The Benefits of Working Remotely

The 20s of the 21st century have become in certain ways revolutionary in terms of the work process organizing. The situation with COVID-19 is a check for the entire world community, not only in terms of viral disease spread but also in matters of introducing activity restrictions, including work. The overwhelming employer’s majority began to transfer employees to a work remote mode to ensure the employees’ safety and preserve jobs. However, is this measure acceptable to both employees and employers?

An employee’s benefits of working remotely

Working remotely gives the employee benefits in everyday life. The Company workflow is submitted to its schedule and rules. The employee gets freedom in the labor activity organization by working from home. His work is flexible, not constrained by dress-code rules, there are no restrictions on the time of food intake, and there are no prohibitions on taking food at the workplace, he can take a child or a pet with “to work”. An employee does not necessarily have to be at home at the desk to organize a remote workflow. WFH gives the employee unlimited freedom of movement and mobility. Thus, the employee has an option to travel to other places without work interruption. What else benefits the remote work gives to employees:

• The most important advantage of employees switching to a work remote mode is a workplace and salary savings. As the world epidemiological situation worsens, world economic tension is growing every day. Countries have seen an increase in unemployment and inflation as a result. It is a primary significant issue to preserve workplace and salary for any rank employees, from service personnel to top managers.
• The second significant item is time-saving. Residents of medium-sized, large cities and megalopolises especially, have an acute time spent problem getting to and from work, as well as downtime in traffic jams. Many found themselves in awkward situations due to circumstances beyond control, which led to delay. The WFH introduction gives freedom of action and the ability to spend time with benefits: do gymnastics, pay attention to family, have breakfast, or relax extra minutes. The indisputable benefit of working remotely is instant access to the workplace.
• When employees switch to a WFH, a process of reducing overall stress level is observed. People feel they have more time for themselves, they can spend time with family and do jobs responsibly. The work process duration at home may increase compared to the office. There is a feeling that it is easier to maintain a balance between work and personal life than it used to be. Employees have an option to move out of the metropolis and improve lives by choosing a place with better air quality and health care, a healthier community environment, and better schools for children. The priority in choosing a city and country of residence is now the personal and family well-being, not the access to office work.

• The employee has the right to select how to organize a personal workplace. Any office rules and restrictions do not apply to the remote work process organization, he has the right to select comfortable and productive conditions affecting the work process.

Another benefit of working remotely is that employees’ remoting schedule has a positive effect on reducing the collective quarrels dynamics and relieving work tension. Workers are more comfortable communicating with colleagues via video or email.

Disadvantages of remote work for an employee

Here we listed possible employees’ disadvantages of working remotely:

1. With a remote work introduction, there is a chance of increasing the working day length for an employee. The unstable workload can be unevenly distributed throughout the working day.
2. If working at a personal workplace allows an employee to concentrate on fulfilling duties, then working remotely becomes difficult due to numerous distractions: a need to combine work and household duties, monitoring children or pets, TV or radio distracting, absence of the labor process and general involvement.
3. Another important negative factor is people’s social isolation. The necessity to communicate with colleagues or clients significantly complicates the work process or negatively impacts the social ties establishment in general. In this matter, Covid-19 caused significant discomfort to people by depriving communication with each other in life.
4. People are faced with workplace organizing problems. A similar difficulty arises in families in which several people work remotely at once, and it is required to allocate several places. Additional difficulties may arise if specific equipment is moved and highly specialized work is organized. Not all employers can afford to provide their employees with supply, office equipment, video or audio communication devices, as well as software, which greatly complicates the workflow.
5. People complain that due to the change in the work schedule to home equals work, they experience a sharp decline in activity, problems with excess weight, and, as a result, a general deterioration in well-being and health.

Employer’s benefits of working remotely

Switching employees to working remotely has some benefits for an employer. First, this is the preservation of the company’s efficiency, in difficult times due to the difficult epidemiological situation, the business has a chance to maintain its profitability. Remote work allows a company to reduce the maintenance cost or renting an office, utility bills, possible employees’ delivery transport costs, the cost of uniforms, if any, reduce the risk of injury at work, tax savings are possible, and so on. The employee remains fully involved in the work process, confirming effectiveness by working remotely.

The company expands hiring new personnel opportunities. More qualified personnel can be involved in the labor process, who, due to their place of residence, could not be involved in the work. In addition, a business can expand its boundaries by employing foreign employees.

Given a global pandemic and an increase in the general economic tension, each employee becomes more interested in preserving the workplace and takes a more collected and serious attitude towards fulfilling duties.

Changes, even in the work schedule, are always an additional incentive to improve existing processes. This gives the option to modernize business processes, revise the management organization model, expand the boundaries of doing business, open new branches or carry out a company global restructuring.

Remote work allows to identify motivated employees capable of a high level of self-organization and taking responsibility for improving the work process efficiency.

Disadvantages of WFH system for an employer

The main disadvantages of transferring a business to a remote work schedule, one should highlight the need to provide all employees with the necessary technical equipment to perform job duties. This is a provision of computer and office equipment, video/audio communication staff, provisioning the employee with constant access to the Internet, there may be costs to the purchase of software providing remote access from the new workplace. Attention should be paid to maintaining data confidentiality and maintaining corporate secrets.

Companies should monitor the employee’s performance. Some mistakenly took a remote graph for paid vacation. It is important to convey to the employees that such a work schedule does not relieve responsibility for the duties’ quality and requires maximum consolidation.

Some kind of business is not possible to transfer to a WFH. This is especially pronounced in enterprises with a continuous work cycle. In such conditions, management and office personnel are transferred to remote access, and production continues to work as usual. In this case, the establishment of communication links between employees will require special financial, organizational, and management costs.

Conclusions

The massive implementation of WFH has brought significant changes to the employees’ and employers’ workflow. Soon, it will be seen whether these changes brought more positive moments and opened up new development prospects, or marked the beginning of a new round of economic tension associated with employment.