walk around the whole week in fancy custom suits, but do you really see yourself like that in the long run?

If so, maybe a three-time NBA champion will convince you to select an outfit that won’t compromise your need for style and casualness at the same time?⬇️

via GIPHY

Some folks might call it a Skype-suit ?

It’s easy thanks to technology

Let’s face it, the whole ‘working remotely thing’ is mostly possible thanks to all the technology that supports that kind of lifestyle. Whether it would be the initial impact of using Skype or more advanced tools like Cisco’s Webex. It’s safe to say that once Google introduced Hangouts (especially as part of its GSuite package), a lot of companies realized that welcoming the idea of remote work will increase their chances of landing top-level talent.

So it too good to be true? It is a really cool thing, but before we jump into conclusions it’s always good to look at the potential downsides to get a better, unbiased look at things.

Cons

Feels less social

This might not apply to everyone, but it has been raised as an issue. Working at the office involves, well, interacting with your colleagues, associates, and bosses. While it’s never always a pleasant experience and it has it’s a fair share of stresses, it’s still a social interaction. What’s more, limiting the number of social interactions can have a negative impact on your mental wellbeing.

Outside of the team

What’s more, you can kind of feel disconnected from your team. Even if you jump on a call with short notice, you’re still probably miles away from the rest of your team. Bear with me here, it’s not that likely to impact your performance, however, you kinda lose that ‘office vibe’. What’s more, it might get difficult to schedule a Fika break with your teammates. 

On second thought, maybe a remote Fika-break would actually work?

Working remotely – more distractions 

You might also a bit distracted by working remote. Obviously, for some people, it’s a no-brainer and they can adapt in no time as they’d have ‘discipline’ or ‘focus’ as their middle names. But are you the one that gets easily distracted by social media, news, latest memes or anything other, not work-related? Being in the office indicates, well, being at work so you naturally feel obliged to set your priorities straight. However there are some small tweaks you can do to ease your remote experience. You can either implement the Pomodoro technique or just simply start using a time tracker to make sure that you’ll receive a comprehensive summary of where your time was spent.

Summary

So as you can see, working remotely is not for everyone. However, it seems that the pros overweigh the cons since a lot of tech companies have started to lean towards remote work. Surely GitHub, Dell, United Health Group and Glassdoor can’t be wrong, right?

So here it is. As I’ve mentioned before, it’s a two-part series where we examine the pros and cons of working remotely as well as the old-fashioned office way of working. I hope you weren’t expecting any clear winner or verdict. Make sure to try both and compare it with your own experiences.

As always, feel free to let us know your thoughts in the comments.

Until next time!