Benefits and challenges of work from home

Covid-19 has disrupted our world. It closed down all industries and companies. However, humans will not get defeated soon. We brought out the concept of work from home. We found out ways to work from the confines of our home. Moreover, this thing is not going away soon. Work from home is going to become the new normal.

There are many ways to get into the technology field and each person has their own path. Some people may graduate from college with a degree in Computer Science or Software Engineering, while others may have more of a technical background. The most important thing is to find an area of interest and pursue it.

Benefits of work from home

1. You can work from the comfort of your home

In this case, you don’t have to go out and work. You get to do all the things from the comfort of your home. It is your personal space and working at home brings out more productivity. You feel comfortable and relaxed. Dragging yourself to the workplace was not an easy task. Most of you would hate to wake up early in the morning and go to the workplace. However, now you can work from the confines of your home. Remote jobs in DC and other states are increasing in number especially for the tech industry. This is possible as long as you are able to provide the deliverables on or before the deadline. Team leaders only needs several updates and don’t need to micromanage.

2. Extra savings

When you were to go to your workplace, you generally traveled by car or bike. Most people don’t live close to their workplace. A lot of fuel was consumed for commuting. If we take that you travel 120 miles a week. (Remember that this is a conservative estimate.) Even then you would spend close to $1000 in fuel. And this is just the cost of fuel. If you had your lunch and coffee at your workplace then it would just increase this number. Work from home gives you some extra savings. Companies also save a lot on their infrastructure. A win-win situation for both!

3. Get more time to spend with your family

In your hustle, you hardly had time to spend with your family. You were so busy with your work and other things that you put your family on second priority. These things were the reason for beak relationship among family members. However, now that you are working from home, you will be around your family most of the time. If you want you can go on a vacation with your family and continue your work from there. You will get to know more about your kids and wife/husband.

4. Location independence

Till now we were confined to locations near us for jobs. However, with the advent of work from home, you get location independence. You get to try out jobs and services beyond your cities, even beyond your country. Companies also get the flexibility to work with a diverse workforce. You no longer have to hire from only your city. You can hire a cheap workforce. If you hire people from a country like India, you get cheap and quality labor. Work from home has so many advantages.

5. Diversity

Work from home allows companies to be more inclusive. You can hire people from diverse backgrounds. You may have your office in Canada but hire people from Europe. You get to know people from varied backgrounds and they bring with them their unique perspective which can help the company grow. Work from home helps us promote diversity and community. Remote working also helps people with disabilities to find jobs. They don’t have to commute and can help in the growth of their organization.

Related: https://techonpc.com/en-us/education/what-do-i-need-for-my-home-office/

Challenges of work from home

1. Technical issues

Remote working needs a very good technical setup. Any issue with the technical setup can alter the whole process. You need to develop a robust setup that can handle the nuances of work from home. Moreover, your technical team should be well trained and able to handle multiple failures. Not only this, but employees also have to deal with poor connectivity, power failure, and slow device. Employees also need to be well aware of the nuances of technology. In work from home, you need to have a technically sound workforce.

2. Distraction

The human brain is very easily distracted. When you are working from your home you have so many things happening around you. Your kids may call you to solve a maths problem. Your wife may call you to help her with household work. Your mom may call you to solve some problems. You may get attracted towards that last ball six in a cricket match. There are so many things. The only way to overcome this is to take work from home as seriously as you used to take work from the office. You should find a room for yourself and come out of it only when all your work is done.

3. Lack of interaction

When you were working from the office, you could sit with your colleagues and talk about work. However, you don’t get to do that in remote working. You are solely concerned with your work. Work from home lacks interaction. This leads to bad communication. Companies have to deal with poor coordination. You should take the help of network monitoring tools for network performance monitoring.

4. Personal vs Professional life

 When working from the office there was a clear demarcation between personal life and professional life. However, when you are working from home, you cannot get this clear line. Your home is supposed to be a place where you relax and feel refreshed. Work from home has changed that. You will have to find out clear demarcation between your personal and professional life.

There are many different types of technology careers path, but one of the most common is to be a software engineer. Software engineers use computer programming languages such as Java, C++, and Python to create applications. They also work on designing and testing new technologies.

5. Communication challenges

There will always be communication challenges in work from home. You can no longer have meetings like you had before. Visiting different countries and conducting meetings cannot be done. You are confined to your home and have to deal with it. You have to rely on non-verbal communications like email, fax, etc. People are having a hard time expressing themselves through these means of communication.

To sum up

Everything has its good and bad sides. You will have to deal with it. Although work from home has some problems it is the future. Instead of being overwhelmed by its shortcoming, we should work hard to cope with it.