It is raining heavily in Delhi and I am editing my final content to be sent forward and I am about to get on a call with the design team to finalize posters for our client who found us online.
Sighs! The Delhi rain did not affect my work schedule. This is the beauty of remote working you can work anywhere. In the era of 5G internet, broadband connectivity has done wonders in revolutionizing the work culture. Ten years back, it was unfathomable to imagine a team with employees from different cities and countries. They appeared to be phantoms with no one on one interaction. How would you manage to get your work done? How are you going to keep time with other team members? It was total chaos back then, right?
Let us take out some time to appreciate technology. With conference calls, instant messaging, group chats, project management tools, the remote work culture is escalating day by day and I am double-checked to say that remote work is the future of work culture.
Remote for employees
Merging the workspace with living space has its pros and cons. Many critics have opined that working from home can drain the productive spirit of the employees but the result is the opposite of that. The past few years have shown a conclusive result with evidence that the employees who spend work hours away from their traditional offices are happier and greatly productive. Remote work gives you the advantage of flexibility. You can skip the monotonous daily office hours of 9 to 5 job, which creeps the bananas out of us all. The traditional office space can make you anxiety-prone and trust me you do not want that in your life. Sitting at a desk for the entire time with minimum interaction makes us feel stuck and we are not able to concentrate, constantly thinking of when to get out. When a company gives us control over our working style, we can balance our personal lives and work-life accordingly, and this makes the employees happier and relaxed. Think of your pets, do you want to go office leaving them behind? This enables every common man to become workplace superstars.
Our convenience is our top priority!
We all work to meet our ends meet and stay resourceful but the end goal always is happiness. I am on the second day of my periods and it is a mess for me to move. I want to sit back at home on my sofa or probably want to lie down on my bed and work. For me my convenience is important and working remotely gives me the choice to laze around a bit, in case I am on my hormonal war for a day or two. LOL. Working from home can be beneficial, we can directly meet our client’s demands while we are still enjoying the comforts of our home! Whereas the traditional companies shut their doors at five, remote work is fluid and is suitable to both, the customer and the employee. A company can find the best talents worldwide at any time; all they have to do is search online. Or Google!
Remote work is effectively always available. There are high chances of increased work-stress but one can manage that with strict discipline. Mastering work-life balance is necessary as the lines between the home and office get blurry sometimes, and implementing a well-planned work policy is helpful here.
Remote for employers
One of the reasons that employers are happily accepting the remote work culture is the lower fixed costs per employee. A centralized air-conditioned office with a highly equipped traditional space and the cost that comes with it is not favorable or a priority anymore. Besides, companies that are accepting remote work policy can hire the best talents, simply because intelligent minds may not tolerate the boundaries of a closed office. They want to work free and the companies understand their employee’s requirements of free minds to give the best results too.
I accept that going remote is not a cakewalk for a company. Managing remote employees, their workflows and understanding that productivity is not just measured in hours spent in a certain closed cubical space, it can be tough.
It is not all work no play nor no work all play. Objectives need to be set precisely with realistic goals. Better connectivity needs to be established within the team members. The project management is brainstorming but manageable with the right person supervising over. All team members must be able to know what the rest of the team is working on. Task assigning and understanding what are the high-level priorities need to be very clear and correct; is the key to remote work policy. A lot of planning and time investment goes into project management, supervising and recapitulating to achieve your team’s best proficiency. Of course, you will need real interaction at some point in time. For that, you can arrange seminars, conferences, and fests occasionally. With clients, you sometimes might need to reach out and travel to their offices for special events and breakthroughs, kick-offs or other occasions. A flexible but strictly organized team at my workplace, Fuzia has made me believe that the future of work is remote.