Is work from home/remote really productive? I would say “maybe”.
Some companies began to accept working from home or remotely way before the Covid-19 happened. And this approach was great for so many of us. I agree that are a lot benefits of working remotely rather than going physically to an office.
But there’s the other part of the story that people discovered during this pandemic situation while staying at home with their families.
So let’s recap a few of the benefits related to working from home/remotely and then the negative part of all of this change.
- Less commuting time and more time for yourself.
They say that commuting time is probably a big extra reason why so many people would choose to work from home or remotely. This way they can save a lot of time which can be used for something else like hobbies, spending quality time with the family and friends, relaxing and so on. - More personal “invest” time.
Yes. Time is an investment in any other way beyond the family. Actually, some of us go to the gym or take piano lessons. Or even learn something new. So making more time for yourself could bring more happiness. - You can actually see your children growing
For those of you who have kids, you probably know that time between morning and evening, parents and children don’t see each other. So staying at home means that you can see when your children come from school or see them during their classes at home especially now. You also get to know your children way better and maybe learn to listen to them. - You can actually work from anywhere.
This means you have the opportunity to travel or move around if you are passionate about seeing and discovering different new places on this planet. The important thing to keep in mind that all you need is a great internet connection. Other than that, everything sounds like an awesome adventure. - Less company costs and more investments
The companies who have their employees working from home/remotely have less expenses with their actual offices. Either they don’t have a physical office at all, or they have a minimal office needed for general meetings. This means that companies could invest in something else like trainings for their employees, wellbeing programs and other general benefits. - You can be more productive.
At least at the beginning I would say. When this happens for you for the first time you tend to believe that it’s ok to work from home with no one bothering you. The amount of hours that you spend at the actual desk are more and more. And yes, your productivity is high up until a point.
This point is different for all us. There are people who like to be alone and work a lot. Like their entire life is related to work. But there are also people who like to talk to other people, they like to interact and ask for opinions and actually communicate. In this case their productivity will get lower and lower as the time goes by. The social studies say that humans are social animals and this is part of our genes. Denying this to our bodies implies major changes which I am not sure we want to take in.
The psychological change of working from home/remotely
Like I said, after a few months of working from home some people realised that a major change like this is influencing their mental status. In my case, I can only say that I miss seeing and talking to people. I wouldn’t want to come back to the office full time, but I would love to come from time to time and see what happened to the other colleagues.
More divorces and more fighting
The number of divorces got higher since the beginning of this pandemic period. I mean no wonder people got tired of each other, forgot how to tolerate each other during this stressful time and how to adjust to this new way of living fully at home. So learning how to actually live with each other is a new lesson for the future times of disasters.
Isolation is not the answer
Psychological distance means isolation and talking via Zoom with the others is not the same as actually seeing them and having the verbal and non-verbal communication present. This is something that can affect our bodies in the long therm. If this wouldn’t be true, then the study of having a happy life was done for nothing.
A study about happy life
Take a look for yourself and then have your own conclusion about how life should be happening while working from home/remotely:
This is a video that I like to watch each time I forget about the actual values in my life. Hopefully, this will be an inspiration for yours too.
Thank you. :)
About Me:
I am a Freelancer blogger, business and online Marketing Specialist having experience in: Content Writing, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Search Engine Marketing (SEM), Online Product Marketing, Email Marketing, Digital User Experience, Oracle Service Cloud, Web Design, UX, UI design on websites, technical writing, API documentation writing, user manuals writing and “how to” manuals writing.
Read more thoughts on my blog: Ideas Outside Ideas.
