Remote work isn’t a new strategy, but ever since the COVID-19 pandemic shut down in-office activities for all types of businesses, the amount of remote workers has grown regularly. In 2024, nearly 22 million workers would be considered fully remote, with over twice that amount working a hybrid schedule where they are remote at least one day per work week. This shift in the way that people work has required some adjustments, and this month, we wanted to take a closer look at the employees’ side of the “new normal”
Mind you, this won’t be a comprehensive list of issues that remote workers are dealing with, but we will try to go through some of the challenges and benefits that people deal with when they work remotely.
Let’s start with the almost universal benefits:
The top benefit that is roundly given when asking remote workers what the best thing about working remotely is that they are unencumbered with the social aspect that detracts from their ability to get work done. While this lack of socialization is also listed pretty high on the detrimental aspects of working remotely (for a different reason), the ability to focus on their work and get more done in a shorter amount of time is most remote workers’ favorite thing about not having to commute to a place of business.
People often list the commute as a significant benefit as well. The time, cost, and general inconvenience of commuting to work significantly strain most workers. Since most people work a third of the day, spending an hour or more getting home before and after work is a hassle remote workers avoid.
The term that’s always bandied around is “work-life balance”, with the assumption that remote workers enjoy a more balanced life away from work because they don’t have to go to a place for work. As we will discuss later, however, it may work against remote workers so that they don’t have to go places.
Remote Work as an Individual Preference
There are workers who, once they got the taste of working from home, it immediately became their preference. One study found that 14 percent of surveyed workers (comprising of remote, hybrid, and traditional workers) admitted that they would quit their job and find another remote position if they were ever ordered back into the office. In fact, in the same survey about two-thirds of traditional workers said that they prefer it over remote work because they need the direct connection to their co-workers.
People who thrive while working remotely tend to be single, very organized people who have trouble with the hullabaloo that comes with in-office work. Not surprisingly, introverted people, even if they work collaboratively, favor a remote setting as they can often feel ostracized by the social dynamics found in the workplace. Many people go into remote work to have the opportunity only to find it extremely difficult, so if you are a person who thrives while working remotely, it can be a way to improve your earning potential pretty swiftly.
Why Do So Many People Find Problems Working Remotely?
Business owners will point to the period they were forced to move operations out of a traditional setting as some of the least profitable and productive times in their history. They’ll point to the thousands of businesses that closed in the fiscal year following March 2020 as evidence that remote workers can’t do what traditional workers can. These statistics vary quite a bit, but it’s generally accepted that many businesses that were forced to go remote saw their overall productivity drop by around 10 percent.
The thing is that most businesses that were forced into remote operations weren’t equipped to support this type of operational structure when their hand was forced. Coupled with having workers who not only are working remotely for the first time, but are also doing it during a health crisis that had everyone distracted and concerned, kids out of school, people dying in droves every day, it shouldn't be a surprise that remote work led to lower productivity. You also need to consider that many companies were dealing with unprecedented downtime during the transition period. This metric is known to be extremely costly to both productivity and revenue generation.
If you were like many workers forced into working remotely in early 2020, you couldn’t have been happier. Not only was there relief that you had more control as Covid-19 was spreading like wildfire; meaning you suddenly had more control than you were used to. Many businesses explicitly forbid workers from working remotely, even if they were set up to support remote workers. People who run businesses don’t like risk; depending on a remote staff was the definition of risk.
Problems Working Remotely
If remote workers agree that they can get more done in a shorter time, but the productivity numbers suggest the opposite, where is the disconnect? Well, it’s fairly simple: not every worker can work from home effectively. Let’s go through some of the things people have trouble with while working from home:
Personal Distractions
For people with a completely fleshed-out workspace, good time management skills, and personal pride in their work, working from home can still be problematic because you are suddenly sharing space with all the things you WORK FOR. For people with children, needy pets, or roommates, it can be extra tricky to separate home with work. Sometimes, it’s their own fault, like they have a bad day and decide to binge a show on Netflix instead of focusing on the job they are being paid to do.
Lack of Tools to Be Successful
At the office, you are provided everything you need to succeed. You likely have business-class Internet connections, the workstation and other hardware you need; a place set up for you to be productive. At home, you have to pay for your Internet connection, so unless you already have business-like Internet speeds, you will work slower. You need to set up your desk, and most businesses, even if they provide hardware to their remote workers, usually comes in the form of a laptop and a monitor or two and access to software needed to do your job. If a worker isn’t put in a productive situation, expecting high productivity levels may be asking too much. Training can be a challenge as newer employees will take longer to onboard and can struggle to acclimate to established procedures and team nuances that more experienced team members can more easily adjust to.
Lack of Routine
Establishing a routine is a must if you work a full-time job for one company. If you are separated from the rest of the people you work with, your routine becomes whatever you need to do to get through the day. At first, this could mean you are more productive, using the energy you saved from not commuting and socializing and pouring it into your work. This is great for a company, and eventually you will get some recognition for your good work. Many workers, however, can struggle with the notion that they are doing more work for the same pay and will establish bad work habits that are both bad for their organization and for their career.
Mental Health
We touched on this earlier, but many remote workers find work-life balance difficult while working from home. They’re home, a place they work hard to afford and unwind and they're forced to be at work. This is really a difficult situation for some people to deal with because without the social aspect of their traditional work, and with only their home as an office, they can find the lines between their work life and their home life blurring. This can cause people who work from home to start to feel isolated and get depressed.
Remote workers are now part of the employee landscape and giving them the tools and resources to be successful not only helps them, but helps your business. If you would like to discuss how to put your remote workers in the best position to be productive for your business, give CoreTech a call today at (270) 282-4926.
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