How successfully do you think you are working from home? 70-85% of the time? More? Less? Here at The Web and Marketing Bureau, we’ve operated 100% remotely since we ‘opened’ our doors, and we decided to examine how successful people have found working from home to be. Today, we will look at what it takes to work from home successfully and ask different professionals what their experience with it has been like.
COVID-19 forced many businesses to explore the potential efficacy of having their employees work from home. Some have disregarded the practice since official lockdowns lifted and had their employees return to physical workplaces. Others found their employees’ effectiveness the same from home as on-site and made the work arrangement permanent.
Experts predict that working from home will be a part of our work ethic moving forward even after the pandemic has ended. After the lockdown order made working from home a reality for so many workers, it’s been reported that 72% of workers want a hybrid work model moving forward now that they’ve experienced working from home.
Which model do you think most people prefer? Hybrid work or to work entirely in an office or at home? Our entire team was asked for their opinion about the most popular work model. Here’s what a few of them had to say:
Our CEO Roya said, “It depends on the person; remote work needs to have some kind of on-site social interaction. I think hybrid.” A few other team members expressed similar thoughts about individual needs and preferences regarding a hybrid work environment.
Others believed that a single workspace, whether remote or on-site, is what most people, including themselves, would prefer for success. “Entirely one setting. When you have a hybrid work model, even if you know the days you work on-site, things can arise, and you have to change your days, and it can be complicated,” said our sales representative Mia.
Our IT Specialist Dane expressed a very similar view to Mia’s. “Entirely one setting. It would be annoying to go back and forth. I think most prefer remote.”
You might be surprised to hear that the workforce has only seen a 39% drop in in-person workspaces. Given how many people claim to be home nowadays, it would seem like a much higher percentage of workers are not in-person. The ability to have a hybrid work model has revealed the positives and negatives of working from home.
Positives:
- Less time wasted traveling to and from work each day.
- More flexibility with work schedules.
- Fewer interruptions from chit-chat with coworkers and meetings.
Negatives:
- It’s harder to separate work and leisure time.
- It’s up to you to get a change of scenery in your day.
- It’s harder to recognize urgency cues from electronic communication.
We asked our team to tell us what they thought of the pros and cons of working from home are.
“I think the pros are you can work in your pajamas if you don’t have to have a camera on and not being worried about family. The cons are self-motivation and being cut off from the office social aspect,” said Amelia.
The majority of the team members interviewed had way more pros than cons for remote work. But some raised valid negatives to remote work.
Braxton said, “People take more breaks and all the distractions from being at home and not in an office.”
Another con that several team members brought up was the idea of ‘cabin fever’ if your company does not have an established interactive space. But, this is also a personal con because not everyone misses having people coming up to talk to you in the office.
With so many businesses relying on remote communication, programs like Zoom and collaborative spaces have allowed employees to continue interconnectedness and a more ‘workplace’ environment than just sitting in their living room. Equipment and proper Internet connectivity are crucial factors in being successful at home; otherwise, it would be a lot harder to join that ten o’clock meeting or respond to that important email on time.
This is not how any of us wanted to start working from home, but moving forward, it could become the norm in the professional world. Even if you don’t currently have a remote workplace, soon you may be finding yourself going to the office less and less.
