In the past, working from home or abroad was reserved for the ultra-rich. Movie tycoons like Gordon Gekko would leave the big city via helicopter to their distant beach mansions, where they’d call shots from afar. In 2019, things are changing. According to QZ.com, over 5% of Americans were working from home back in 2017. That’s over 8 million people! This figure has more than doubled since the year 2000, and is surely higher now. The advantages of working remotely are obvious: no commute, more flexibility and fewer annoying interruptions. It’s the dream. But what are the disadvantages of remote working? In this article, we’ll discuss five realities to consider before working from home.
The Disadvantages Of Remote Working: 5 Things You May Not Have Thought Of
Are you dreaming of working from home? Don’t stop! This article is not to discourage your goal of doing so. In fact, it may be the perfect fit for you. It’s best to make any decision with our eyes wide open to make sure it’s what we really want. Without further ado, here are five of the disadvantages that come with working remotely, which are worth knowing before committing to it. Click the link below to jump ahead:
- Working In Isolation
- Temptations Other Than Work
- Less Separation Between Work & Home Life
- Fewer Work Supplies & Resources Available
- Dependent On Technology For Everything
Let’s look into the details of each, and what we can do to mitigate these challenges!
1. Remote Work Often Means Working In Isolation
Let’s be honest – we partly want to work from home to get away from certain coworkers. That office gossiper or person who won’t leave you alone seem like reasons unto themselves to get out.
However, working from home can be a bit more isolated than it may initially appear. Other than an occasional email or phone call, you’ll probably be alone. For some, this is great. For others, though, the loneliness of isolation begins to outweigh the benefits. If you’ve been wanting to get out of your office and skip the commute, this is one of the more unexpected disadvantages of remote working!
This means multiple hours of alone time, with nothing but you and your to-do list. As humans, we’re never quite immune to feelings of ‘the grass is greener’. While we shouldn’t sway with every one of our whims, you can find yourself missing your coworkers, office chit chat and even just background noise of others close by. Humans are social creatures, after all.
What you can do: As a Project Manager, I worked from home about 25% of the time, and also traveled back and forth between offices and job sites. For me, that balance ended up being perfect: I worked from home for a portion of the week, not the whole time. This allows us to plan out our workload accordingly – which tasks are better suited for the office vs. for home.
2. It’s Tempting To Do Other Things When Working Remotely
As kids, we’d do anything to leave school and enjoy home life – going outside, playing games and being entertained all the time. What if you COULD go home, but you’d need to be home schooled. Not only that, you’d have to complete a certain amount of work every day. The door to outside is right there. Games are two feet away. The sun is shining. Nope – you have work to do!
It’s not much different as adults. On a beautiful day, that lawn chair or bike is going to look real tempting. Doesn’t matter that it’s a Tuesday at 11am! This doesn’t apply to just work stuff, either. House chores, errands, home repairs and many other typical-weekend tasks can grab our attention, too.
The reality is, of course, that we work from home SO we can mix in some of those things. Not having a commute plus more flexibility does give us more time back. What I’m trying to say is that, there will always be temptations to do things at home that aren’t work and it can make us fall behind without realizing it.
What you can do: In order to maximize our work-from-home experience, we need to be very disciplined. It’s vital to keep a to-do list, plan out our priorities and schedule our day accordingly. Work still must be completed. When you hit certain milestones like sending a letter or completing a report, balance yourself out with a quick workout or running an errand – nut only when you hit you goal. You’ll therefore incentivize yourself to get your work done, because you have something else to look forward to.
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3. Less Separation Between Work & Home Life
Working remotely comes with flexibility – this is one of the main reasons why more and more people are trying to work from home. Most households include two working adults, and our jobs, commuting, children, general health, family and necessary errands leave us exhausted at the end of the day! A flexible schedule seems like the perfect solution.
