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How to work remotely, the pros and cons of working remotely and where to find remote jobs. Working remotely vs working in an office is different and you need to adapt your style accordingly. More companies are opening up to the idea of having employees work from home or work from anywhere. Learn how to find those remote jobs, if working remotely is right for you and how to be successful working remotely.

The Pros and Cons of Working Remotely: An In-Depth Look

05.17.2021 by admin // 6 Comments

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There are both pros and cons of working from home. There are many benefits including saving time and money commuting, more flexible hours and ability to lead a healthier lifestyle. But, working remotely also comes with new challenges. It’s harder to connect with coworkers, it’s easy to start working more hours and could even potentially limit your career opportunities. In 2020, many office jobs moved to remote work and not by choice. We learned working remotely tips that helped make this shift easier. But, many businesses and people operated under the assumption that work from home was temporary at the beginning.

Companies have already started saying they’re open to continuing remote work. Some companies like Google expressed the possibility of a hybrid work from home model only to backtrack a few months later and share that workers can work remotely and expect 20% to work entirely from home. Other employers like Facebook said early in the 2021 that team members can work remotely from anywhere forever. On the opposite end of the spectrum JPMorgan’s CEO Jamie Dimon has shared he wants work to look like it did before starting in Oct. As we move from forced work from home to options on where we work in the future, what work model is best for you? Is it full time office, hybrid work from home or working remotely full time? Below are pros and cons of working remotely that you should know.

What Does Working Remotely Mean

First, what does working remotely mean? Working remotely allows professionals to work outside their traditional office environment. Instead of commuting to an office each day to work at their desk, they can work out of their house or another nearby place like a coffee shop.

Pros of Working Remotely

Many of us had a crash course in working remotely in 2020. Working remotely in the middle of a pandemic, and working remotely normally are not the same though. For starters, kids are in school and not in remote learning next to you. You’re not staying at home 24/7. Usually, there are also opportunities to work from a coffee shop, or other public area, mask free. And, if you do have coworkers in the area you can arrange a lunch or coffee date to meet and collaborate. As a result, the full benefits of working remotely weren’t all realized in 2020. There are many benefits to working remotely when we aren’t in the middle of a pandemic that should be considered when you make your decision.

Save Time Commuting And Getting Ready For Work

The biggest advantage of working remotely is the amount of time you save on commuting and getting ready. According to a study by the US Census Bureau, Americans spend anywhere from 30 minutes to 1 hour 30 minutes commuting every single day depending on state. If you commute an hour a day, working for 49 weeks a year you’ll spend 245 hours commuting a year! And, that doesn’t even include the amount of time you spend getting ready for the office.

Instead, you can spend this time doing a workout, with your family, preparing healthier meals, extra sleep or enjoying a hobby. It’s important to set boundaries here. When everyone is working remotely it’s very easy for work meetings to creep into the time you normally would have been commuting. It’s important to set boundaries so you minimize this risk.

Save Money By Eating At Home and Not Commuting

There are a few ways you save money by working remotely. The most obvious is the money you used to spend on commuting including gas, tolls and car maintenance. Did you also realize you save money on work outfits, dry cleaning, and lunches? By working remotely, you can dress in less expensive clothing that doesn’t require dry cleaning. It’s also much easier to make lunch as you’ll have your entire kitchen at your disposal.

Live A Healthier Lifestyle

When you’re working from home you have your fridge, your kitchen and all of your appliances. You have more options for what you can cook. Even if it’s just quickly warming up leftovers the opportunity to eat healthier at home is there.

When you’re working from home you can also set aside time for an at home workout. This could be a run during lunch, a Peloton cycle ride before or after work when you’d normally be commuting or another preferred workout.

This benefit was not often realized during the pandemic as gyms were closed, grocery shopping pivoted and the overall stress of the pandemic. As life begins resuming to normal and we are all safer with lower community transmission and vaccines it will become easier to live a healthy lifestyle while working from home.

Flexible Time Working

In order to have a successful work remotely culture, your company needs to pivot to defining success based on outcomes. It’s not about working 8 hours a day at certain times anymore. It’s about hitting the deadlines you committed to and producing quality work. With this shift, you have more flexibility in when you work. There will still be standing meetings you are expected to attend but you can pick your kids up from school and make up the time at another hour or another day. Work time isn’t completely flexible, but it is much more flexible than the typical 9-5 in the office. This flexibility is incredibly helpful as kids resume their usual extracurricular activities. You’re able to drive them to the activity and work from the car or activity location if needed.

