The Pros and Cons of Remote Work and Why I will Never Work Outside of my Home Again
I have been working at home now for almost 2 years having worked in a traditional office setting for 15 years prior to that. Making the leap was certainly enough to make me nervous. Would I be productive or constantly sucked into tasks around the house? I am a social person…would I miss the regular “water cooler” interactions? What would I do if I really needed to speak with someone right away?
Having now spent the past almost 2 years working strictly from my home office, I can honestly say that I am more productive and happy in my work life than I have ever been! The number of hours I spending working are much more productive than my previous desk jobs. Most of my remote colleagues tell me the same thing. But for the sake of this article, I will say that I have working in all of these settings myself: an individual office, a shared office, a cube farm, co-working spaces, coffee shops, public libraries, and my own home office. And evaluating all of those possibilities, I will never work from outside the home ever again.
So if remote work results in employers who are both happier and more productive, why aren’t more companies and employees embracing it?
In the writing of this post, I have talked with several colleagues working in data science, data engineering, and analytics. Some of them work remote while others work in a more traditional office setting. Some work for companies that allow the occasional day to work from home. Others work in co-working spaces or coffee shops.
For me, “remote work” implies that you spend 100% of your working hours working outside of a traditional office. This could include co-working spaces, a home office, a coffee shop, etc. But I do not mean the people who spend the occasional day, or even a day or two a week, working from home. In my various discussions with people who do this, they have mentally not made the leap to “remote work” like those of us who work 100% on the outside do.
In talking with colleagues working in all of these different formats, we hit on many pluses and minuses of remote work versus office work. I will try to lay those out in this post.
Getting Started and Productivity
This is perhaps the most important aspect of my remote life. I have never been more productive than I am working from home. This frequently surprises people when I tell them that and it certainly was a skill that had to be learned.
When I first started remote work, I was very worried that I would not be productive. So I rented a desk at a co-working space. While this was nice because it offered good amenities like the bottomless cup of coffee, access to a small conference room, and good wifi that I was not paying for, I didn’t find that it was as productive as I thought. There were plenty of people around to socialize with and distractions to keep me away from my computer. To be honest, I might not have given this option a fair chance because the space just was too crowded for me to the point that we were always bumping into each others desk chairs whenever we moved around. So I left that arrangement after a couple of weeks to work out of my home office.
Moving my work into the home required specific effort. I had a desk and chair, but it was immediately clear that these needed to be in a very separate space from the living space. You need to establish a home life-work life separation immediately. This also means that you need to establish work hours that are pretty consistent. For me, I “go into work” after dropping my kid off at the bus stop and I “leave work” when my husband gets home around 5 pm. “Leaving work” specifically entails logging off from email and Slack, putting my computer into sleep mode, and physically leaving the room. I do not go back into that room until the next work day. In between those hours, I am strictly “at work.” I do not do dishes, I do not clean, I do not work on projects around the house. I am working. While this was the biggest adjustment for me, I found that if you are strict about this for the first few months, it will sink in and you will not have a problem with this.
After those first few months, I noticed how much more productive I was. One of my chief complaints about working in a formal office were “drive by’s.” These are the people who randomly stop at your desk, the impromptu meetings that you are supposed to attend (the usually really didn’t require your attendance), and the random surfing of the internet with a friend over your shoulder showing you the latest funny Jerry of the Day. (If you are not familiar with that time suck, you have been warned!) At home though, there is nobody to do a drive by. Sure, Slack can consume that time, but only if you let it. It is much easier to ignore Slack than it is the knock at your office door or the person showing up at your cube.
I will not lie and say that I never waste time surfing to random web pages for a laugh or checking in on Facebook or Twitter. But mentally having made the adjustment to “work hours” and “non-work hours,” I find myself doing it much less frequently than before. Weird, huh?
The only interruptions I have during the day are my dog who needs to go for a walk a few times during “work hours.” This, it turns out, it a good thing for productivity. It forces me out of my desk for 15–20 minutes to get some fresh air and stretch my legs a bit. This is important. Early on in particular I noticed that I would never leave the house. You need to do that. You will be more productive for it.
Happiness in Choosing Where you Live
Far and away this was one of the biggest perks for me in working from home. Having a company set up around working from home means that they don’t care where I live (I was told they preferred me to live some place whose time zone lined up with those of the United States, which really isn’t much of a limitation).
My company is headquartered in San Francisco, and I knew that I didn’t want to be in SF. Just not my kind of town, no offense. And I know there are a lot of people like me in not wanting to live in the Bay area. How much talent is Silicon Valley losing access to by requiring all employees live and work in the Bay area??? And how many of us move to our jobs, rather that moving to where we want to live (or staying put where you are, if that is your thing)?
In my case, I was living in a college town in the rural midwest. I moved there for my last job and I hated it. I was miserable. There were no outdoor activities, it was flatter than flat, the weather was dismal for 10 months of the year, and I just felt myself slowly dying on the inside. How happy could I be in that environment?
