As much as we’d all like to forget the year 2020, it did teach us many things. The Covid-19 pandemic and the ensuing lockdown and quarantine changed the way many of us thought about the concept of work. Get up, get ready, go to a place, do a thing, come home, rinse, and repeat. For most people, this was expected and accepted. When forced to stay home and adapt, however, we realized two things. First, it was possible. Second, many people liked it more.
Many companies have changed their structures and given employees the option of working remotely indefinitely. There are certainly pros and cons to this, but it’s worth considering for several reasons. Here are five of the best.
1. You Skip the Commute
If you live in a large, congested metropolis, the time you spend in traffic over the course of a year is probably close to the duration of a Europe cruise trip! Add in the time to get showered, dressed, and made up, and you’ve already blown through two hours of your day (if not more.) If you work from home, however, you can roll out of bed, shower, get dressed, grab a cup of coffee, turn on your computer and be ready to be productive an hour before you would have normally hit the office door.
Those hours add up quickly. Many people love the ability to hit the ground running in the morning, but it also works the other way, too. When the working day is done, you can switch off your laptop, switch on the TV, and convert to lounge mode!
2. Your Hours can be Flexible
While it depends on the nature of your work, most companies that allow work from home understand that a person won’t sit at their desk for eight straight hours. They factor in the earlier start times and ability to easily take care of something after hours and usually trade those for time to go to doctor’s appointments, kid’s recitals, or a trip to the gym.
For many, this is a very liberating feeling, giving them flexibility during the day when they normally were stuck at their workstation with the occasional break. This also allows night owls to be productive when the house is quiet after their families have gone to sleep!
3. You Can Quickly Switch Gears
Again, different sorts of jobs will carry different expectations, but many remote workers spend their days rolling through calls or video conferences. Instead of driving to appointments and meetings at different locations or walking from one conference room to another, you can now just click on a different link in Microsoft Teams or Zoom, and you’re all set for the next task.
4. You’ll Have More Time at Home
In addition to flexible hours, you may find that you’re better able to keep up with chores and home improvement projects while working remotely. While you certainly shouldn’t do this at the expense of your professional responsibilities, a lunch break could be spent mowing your lawn. Or a “listen-in” training call could be conducted while you sort laundry. Even if you’re not trying to multitask, remote work makes it easy to be at home for appliance delivery or repair calls.
5. You can be Anywhere at Any Time
Finally, now that video and teleconferencing have become more normalized across lots of industries, the possibility of getting things done virtually has become a reality. You could easily manage a team in a different state if you have a good system and schedule of regular check-ins.
International business can be done from any location, and internet-based work can be collaborated upon from several different points in the world at once. Is there a benefit to having colleagues physically together? Sure. Is it necessary to accomplish tasks? Absolutely not.
The world has changed drastically in a very short time. Some of those changes have been extremely negative. The rise of remote work, on the other hand, has been a very positive upshot of an unexpected and unprecedented situation.
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