Cons of Working Remotely

Working remotely in 2020 had some cons that don’t normally exist. For example, being at home 100% of the time and very limited opportunities to work from a coffee shop for the day. Without the ability to freely move around we saw ourselves sitting in the same chair for hours on end. There are other cons to working remotely that may seem temporary but can continue if you’re not careful.

Not Setting Work Time Boundaries Leads to Increased Time Spent Working

If you don’t set boundaries for when you’re working and when you’re not you can easily work longer hours. Your laptop is already open and set up, it’s easier to log in again after hours to finish something. If you work in a global team you may set up early and late meetings to meet with team members in their time zone. All of a sudden your 8 hour days become 10-12 hour days.

Because you boss doesn’t see you in an office they may not even realize how many extra hours you are putting in unless they are online at the same time as you and are communicating with you that often during the week. The ball is really in your court to set boundaries for when you’re working and when you’re not. Put blocks in your calendar. Communicate with your boss when the workload gets to be too much.

Working From Home Can Result in Unhealthy Eating

How disciplined are you when it comes to eating? As much as you have your entire kitchen at your disposal when you work from home, you also have your snack drawer readily available. You’re not stuck with whatever you packed for lunch or whatever is in the cafeteria. If you eat your lunch at 10AM at the office you are limited to what food is in a vending machine or in the cafeteria. But at home? If you eat your lunch at 10AM you have enough food to have a second lunch at noon, and a third lunch at 3PM. Or you mindlessly snack all day not realizing how many calories you’re consuming.

Working From Home Can Result In Becoming More Sedentary

Office jobs tend to lead to a sedentary lifestyle in general. But, when you’re commuting to the office you’re walking to your car, walking from the car to the office, walking to the bathroom and naturally take a few more steps even when you’re sitting in a chair most of the day.

When you work from home, you literally can sit in the same chair for 8 hours and at 5PM realize you have only taken 400 steps all day. Blocking off your calendar for a 20-30 minute walk every day can help with this. There is also an opportunity to identify calls and meetings that don’t have to be in front of a computer. If you’re catching up with someone go on a walk while you’re taking a call. Or, if it’s a call you need to listen into but don’t need to be active in go on a walk while on that call.

Harder to Establish Close Connections With Coworkers

When office jobs shifted rapidly to remote work back in March 2020 we all learned about what worked well and what didn’t together. In many cases though, you were working with people you already had established relationships with. Now, in 2021, hiring has started to pick up again. Coworkers are considering new opportunities and backfilled with someone you don’t know. How do you establish relationships with new team members, and even new managers? Not only that, how do you maintain the relationships you already have?

There are a lot of remote working tools like Slack, Microsoft Teams and Zoom. You need to create opportunities to connect with coworkers as you won’t randomly run into them. Set up 1×1 calls and know what they are interested in. If they are a foodie and a cool new restaurant is opening send them the menu and say you thought of them when you read this news. Know their birthday and reach out to say happy birthday to them.

Working Remotely May Impact Your Career Advancement Opportunities

Are you the only person on the team that is working remotely? If so, you may have less face time and interactions with leadership than the rest of your peers. You may also be the only one joining the Zoom remotely and the rest of the team is in the same conference room. This gives you a disadvantage as it makes it harder to hear, you can’t participate in side bar conversations and it’s harder to speak up. Despite this, there are still ways to advance your career when you’re the only team member that’s remote. However, you are at a slight disadvantage compared to the rest of your peers.

Your career options will be less impacted if your whole team is remote, or if most of your team is in a hybrid model. It’s much easier to participate in remote meetings when everyone is remote. Any side bar conversations are done through offline texting or IM. Everyone has the same difficulty getting a word in. Everyone is on an equal footing and it’s up to individuals to advocate for their career goals, work with their mentors and career sponsors to advance their careers.

As many companies didn’t fully embrace working remotely prior to the pandemic these same companies will go through another learning curve transitioning to full time remote or hybrid remote. New processes will need to be put into place to help keep the playing field even when it comes to career opportunities. No longer can career progression be tied to who you see in the office.

Is Working Remotely Right for You?

Don’t let pandemic fatigue influence your decision for choosing whether or not to work remotely. Especially when we’re all excited for the time we can see and connect with people in person again it’s very easy to jump to wanting to go into the office again.

