“People are more productive working at home than people would have expected. Some people thought that everything was just going to fall apart, and it hasn’t. And a lot of people are actually saying that they’re more productive now.” – Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook
Photo credit: DCStudio
Remote work has now become a buzzword across society, with many employees renegotiating with their employers for more flexible work hours. Employers and employees alike are now more at home with its benefits, and working in tandem to optimally leverage this new tide to avoid a boring, longitudinal approach and attitude to work. And facilitate greater work experiences.
Advances in information and communications technology have led to the steady development of high-speed internet and a medley of collaborative tools, increasingly attaining higher degrees of efficiency. Also, supplanting on-site job functions, particularly roles that rely on computer systems to get work done.
Before the breakout of the concept of remote work into public consciousness‒with its popularity fuelled by the rise of a deadly contagion (Covid-19) in the year 2020‒tech-savvy folks already practiced a lite version of working remotely.
An employee would casually work with a PC in their living room while simultaneously binge-watching The Simpsons or out on a picnic and intermittently slipping out a laptop to draft a technical report. Remote work is inevitably making inroads into the corporate world and rapidly spreading its tentacles across variegated industries.
Its impact on employee productivity comes peppered with merits and demerits‒likewise on-site work, both means of work tend to address the lapses of the other almost in an alternate fashion. The practice of remote work has physical, social, and psychological impacts, and we will briefly explore how these may touch on employees’ productivity:
Psychological impact
Remote work eases mental tension and anxiety‒that may emanate from interfacing with an unpleasant boss or wading through grueling and soul-crushing road traffic.
The notion of these grim possibilities could elicit psychological unease‒constituting mental baggage that can stifle and choke the capacity for analytical thinking and problem-solving.
Remote work sidesteps these drawbacks and allows employees to leverage the preserved mental clarity for surmounting hairy challenges. Workers can function by their terms in their preferred environment for optimal performance, thereby boosting productivity.
Health impact
Employees living in densely populated cities will benefit physically and mentally from avoiding long hours in debilitating traffic, particularly in countries with inefficient transit systems.
In addition, is the time, energy, and other resources conserved from shunning traveling to-and-from the workplace. As a result, employees are more energized, inspired, and clear-headed at the start of a workday and prepared on all dimensions to squarely face the day’s objectives.
Furthermore, the avoidance of commuting creates extra time for employees to plan their day, do more meaningful work, kick back, and perform some stocktaking at the end of a workday. This string of activities could constitute a productivity hack when performed diligently.
Interpersonal relations
Introverted and antisocial employees would find remote work a huge reprieve from the on-site work imperative of liaising with colleagues to achieve goals.
In addition, employees would love to circumvent co-workers that are combative, non-compliant, and whose characters are objectionable or folks that are generally unsavory to work with in person.
Lastly, introverted employees may do their best work in solitude from their fancied location or environment that inspires them.
Cost savings
Nearly every employee is familiar with the cost implications of commuting to and from work. Whether you make use of public transit, ride-hailing services, or travel in your private vehicle.
There is an inescapable daily cost expense that becomes a considerable sum when you aggregate daily transit expenditures over a period of thirty days.
And in the course of a year, you do the math. Remote work would enable employees to save appreciable sums of money and channel these savings into addressing private and/or professional needs.
We can stretch the benefit of remote work even further by underlining the environmental implications of traveling in gas guzzlers. The logic is the fewer the number of employees commuting to their workplaces every day, the lesser the emission of dangerous gases into the atmosphere. And we know that it really sabotages our ecosystem.
Demerits of remote work
Despite the many upsides of remote work, however, there are a few downsides: When working at home, employees are exposed to more distractions than are obtainable at the workplace.
Employees have the latitude to forgo work at will to satiate the impulses of whimsical interests and pleasures like napping during what is supposed to be work hours, aliment indulgences, and distractions from family members.
Although one may work in secluded/off-limits areas at home, however, as a guardian, it is hard to sidestep your custodial responsibilities towards your kids.
In addition, the air of collegial support and rapport may not be available to employees when working remotely. Especially tasks that require concerted input to complete—these could adversely impact productivity and the pace of executing projects.
In conclusion, employers would have to trial and decide which is the most beneficial to all parties and has the best impact on employee productivity. Remote work may have the upper hand because it panders to the changing times. And affords employees the margin to be the best version of themselves. And on an individual basis, contribute their best work.
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