And it is. Flexibility in our work schedule helps us balance out our lives in ways that are impossible with a traditional job. Your kids’ school needs you at 3pm? No problem, just do the work this evening. Have a busy couple of week days? That’s fine, make up work on the weekends. Our work and personal life come more an more intertwined.
For some people, this is ideal. Others, though, may find themselves missing some of the feelings that come with 9-to-5 life. The end of the workday is like closing a book and putting it on the shelf. “See you tomorrow – I’m out!”. Weekends are usually a reprieve from the work rush – we can completely detach for a couple days, for the most part.
As you work from home more and more frequently, it will not be uncommon to work during the evening hours and sometimes on the weekends. It’s not that we have less free time – quite the contrary actually. Even though working hours will scatter more than usual, we still have more free time so long as we’re working efficiently.
It’s really a question of whether you’re OK with a scattered schedule, or if you need the hard breaks from work that come with traditional work life. For some, the lack of clear separation ends up being one of the disadvantages of remote working.
What you can do: the best thing to do is to try working one day from home, and intentionally change your schedule. Take a couple hours out of the day and take care of other needs like errands, fitness, etc. Then, return to working – just in the evening. How does it feel? I recommend switching some of your hours to weekends as well, if you’re likely to do so in the future. Are you OK with it? Regardless, working efficiently is key to enjoying your remote work experience.
4. Fewer Work Supplies & Resources
Access to supplies and office resources are often taken for granted. Want to print out documents to make notes? That commercial-grade office printer does it in seconds, but it’s not so easy from home. Small things like note pads, staples and post-it notes are readily available at the office.
The same goes for larger items. If you have tech issues with your computer, you can often get on an extra one at work and continue working. A broken keyboard, mouse, etc. are minor setbacks, but can wipe out our work day at home.
Even desks are different. Working off a kitchen table at home gets old fast, compared to office desks and furniture. We benefit most from having an actual home office – desk and all – but this is not always possible.
What you can do: First off, setting up a legitimate home office will help you work efficiently and comfortably for the long haul – remote working will be more common in the future and this could be how you work for 10, 20 or even 40 years! Second, take note of all the supplies you regularly use and have them at home. A spare mouse or keyboard are useful too, even if they’re old – it’s better than losing time if one breaks!
5. You’re Dependent On Technology For Everything When Working Remotely
Remote work doesn’t mean complete separation from our employer. Rather, it takes the physical location and wasted time on commuting out of the equation. Of course, our employers still expect to regularly hear from us! This includes deadlines, emails and occasional conference calls rather than in-person meetings.
To work remotely in 2019, we need technology to do almost all of our work. Smartphones help us email on the go, text and tune into virtual meetings. Our computer is home to Office software, emails, calendars and the internet, obviously. Wi-fi lets us do all of the above. Electricity lets the whole show actually come together.
In the office, these problems aren’t likely to occur. Commercial-grade generators prevent the power from going down. Internet is higher caliber. Computers and phones are abundant. Even if we DO lose time to technical issues, we can still meet with others and discuss work, plan, etc.
At home, technology is king. Without it, we can’t work. The time impact from losing access to tech is more extreme at home, and a non-working smartphone, laptop or internet connection brings us to a hard stop. We’ll need to either wait it out, fix the problem or take time to go where we can resume working. In turn, we must make up the work later which isn’t the case in the office.
What you can do: First, it’s necessary to have a back-up place to work if you lose access to tech at home. Libraries have computers and wi-fi, plus some printing capabilities. Coffee shops often have free wi-fi for customers, too. Secondly, setting up meetings and conversations ahead of time, even if one-on-one, will reduce the risk of a surprise tech mishap from wiping out your plans – you already have plans established.
Disadvantages Of Remote Working: In Summary
For most of us out there, working from home is….awesome. There’s a ton of benefit to remote working, like flexible hours, no commute and less pesky office annoyance. With something so good, most don’t ever think about any possible downside. If you’ve considered these five disadvantages of remote working and still want to do it – go for it! You almost certainly won’t be disappointed.