Consider what is best for you based on the pros and cons of working remotely. What is your team dynamic at work? Think about what is best for your health? What is best for the way you work? You don’t have to go full time to the office or full time remote either. If you like some of the working remotely benefits and also don’t like some of the cons a hybrid work from home model may be best for you.

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Categories // Career Tags // Work Remotely, Working Remotely

9 Essential Working From Home Tips

02.10.2020 by admin // 8 Comments

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Did you start working remotely for the first time this past year? Working from home is different than working from the office, so how do you adjust your schedule and your style? You have the verbal support from your employer, but have they equipped you to be successful? Employees and employers must adjust the use of technology, process and culture to enable remote teams to be successful. You need to learn how to communicate with your manager and team virtually, set boundaries at home and ensure your company offers the right tools to be successful working remotely. I’ve worked remotely for the past 5 years and worked from home for the past 3 years. Here are my tips for working from home.

Working Remotely From Home Workplace Setup

One working from home tip is to have a good workplace setup. Since you’ll be working and living in the same place you need to set boundaries. If you work from wherever in your house it’s harder to set these boundaries. Having a dedicated place where you’ll work from home everyday will help set these boundaries.

Have a Designated Working From Home Area

By having a designated area to work from home, you’ll help establish boundaries between work and home. This will help in a few ways. A set place to work from home will keep all of your work materials in one place. Mentally, you’ll also feel like you’re at work as you’ve physically moved from the places you relax in your house to a place where you do work.

It’s also very easy to not stop working when you’re working remotely from home. Previously, when you had to commute back home you could see the office emptying out and knew when to drive home to avoid traffic. When you work from home though the same end to the day doesn’t exist. Especially if you work in a global company you’ll receive emails around the clock. Having a designated working from home area will help end the day. Once you leave that area, you can feel like you’ve left work.

Buy Materials and Equipment You Need to Be Successful

At your former office, what did you have available to be more successful? You’ll want to have the same things in your at home office when you’re working remotely. If you had a dual monitor, get a dual monitor setup at home. Same with a printer, any organizers and office supplies.

To be successful remotely, there may be additional equipment you need to invest in. For example, your meetings with coworkers will now be on the phone or video. Do you have internet speed that supports that? What about a video camera and headset?

If you work for a large company, ask if they will cover part of the cost of setting up your new workspace. Don’t forget, it’s saving them money too by not paying for your cubicle / office and the utilities associated with that office space.

See Also: Save Money By Leveraging Corporate Benefits

Invest in a Comfortable Chair

It’s easy to stay in one spot all day so make sure you get a comfortable chair. An ergonomic chair will be optimized for both comfort and work. A good ergonomic chair may cost up to $1,500 new but remember you’ll be sitting in this chair every working day. If you want to save money once you find a chair you like look on Craigslist, Offer Up, LetGo and other second hand sites to find that same chair used.

How to Work Remotely From Home And Not Go Stir Crazy

Skipping the commute to work is great until you realize you can literally be stuck at home until you need to run an errand or see a friend. It is possible to not leave your house for days. Make sure you get yourself out of the house. Sometimes this is going to get a coffee even when you can make it at home. You can also decide to work from a coffee shop or other location for a few hours or few days a week.

If you prefer to work from home the entire time, look to get out of the house before or after you start work. This could include joining a gym nearby, or having hobbies that are outside the house. It’s important when you work from home to find a community where you can interact with other people outside of the house.

While you’re at home working, force yourself to get up and move around. It’s easy to start working at 8AM and before you know it it’s 5PM. Setting reminders in your calendar to get up and move around or blocking time in your calendar for a walk will help you get up and move.

How to Work From Home And Not Get Lonely

It’s nice not to have to commute but you also don’t get to run into coworkers and have passing conversations when you are working remotely. When you start working remote, it’s important to find other ways to interact with people face to face.

It’s easy to get lonely when you’re not running into co-workers in the office. Sometimes the uninterrupted time is nice as you’re able to get more work done. Other times it just feels lonely. In normal times, there are plenty of ways to overcome this. Don’t assume seeing no one for days on end is normal for when you’re working from home.

The first option is to find other people to socialize with face to face. Can you meet people for lunch? Do you have customers or other coworkers in the area? Plan a coffee break. Join a gym nearby and go to the gym every day before or after work or during a lunch break.

