Today’s technology has made it easier to telecommute or to work from home. It saves you a lot of money and time by cutting the daily commute, frequent trips to the gas station, and flexibility to work at your convenience without the boss hanging over you and checking up on your daily ins and outs. It is especially more helpful to parents who need a work-life balance and keep a watch on their kids.
Despite all the plus sides of working from home, it’s not all rainbows and butterflies. People, who have had a full-time job, working at the office, would find it extra difficult to work from home as it requires them to be super focused and determined to accomplish the daily milestones.
After surveying various people who have been working from home and those who have already given up on the work-from-home concept, many downsides of working from home were found. Consider having a look at them before you decide to telecommute:
Constant Distractions
You relentlessly get distracted by family members, dogs (if you have any), constantly ringing phones and people coming to the door. The most insidious of them all is when your kids are at home during holidays. No doubt kids are adorable, but kids and work do not mix and having that distraction is the worst among all.
Handle IT crisis
You have to become your IT department in case of any technical issues. Even if your hardware crashes, it’s your problem and you have to deal with it. While working in an office environment, all you need to do is walk the laptop to the in-house IT department in case of any technical issues. Collaboration is out the window as in the case of any technical problem, you need to IM or email a “co-worker” and then hope that he reads your message, instead of popping your head over your cubicle and seeing who might be available for help.
You miss ‘People’
Your social life is gone as your colleagues become a semi-anonymous name on your computer screen and everything becomes depersonalized. Working in an open plan office, you have to be social. You are surrounded by people everywhere and you cannot avoid small talks or conversations. While you work from home, you don’t have anyone and you start missing people. Sometimes that also greatly degrades your social skills.
No boundaries between work and personal life
Now that you work from home, you cannot define boundaries between work and personal life and are stuck to your laptop all the time. Sometimes remote employees spend longer hours on work than an office going employee. As work and home are melded into a single entity, there is no clear distinction between the two.
You miss Promotion opportunities
Employees who are more visible in the office and aren’t just names on the computer screen are more likely to get early promotions. This is the major drawback for a remotely working employee as their work may not get as appreciated as their co-worker’s and may bring slower career growth.