The recent COVID-19 pandemic has forced many of us to work remotely from home to limit contact with other individuals. There's a lot of pros and cons to consider in the new work from home setting. We'll further discuss these points to help you and your business consider many of the challenges these settings pose.
1. Commuting: One may save a lot of time on commuting by just working remotely from home. This is also a more environmentally conscious solution.
2. Flexibility: This is a bit of a pro and a con. On the one hand, this allows an employee to fix hours of work that are the most suitable to them, allowing them to make time for family, home maintenance, and other work that might come up. On the other hand, the flexibility working from home provides blurs the boundary between "work" time and "personal" time, creating situations where the employee is working too hard. This can lead to burnout and is terrible for productivity in the long run. In addition to this, flexibility with time isn't always a good thing because it often requires coordinating and working with other individuals. If everyone is working on their own time, it becomes harder to find common ground on when to hold team meetings or discussions.
3. Communication: It is fairly agreed that the fastest and most efficient form of communication is face-to-face. Solutions such as email and texting are asynchronous and tedious and often lead to miscommunication. So working from home becomes difficult if the team is unable to communicate effectively. Though many companies have chosen to invest in video-conferencing technology to allow for near-real-time communication, the video fails to build the kind of trust and confidence talking face-to-face provides. Building trust is a crucial factor while communicating with potential clients. '
4. Work Environment: Working from the office is a better environment to work in, as there can be multiple distractions at home. Also, coming into work creates a mental shift, allowing individuals to function at their highest productivity.
