The Shady Truth about Work From Home
In this blog, I will share everything related to "Work from Home", including its various aspects, pros and cons, how it is perceived in different industries, and the hidden trap that most people fall into.
We'll begin by sharing a stat obtained from a survey conducted on several tech forums, showing the majority of working professionals prefer working from home. So that’s an interesting fact to note. Rather than jumping to conclusions, let's first understand both employee and organizational perspectives of work culture.
In the current job portals, several job titles, especially those in the software development field, have the keyword "remote" in them. As a result of the pandemic, several industries have changed how they work, and people that prefer to work from home now do so.
In addition to the ease of using the tools and platforms, employees also enjoy the comfort of attending meetings from home. Initially, some employees found remote work culture difficult to adopt, but now most of them are adapting to it. Technology advancements are the only reason for this shift in work culture, and we employees are adapting to it.
People found this convenient, but one thing we forget, and the thing that is commonly experienced these days, is being on a screen all the time. The work-from-home culture resulted in almost everyone in a family becoming addicted to the digital tech lifestyle, which increased screen time, so they stopped interacting with their children.
We, humans, tend to do things in the easiest way possible, which could be one of the possible reasons. For Example, having a scenario that could be handled easily in a text, but in a face-to-face conversation, it may be the opposite. In a text, it is impossible to see the other person's reaction right away.
Pros and Cons of Remote Work Culture
So next let’s get into the pros and cons of this remote work culture. Both convenient and inconvenient factors are involved in this work culture.
From the organization's perspective, they always want to produce and innovate, which is why many such organizations have already invested in infrastructure and facilities to facilitate this culture.
Thus, it is difficult for companies to return to old strategies, but they can take advantage of this by establishing a hybrid work culture, which includes both remote and in-office work cultures.
Additionally, remote work culture is considered a cost-effective alternative for companies. For instance, previously, if an employee was attending a meeting or event, the company had to spare the costs of travel, accommodation, food, etc. Fortunately, companies and employees can now have a free Zoom meeting call, which is convenient for employees and economical for them.
When viewed from an evolutionary perspective, humans are evolving as time progresses, which means that our actions, clothing, lifestyle, and communication are often changing. Thus, it seems natural for the work culture to change.
The possibility of working from home may be argued by some to be less productive than the in-office culture of face-to-face communication. There are some situations where the face-to-face work culture works better. And this is especially true for white-collar jobs, where they are being forced to adapt to a work-from-home culture that is evolving.
Contrary to this, many open-source software developers have built reliable and trustworthy software that is used by many Fortune 500 companies with which they have never physically interacted.
If you are wondering how it's all about the technology that drives people to work effectively and from home. Several developers prefer working from home for this reason.
WFH Burnout
The last thing I will share is WFH Burnout. Working from home makes detaching yourself from your job harder, and that makes you more likely to burn out. Working from home also makes it harder to maintain discipline.
If someone is working from home and has a meeting at 9 AM, they would get up 15 minutes before the meeting and dress in a semi-formal manner, which shouldn't be the case when compared to someone who gets up as early as possible to go to the office for the same meeting.
Make sure that you wake up early on weeks when you're working from home, and that you're aware of the daily emails that you've been assigned. Ensure that you're disciplined when you're working from home.
If you aren't careful, you could get caught up in this trap. You need to let everyone know when your disciplinary hours begin and end.
In conclusion, both work cultures are proven to benefit organizations in many ways, whereas some are more productivity-focused, others are more formalized in their organizational structures and norms.
Hence, from the employee's perspective, it's all about how we utilize these methods and give our best effort no matter where we work. What matters is how we adapt to technological advancements, which can result in a positive impact on society.
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About the Author
Imtiaz Ahmad is an award-winning Udemy Instructor who is highly experienced in big data technologies and enterprise software architectures. Imtiaz has spent a considerable amount of time building financial software on Wall St. and worked with companies like S&P, Goldman Sachs, AOL and JP Morgan along with helping various startups solve mission-critical software problems. In his 13+ years of experience, Imtiaz has also taught software development in programming languages like Java, C++, Python, PL/SQL, Ruby and JavaScript. He’s the founder of Job Ready Programmer — an online programming school that prepares students of all backgrounds to become professional job-ready software developers through real-world programming courses.
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