Is working from home good?
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Lets take a quick look at some pros and cons of working remotely!
PROS
- No Commuting
- Fresh Coffee
- Save On Fuel & Food
- More family time!
- Amazing for Introverts
CONS
- Difficult Communications
- No Work Atmosphere
- Less Outside Motivation
- Bad For Extroverts
My Work From Home Story
Let me start by saying that I have become a huge fan of working from home.
As a father of 3 kids, working from home does present some challenges, but being able to spend more time with my kids is such an amazing thing!
Previously I had been working about 45 minutes away from home and had a 9 hour day (including my 1-hour lunch).
For the most part, I enjoyed what I did for work. Our car got good fuel mileage, so the cost of fuel wasn’t too bad. The biggest problem was how little time I got to spend with my kids.
When Covid-19 happened and everything shut down, my place of work opened up with a ‘skeleton crew, while all of us were still at home.
Since school was shut down, and my wife was working at a bank that was still running – I was at home with the kids.
About 2 weeks into the shutdown I found out my position had been filled, so I didn’t have a job to go back to. So I set out to find a remote job so I could be at home with the kids.
I happened to land an amazing job that paid decent money and had flexible hours. As long as I got my work done, it didn’t matter whether I did it early or later in the day. I’ve been working full time from home for about 1 year now, and plan on working from home permanently.
I also have started this small business directory so we can shop small businesses and help support each other!
Enough about me, let’s dive into some details on our question – is working from home good?
According to this article on remote work statistics:
– Remote Work Is Here to Stay
According to Upwork, 41.8% of the American workforce continues to work remotely. Although an estimated 26.7% will still be working from home through 2021, 36.2 million Americans (22% of the workforce) will be working remotely by 2025. This is a staggering 87% increase from the number of remote workers prior to the pandemic!
According to Dan Price, The CEO of Gravity Payments, most of their employees prefer to work from home.
Instead of making a top-down CEO decision, we asked our 200 employees where they want to work. Only 7% wanted to go back to the office full time.
31% wanted a home-office hybrid.
60% wanted full-time remote work.
So we told everyone: do what you want. This stuff isn’t hard.”
Their business has experienced a boom in productivity with a majority of the workforce working from home!
PROS
- No Commuting
– When you’re not commuting back and worth to work, it not only saves you time but it also saves you money!
On average, people spend more than an entire week’s worth of time traveling to and from work! That is over 200 hours a year for an average work commute time in America!
This article on commute time has more info.
My previous work commute would cost me roughly $2,500 a year in fuel, assuming I didn’t go anywhere for lunches. That is a lot of gas money! - Fresh Coffee & Tea
– I love drinking my tea when I get up in the morning. Like most of you, I always go back for more than just one cup.
No matter how many coffee pots you have in an office building, it’s never the same as having something fresh while sitting in your corner with your cat demanding some love. - Save On Fuel & Food
– Not having to commute back and forth to work can save you thousands of dollars every year. In my previous job, I was spending about $2,500 annually on fuel! This doesn’t sound too crazy, but over 10 years that is $25,000 – and that is a lot of money!
You could easily invest that $2,500 and have a significant return on the money you’d be saving just from cutting out your daily work commute.
Now add in $12 for lunch, and you’re saving another $3,100 over the course of a year. Even if you cut that in half by bringing lunch with you 50% of your workdays, that is still over $1,500 every year just in lunches.
That is a combined annual savings of at least $4,000! - More family time!
– This is perhaps the most important aspect of working from home for me and all the other working parents out there. Missing your kids growing up because you spend 10+ hours a day away from home for work is something many of us would like to change.
Even if you’re working hard for 8 hours a day tucked away in your office, you’ll see be able to see your kids so much more. Every time you go to the bathroom or get water, you’ll get to say hello.
Lunch break, you can sit down and eat with your kids. Even though you’re working, you are still close, and your kids get to see you more. - Amazing for Introverts
– As an introvert, I can say working from home is amazing. I’m sure many other introverts feel the same way too!
Being able to escape the noisy and sometimes socially overwhelming vibe of an office space can actually help you be more productive.
Being able to set up your own space, and listing to your own music, and create your own little work environment is just simply nice.If you asked: is working from home good? I would 100% say it is an amazing option for the right people.I am sure many people thrive in that at work environment, but many others do amazing working from home.
CONS
- Difficult Communications
– When you’re working from home it makes communications more complicated. Especially if you work with a large number of people or often have projects involving multiple people.
There are plenty of ways to solve this, like Microsoft Teams, or Asana, or Zoom meetings, which do make things easier to keep track of and stay in touch.
I have found that these work just fine, but I’m sure others prefer person to person communication which is always hard to beat. - No Work Atmosphere
– Many extroverts thrive in that work atmosphere. It is easier to stay motivated, you can pop over and ask someone a quick question, and you’re often surrounded by people. For the more social people, working from home just isn’t the same. - Less Outside Motivation
– Many people have struggled with self motivation. Whether it’s work, or a hobby, or something else. Keeping yourself motivated without outside support is always going to be a challenge for many people.
Working from home for someone who struggles to find motivation is difficult.
Especially for a more social person who cannot connect with coworkers and feed off their energy, it’s difficult to replace that. - Bad For Extroverts
– As an introvert, being ‘stuck at home’ does not bother me much at all. When the lockdowns started, it didn’t really change the way I go about my day too much.
For someone who is more social though, I’m sure working from home without being able to socialize in that work environment would be extremely difficult.
Not only on the motivation side of things, but on your own sanity.
Wanting to be surrounded by people, but being stuck by yourself sounds just as bad as being stuck with people and wanting to be by yourself.I think hybrid systems would be a great meet in the middle for everyone.Being able to work from home part-time so you can save on fuel, see your family more, and maybe vacuum the living room to get rid of some of those fur babies your dogs leave behind for you would be nice. Then going into the office part-time so you can get that social aspect, and have easier communication with your fellow coworkers would be a nice mix.
Even as an introvert, I still do like people every once in a while 🙂 So even for me, being in the office every once in a while would be a nice change of pace.
Why some bosses don’t like remote work?
You commonly see CEOs of large companies naysay working from home. However, studies have shown that productivity actually goes up when you allow your employees to work where they want to. Whether that is at home or in the office. Especially if you have competitive pay and benefits.
With statistics showing it’s a good thing to allow people to work from home or have a hybrid system, I think many people are against it because there is a lack of control.
You cannot actually know your employee is working as hard as possible when you cannot watch over them.
Because many places do not pay a good wage (which is started to change, yay!), I think many bosses fear their employees won’t treat the job well if they are at home.
Personally, I think this just demonstrates that people know they are not taking care of their employees well enough, otherwise they would trust them to do a good job.
If you offer competitive wages and benefits, you can be sure you’re employee will be doing a great job regardless of where they work, because they know they have landed a great job and intend to keep it.
Especially with how competitive the job market is for higher-paying jobs right now, you won’t find people wanting to let those good jobs go.
Many very successful people have said ‘if you take care of your employees, they will take care of your business’.
I find that to be very true.
If you try to intimidate your employees with the fact that they are replaceable, they will drop you like a rock as soon as they find something better – which they are probably looking for.
Is working from home good?
Regardless of where you now, you found us by going to google and asking: is working from home good?
The short answer is, maybe.
It really depends on you, and the type of work you do.
Many jobs simply cannot work from home.
Being a cashier at the local grocery store would be especially challenging if you’re at home.
It all depends on the type of person you are, and the type of work you do.
For some of us though, I think working from home is absolutely the best option.