Share the benefits and challenges of working from home. How can companies and individuals navigate remote work trends effectively?
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Top comments (7)
Employers are fighting remote work because their real-estate values are plummeting.
Personally, I will not go back to working from the office, because working from home is the only way I can avoid burnout. If my employer chooses to force me, I will find a new employer and never look back.
99% of the work in this industry can be done remotely, the only setback are specific people who refuse/don’t know how to work remotely.
I do think an office should still be an option for those who prefer it, but I don’t see any reason to go back.
Some off-the-top-of-my-head notes.
My company, as with a lot of peviously office-based companies, has been gradually forcing people to work more days back in the office. First it was one day, then two (any two), now it's at four. Fortunately, the dev department got an exclusion.
I've been working from home since the pandemic started. I won't say, "remote", because to me, the office is remote. It's only 7 miles (or 14 if I take the big road) but it takes over an hour to commute by car or bus.
So the big trend for me, depending on which way I commuted, is that I've saved around £3000 - £6500 in travel costs, 1-6 tons of CO2 and over 80 days of my life. I've also saved money on lunches and coffees which I'm not tempted to go out for during the day.
My Internet connection is probably more stable than the one in the office, and I never have to search for a free meeting room when a meeting overruns and we get thrown out.
I don't have to listen to the sounds of an open-plan office, which we share with another company who like making a lot of noise and pretending to be happy all the time.
And I don't have to do so much context-switching when people pop over and say, "can I grab you for a minute?" or talk to me when I'm walking from one meeting to the next. A message here and there, maybe book in a quick video call, and it's all done much more comfortably for me.
There are a couple of valid reasons for people who could work from home to prefer in-office work, excluding things like propping up the bank balances of people invested in city buildings: some people prefer, or even need, the kind of in-person social interaction they don't have in other parts of their lives. Some people don't have suitable homes to work from - lack of physical equipment, poor internet, busy, noisy environments, that kind of thing. Some people complain about having to use things like Teams or Slack, finding it difficult to keep on top of them. Personally I don't think these are any more tricky to handle than email, but clearly it is a problem for some.
My quality of life has improved since working from home and absolutely nothing would be better by being made to go somewhere else.
Pretty much sums up what I was going to say.
I save about £130 on my Oyster and another £130 on Prett each month from staying at home.
But I do slightly miss just having a laugh with the other devs. And somehow I miss the casual chat and complaining about the weather, football scores, the tube, the Priminister, etc etc (but I'm probably thr only one!)
I've seen many friends of mine being almost 'forced' to return to half-empty offices into a sort of hybrid culture. From my pov, that's neither here nor there: if people prefer to work from home and are productive, why force them back?
While I personally really miss being in an office, with all the social aspects of it and the benefit of properly separating home life and work, I completely understand that not everyone feels this way. And hanging out at an office with folks who don't want to be there is no fun. You can't force a company culture if it isn't there ;)
The company I work for is fully remote, and I feel like this model will be more widely spread in the future. It's working well and giving people lots of flexibility.
The most important benefit that WFH gives, in my opinion, is the ability to do things at your own time and still get them done.
Some people have times of the day where/when their productivity is at its best.
Allowing people to explore that and therefore use it to positively impact how their work gets done or finished is a big plus to me.
I do slightly miss the old days of casual chat, coffees, grabbing lunch together, and just having a laugh.
I personally find I need to plan social stuff a lot more deliberatley now, or 90% of my human contact would be via a computer screen!
Remote work in America usually pays in dollars, and converting it to an underdeveloped country's currency, it can benefit the citizens of the country. So I would prefer if I could get a remote job.