Taking a remote job allowed me to move where I really wanted to live. I built a home in the middle of the Rocky Mountains where I am 5 minutes away from world-class skiing. My office now has a view of what I love to look at. If I feel frustrated or stuck at work, I go for a “work out,” which is not some windowless office gym that smells like tech bros, but rather I can make a few laps on the ski hill, go for a short hike, or just sit on my deck and take in the view. I return to my desk full of energy and inspiration, blocks removed.
Remote workers cost their companies less money. When you are not worried about hiring people from the Bay area, you can pay them less. You do not have to offer them the same salaries. Don’t get me wrong…I would love to be paid the same as my colleagues in SF! But they simply have much higher costs of living than I do. Further, companies have to have elaborate office spaces with tremendous amenities for these employees just to compete. There is practically a war between different tech shops in SF to get Michelin star chefs to prepare their free meals. It is expected that there will be free massages, quality snacks, an on-site gym with daily offerings of different work out classes. These do not exist for remote employees. Many companies with remote employees do things like offer to pay for their gym membership, but that is certainly much cheaper than hiring a fitness instructor. Yes, companies should get their employees together from time to time and that means paying for travel. But that is a drop in the bucket relative to the salaries required to attract talent to the Bay area.
Not all remote work works though and not all employers are set up to do it right. I was fortunate in that my company embraced remote work from its inception. Not all companies do. It requires the right tooling, the right mindset, and trust.
How can I trust that my employees are actually working? To be honest, this is one of the easiest questions to answer. If I am managing employees that I do not trust, they would not be my employees. If expectations on the delivery of work products are properly set, then do you really need to physically see your employee at their desk from 9–5? And if you do see them, do you really have any more confidence that they are working? Just sitting at a desk where you can be seen does not imply that you are actually working and being productive. And what about those employees who simply are more productive during the off hours? Do you really want to tell them that they need to work traditional hours so you can see them at their desks? If you trust your employees, they will trust you and work for you.
I want everyone working the same hours so they can collaborate. You might have me here. If you have people working all over the world, maybe some are in bed while others are working. Learning asynchronous communication can be difficult, but not impossible if you specifically hire for it. But it can also be an opportunity! I recall one crunch time when my team had a strict deadline and we absolutely had to deliver. There were four of us as far east as Spain and as far west as California. We saw this as an opportunity instead of a burden. This opened up for us a nearly 24-hour development cycle. When the guy in Spain was done for the day, he had handed his work off to those of us in the middle and we handed it off to the person in California at the end of the day. Not all time zone issues are bad.
I need to be able to meet with my people when I want. I agree with parts of this and disagree with parts of this. Having proper video teleconferencing and scheduling software (we use Zoom tied in with Google Calendar) makes this infinitely easier. If you need to meet with someone immediately, you can check their calendar and see if they are available. You can hit them up on Slack and have an impromptu meeting on Zoom. But yes, sometimes people are just unavailable (a problem compounded depending on time zone differences). But this would be true in a traditional office setting as well!
I sometimes just need to be around people and less isolated. Very easily true and very easily solvable. One thing we do on my team is have informal “coffee hours” on Zoom. We mostly talk about social stuff and not work. We get to know each other that way. But some times it just helps to be around human beings in the flesh. This is where going to a coffee house to work really helps. Or a bar. Maybe you go to a Meetup. Call up that local friend who is in an office and arrange to have lunch out (they will thank you!). Or whatever. Some place with other people. Finding wifi is usually pretty easy. You do have to make a concerted effort to do this, but it is do-able.
Face-to-Face meetings are better. I agree with this. Some times, there is just something different about a 3D meeting than a 2D one. You can better read facial expressions and body language, read the tone of the room, etc. When you have a conflict, it is easier to resolve. You pull the person aside on the way back to your desk and work it out. That is very legit and very hard to do with a video telecon. Solving this challenge requires concerted effort. For example, you might need a private telecon with that person to resolve differences. Maybe you reach out to them immediately after the meeting via Slack and check in. This is undoubtedly one of the hardest parts about remote work. Having a travel policy that allows for occasional face-to-face meetings for things like planning and problem-solving really helps too.
People located in HQ have better access. It doesn’t matter what you are talking about, those people located in the main office will always have more and easier opportunities to do just about everything than those working remote. This includes everything from invitations to the office social gatherings to the random, chance encounters with upper management while waiting for coffee. They will be better known around the company, they will be asked to do more of the “cool stuff,” they will get more face time with the higher ups, and are not frequently forgotten like those working remotely. It is a lot easier for the big wigs to pop by their desk to discuss the latest ideas and trends. They don’t have to be flown places for events in the main office so it is easier and cheaper to invite them.
I don’t have a suggested solution for this problem. My present way of looking at it is that this is the price I pay for the view out my window. If you have worked this one out, please reach out to me and let us all know your solution!
At the end of the day, I love working from home. Yes, I have encountered most of the above challenges, but most of them are solvable. After doing this for almost 2 years, I can honestly say that I will never take a job outside of my house ever again.
