It’s easy to assume that someone who works remotely is less productive because they don’t have peer pressure (also known as the “I see you taking a long break” looks) or a boss present to keep tabs.
This is just one of the many myths of Remote Work. In fact, a study by the Harvard Business Review found that companies saw worker productivity increase by 13.5% after introducing the possibility to work remotely. However, it is pretty clear that not everything about working remotely is rainbows and unicorns.
Some things are easier and bring advantages to your own life, but others are proven to be a real challenge. To know more about this, we sent an email asking our Community how they were dealing with working remotely and with their help we gathered the truths and lies about Remote Work.
- Productivity
When working from home, you have fewer distractions to deal with, fewer coffee breaks and you also take less time to refocus after an interruption.
“The vibe is different, less stressful and, personally, I am more focused on what I have to do.”
Yet a lot of us are facing issues in staying productive working from home. Turns out, staying focused at home is not that simple, as different distractions arise:
“I have just uninstalled my favorite video game because I cannot be productive while having it installed on my computer.”
- Work-life Balance
Keeping your work and personal life separate may be a challenge when you work remotely:
“While being at the office, you will mostly be conscious of the closing time. The work stops after 5pm or 6pm or whatever the closing time is and you just leave. At home, it’s easier to get yourself lost in time.”
“While working from home might seem productive, one often tends to work more hours. You might wake up in the middle of the night and try to add more features to the existing project. And again it depends on the time of job or role. As a Software Engineer, we tend to put in more hours while working from home”
This is why remote workers often develop a routine and stick to it, either planning sprints of work (based on the completion of specific tasks or steps in a project) or establishing a working schedule (that doesn’t necessarily need to be a 9 to 5 schedule).
- Connection
But what about connections? Let’s be honest: Communication suffers!
Working remotely does not mean you have less communication with your team, if anything, it means you need to have more. Working remotely means you don’t have the possibility to just walk up to a colleague and chat. It demands an incredible capability of being organized and very communicative, without recurring to body language and, often, tone of voice, to help convey the message.
You need to be able to align your work with that of your team members. For this reason, it is important to set clear rules and tools for communication and report. The good news? There are fewer meetings and more email and message exchanges.
Anyway, we just wanted to share some of these experiences and assure you that it is ok to not enjoy remote work all the time. If you want to share some of your experience, write to us to [email protected] — we would love to hear from you!
Stay safe and aim for more!
Your Landing.Jobs team
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