Przemysław Pala
What is remote work?
Remote work is a model which makes professionals able to work outside of a common office place. It refers to the idea that any work can be done without any linkage to a particular place. And it doesn’t have to affect the efficiency or productivity of anyone. We keep hearing about such terms as workation, which is one of the most attractive ways to work remotely: Whenever your company allows you to, you take your laptop and go wherever you please to work from there and have your own combination of both: having the holidays and working at the same time. We at Neontri like most about remote work because our employees have the flexibility to plan their days individually. That allows all of us to make our professional and personal lives coexist peacefully.
Now it’s time to present some pros that may determine the future of remote work.
Benefits of remote working for both: employees and employers
1. Wellbeing and better health
Many types of research have shown that employees working remotely are significantly less stressed than people working at the office. It also refers to the part of commuting to the workplace. When you eliminate these two factors you create an absolutely new environment for the employees. They can now design where and how they truly want to work, increasing their productivity and wellbeing. Without having the need to travel to the office every day and not being observed by the bosses all the time – employees may feel less pressured and pushed, which will strengthen their health and wellness.
2. Formable lifestyle
This is one of the main reasons that so many people voluntarily choose to work remotely. It partly gives them something unique that is impinged to our times – freedom. Having the ability to design your day as you prefer gives many advantages for employees: Whenever they continue their studies, are a parent and need to give more time to their children or simply have some passions that they want to cherish – now they have the space to link all of it together. Without being permanently attached to a regular office and strictly set to agreed hours, employees can differentiate the stages of their days to better fit their responsibilities with their other activities.
3. Brand new dedication to work
There’s a pattern that employees may be most productive outside of the office. Why? Being given the two above-mentioned benefits you can easily guess the reason. It is simply because employees can choose their environment where they feel comfortable and safe. To some extent, they can be their own bosses of when to do the tasks. It propels their performance and makes them more self-sufficient at the end of the day.
It is vital to mention that these benefits are also correlated with the benefits for employers. It is all interconnected, because when your employees are feeling comfortable and satisfied with their work conditions, they may bring better results to the company.
Neontri’s awareness of remote working cons
We are also aware of the disadvantages that remote work has brought to employees’ lives. One of the struggles they keep reporting is the difficulty to disconnect from work. When your private space coexists with the professional one it is sometimes hard to split it and they find themselves doing extra hours or checking their email during supper.
Another example which should be pointed out is the decrease of happiness in their work. While sitting home for a year and a half now, employees tend to lose some of the fun and joy that they used to experience while going to the office and socializing with colleagues. That is a serious threat because no one would like to feel sad, lonely, or overwhelmed at work – no matter the place. As a result, it affects our performance and we automatically slow down due to bad moods.
Last but not least, communication within the team or the whole company is a new challenge since people are so dispersed. You can hear voices of disappointment or even frustration since people are not instantly available. Now we have to deal with many chats and communicational tools to keep being updated with our bosses, leaders, team members, etc. It may sometimes happen that it takes time to have a response. The worst scenario is that it’s something very serious and the more you wait, the worse it gets. In any case – effective communication is something we lack these days.
Fortunately, in our company, we hear mostly positive feedback when it comes to remote work. We pay attention to what our colleagues want to say and we collect their thoughts which we use later on. It is time to present how we are dealing with the remote work model in reality.
How is Neontri dealing with such a model of work?
Right now the Neontri team has about 100 people on board. 87% of them work remotely from the beginning of the pandemic and they would like to work likewise in 2022 as well. Does it actually fit the company’s goals? It does and the best part is efficiency and results. It turned out just like our findings above that employees tend to be less stressed and more efficient when it comes to performing tasks. We can observe that our specialists prefer not to spend their time in metro/traffic but prepare to work from home in a cozy atmosphere or even from other countries. For example, our VP of Sales will start his remote work from Portugal in 2022 and we consider it a really attractive solution: workation in a sunny and beautiful country where you can link your professional career with a dose of sightseeing and relax far away from the cold and dilemmas of everyday life. To be as realistic as possible we know that it’s not possible everywhere due to internet connection, but it is about to change thanks to Starlink. The SpaceX company is developing low latency, broadband internet system to meet the needs of consumers across the globe and to make it possible to use the internet in places we wouldn’t think of before. Workation on Mount Everest? Probably possible.
Research and data
According to Owl Labs’ State of Remote Work for 2022:
- 80% of full-time employees expect to work remotely even as the COVID-19 guidelines are lifted,
- 77% say having this option post-pandemic will make them happier with their career,
Of which:
- 74% of them claim that the reason is less stress when working from home
- 72% insist on better work-life balance
- 70% point out the increased work productivity
That shows that remote work will no longer be overlooked or set aside whenever the pandemic reality may end. In today’s world having a choice happens to be very important to people who have tried or were forced to do remote work. In any case, after a year and a half since it all begun on such a scale,
The era of remote work
However people may endlessly debate on whether remote work is better or worse, it’s the reality now in many business sectors. Like in our company, millions have chosen the same. Some of them didn’t even have a choice. The question now arises how to adapt to this new model of working?
Undoubtedly, the upcoming year 2022 will show a rise in the percentage of employees working remotely. There are many factors in favor of such a way of cooperation. It gives mutual benefits if well organized and agreed upon. It’s obvious that companies need to do some structural changes and create conditions in which their employees can feel safe and secure. Answering the title question: No, we will never permanently come back to offices. In the IT sector, it became rather an occasion than just an option in which we operate. We predict that this trend will be expanding in the years or even decades to come.
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