The second option is to establish strong connections with other remote coworkers virtually. Are you on a conference call and can hear there is a side conversation in the room you can hardly hear? You can have side conversations remotely as well through Slack, text or another instant messaging tool with other remote coworkers. Get to learn about your coworkers virtually and identify what you have in common. Easy connections include if they’ve ever lived where you do now or vice versa, same college, kids that are similar ages or interest in the same professional sports.

Plan What Your Day Looks Like

When you start working remotely your schedule will change. Understand how much time you’re saving with not commuting. If you used to commute 1.5 hours a day you don’t have to spend that entire time working extra hours.

Then, make a plan for how you will use that extra time. Do you now have time for those workouts you never had time for before? Can you finally get the recommended 7-8 hours of sleep? Spend more time with family? Spend those hours working? Go to the gym? Be intentional as to how you spend this “extra” time you just got back.

Last, set a time for when your workday ends. It’s very easy to not stop working when you’re already all set up. Even if you have to log back into work later at night this will help you get a break to be with family, eat dinner or have some time to yourself.

Team Dynamics When You Work Remotely

The dynamics you have with your team will likely change when you are working remotely. How different the dynamics are depend on your team. Are you the only person on the team who is remote? Is everyone on your team working remotely? Where is the rest of the team located?

The dynamics are very different if everyone is spread out verse if everyone is in one location. If you’re the only person working remotely you’ll be on the phone while everyone else is in a conference room together for meetings. Your coworkers will run into each other in the hallway and walk over to where your manager sits when they have a question. In group meetings they can mute the phone while there are side bar conversations, there can be multiple conversations going on at once and it’s so hard to hear you can’t participate in any of them. Having a career sponsor in these situations is important as they’ll help recommend you get put on key projects and be an advocate about your skill set.

If the entire team is spread out either all working remotely or all working in different locations the dynamics are different. When everyone is in different places, everyone will join a meeting on the phone and participate virtually. There are no situations where there are side conversations in the room you can’t quite hear.

Understand The Support Your Company Gives Remote Employees

Beyond the verbal support that you can work remotely, how will your company support you? What technology do they have to support a remote workplace? How easily can you log into the company network through the VPN? If you have a challenge with your company equipment like your laptop, how do you get support for it?

Getting the verbal OK to work remotely is only one part of the support. Ensure that you have the capabilities remotely to be able to access the company intranet, equipment required to do your job and more.

Even more importantly is communication between your team and the communication tools offered by your company. Slack, Zoom, WebEx, Skype and Microsoft teams are several enterprise communication tools that make working in a remote team easier. Struggling with working from home? Reach out to your mentor at work for advice.

Communicate Often and Through Multiple Channels

Sometimes it may feel like when you work remotely you’re out of sight and out of mind. That’s why communication is extra important when you work remotely. Be clear with your manager on progress made on your projects, when you’ll have a draft or final project ready, when you have spare cycles and when you have too much work to be successful.

When you’re working remotely how you communicate and how often you communicate is very important. Make sure to let your manager know weekly or bi-weekly what you’re working on during your 1×1. Give a high level overview of your projects, and then 1-2 areas where you need help or where there is potential risk. If you have free time offer to get involved in another project.

Don’t forget there are many ways to communicate. You can text, call, ping through Slack or Skype, email. Know when to use each communication tool. If it’s not urgent, or something needs to be sent to multiple people use email. If you need to talk to someone quickly, text them or IM them.

Is Working Remotely From Home Right for You?

If you’re bored in the office, you will also be bored working from home. Working from home isn’t for everyone. But, keep in mind there is working remotely from home and during a pandemic working remotely from home. A typical working remotely from home situation doesn’t include daycares and schools closed, gyms closed, restaurants closed etc. Usually, you can go on a walk, or leave to grab a coffee to help break up the day.

There are distractions both at home and in the office. If you are easily distracted in the office (water cooler, etc) there will be different ways for you to get distracted while at home (TV, laundry, etc). Sometimes it does require more discipline. For example, if you don’t have a deadline given to you, you should set your own deadline and communicate that deadline to your manager.If you’re excited about your job and/ or have a lot of work to do these are easy to overcome.

If you love connecting with people face to face it may be an adjustment to communicate with coworkers virtually. Working remotely isn’t for everyone, but sometimes being successful working remotely requires tweaks to your workplace setup, setting boundaries, how you communicate and what you communicate.

Here is the full list of pros and cons of work from home.

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Categories // Career Tags // Corporate Benefits, Working Remotely

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